> ExeiiisieN 
 
 THE SIA¥E STATES, 
 
 WASHINGTON ON THE POTOMAC TO THE FRONTIER OP MEXICO; WITH 
 OF POPULAR MANNERS AND GEOLOGICAL NOTICES. 
 
 BY 
 
 G. W. FEATHERSTONHAUGH, F.R.S., F.G.S 
 
 NEW-YORK: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, 
 
 No. 82 Cliff-Street. 
 
 18 44. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 tTTRODUCTioN Page 5 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Barnum's Hotel at Baltimore — Canvas-back Ducks — Soft 
 Cr:il)s ; the Process of changing their Shells — Railroad 
 to Fredericton in Maryland — Iniiiositions practised upon 
 Travellers — Notices of the Geology of the Country — 
 Harper's-ferry ; the Shenandoah Valley — Nationality of 
 
 the Gernianico-Aniericans 11 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Ascent of the first Alleghany Ridges— A dandy Rattle- 
 snake — M;ignificent View across the AUeghanies from 
 Warm Springs Mountain — Affecting Reception at the 
 
 Hotel of the Warm Springs 15 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A Virginia Hotel in the Mountains— A dancing Landlord 
 — Incomparable Beauty of the Warm Baths — Their 
 gaseous and solid Contents— The Hot Springs— Cav'xous 
 Effect produced upon them by an Earth()uake— Geologi- 
 cal Structure of the Ridges — View of the AUeghanies 
 
 and the Warm Springs Valley 17 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The celebrated White Sulphur Springs — Mr. Anderson, a 
 Character — Description of this Watering Pl.^e — Beauty 
 of the Alleu'hany Mountain — Our various A^entures at 
 a Blacksmith's Boarding-house and Alabama Row — An 
 old Lady makes a double Somerset — Our Removal to 
 
 Compulsion Row ' . 21 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 State of Society at ConipuUion Row — Fine Flavour of the 
 Oysters at New Orleans. — Priv.ite.Cabins at the Springs 
 — A Cyclopean Kitchen — Merciful Plan of Killing Bul- 
 locks with the Rifle — Extr lordinary Performances at 
 Dinner — Mr. Wright's Shanty in the Woods — Generals 
 who have never been Soldiers — The Ferryman and the 
 
 Traveller without a Title 25 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The System of Alleghiny Ridges cau.«ed by an Upheaval 
 from below, and the White Sulphur Springs a Conse- 
 quence of the Movement — Gaseous Contents of the 
 Waters — White Rock Mountains — Horizontal Fossil- 
 iferous Strata in place . . ... 29 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 Paying beforehand as bad as not p'lying all — Joiuney to the 
 Sweet Springs — Beiutv of the Country — Gaseous and 
 solid Contents of the Waters— Remarkable Dam formed 
 of Travertine — Ancient Travertine 350 feet above the 
 Level of the present Springs, probably derived from them 
 before the Valley existed — Proofs of the ancient Surface 
 
 being lowered 31 
 
 CHAPTER VOL 
 
 Depart on foot across the Mountains to Fincastle — Decidu- 
 ous and evergreen Trees alternating with the Soil— Fin- 
 castle, a Virginia Town — Mr. Jefferson the Confucius of 
 the LTniled States— Free-lhinkinfe and Universal SuftVase 
 h's grand No<trums for good Government — A patriotic 
 Proposition to blow Virginia " sky-high" to save its ( 'on- 
 stilution — Botetourt Sprinss — A Camp of Negio Slave- 
 drivers— The Cotfle of SI ives crosses New Rivi r m.ii- 
 acled and fettered — The Necro drivers in mourning . 34 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Cause of some Confusion in the Designation of the Alle- 
 ghajiy Ridses explained— .\ Duck shootine Landlord- 
 Arrive at Abingdon— Account of Saltville— Geologv of 
 thev Valley and surrounding Coimlrv — Visit to King's 
 Cove^a singular basin in Clinch Mountain, the residence 
 of nnvOutlaw— His account of the Panthers and Wild 
 Cat Ac&pucheurs— Strata of the Clinch Mountain . 39 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 i nleisHfjt Piirtyin a Stage Coach— Arrive at Blountsville 
 .1 the State of Tennessee- Fists versus Dirks and Pis- 
 tols— KnoxviUe—jyieet President Jackson . . 43 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 A Negro-driver In mourning for a great Patriot— IiTever- 
 ence of a Negro to a White Man's Ghost— Bivouac of a 
 Gang of chained Slaves— An agreeable and lively fel- 
 low-passenger— Cross the Cumberland Mountains— Ar- 
 rive at Sparti — A Driver killed — Hickory Vallev — 
 Mounds and Graves of the Indians that formerly dvvelt 
 here— Imaginary Pigmy Race 46 
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 Indian Practice of burning the Underwood to enable the 
 Natives to pursue the Game — The Aboriginal Races t» 
 be traced by their Mounds — General Jackson's Planta- 
 tion, the Hermitage — His Character by a Neighbour — 
 
 Arrival at Nashville Page 44 
 
 CHAPTER Xni. 
 
 Description of Nashville— The College— Professor Tronst 
 — The Baptist Preacher and the Rattlesnakes — A' lity 
 betwixt certain Mexican Idols and others foir i m Se- 
 quatchee Valley in Tennessee — Public Spirit of the lead- 
 ing Men of Tennessee — Mr. Ridley, one of the earliest 
 Settlers— His Adventures — Indian Attack upon a stock 
 aded Fort — Heroic conduct of Mr. Ridley's Daughter — 
 Murder of White Children by the Savages, and uniniti- 
 gable Hatred of the Whites to them . . . .51 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The religious Sect of the Campbellites— Order of Priest- 
 hood confined to handsome young Fellows — Geology of 
 this part of Tennessee — Section of the Country made by 
 the Cumberland River for 300 miles— Reraiirkable an 
 cient Bed of broken Shells — Harpeth Ridge — Unios of 
 
 the Western Waters 55 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Leave Nashville— The Barrens of Kentucky— The Mam- 
 i.'.oth Cave — First View of the Ohio River — Arrival at 
 Louisville -Falls of the Ohio — Henry Clay, his great 
 Popularity— Captain Jack of the Citizen Steamer, a most 
 catawauipous Navigator — Public Indifference to the loss 
 of Life in new Countries — Explanation of "a Sin to 
 
 Crockett" 58 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Leave Louisville, and take to the Siage-Coach again — Dif- 
 ference betwixt the Manners of Slave and Free States — 
 Vincennes in the State of lllinoi-; — Old Race of French 
 Canadians there — Beauty of the Prairies — Horizontal 
 Coal Seams in the Bmks of the Rivers — Grouse — An- 
 cient Bed of the Mississippi seven miles broad — The 
 Town of St. Louis in the Stale of Missoiu-i- Col. Smith 
 of the British Army—" Rum ing a Negro" explained— 
 Jefliirson Barracks; admirable Management of a regi- 
 mental Fund — Viiide Poche and Pain Court — A group 
 
 of thirty Barrows 63 
 
 CHAPTER XVIL 
 
 A remarkable Barrow — The monuments of the Ancient 
 Red People analogous to those of the Old Races in Eu- 
 rope — Proljable Cause of the Diversity in Indi.in Dia- 
 lects—A petiitii'il Forest — Society at St. Louis — More 
 Boliins; at the Talile d'fldte — Fur-trappers of the Rocky 
 Mountains — Excellent Markets at St. Louis — Money the 
 
 real Object of Life 66 
 
 CHAPTER XVIH. 
 
 Piircn;;s<> a Waggon— Old French Town of St. Charles on 
 Ih, .Missouri — Linden Grove — Origin of the Mounds — 
 
 Customsof the 0.<age Indians 69 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Departure from St. Louis — The Comforts of an Indian 
 Matrimonial Alliance — Tame Buffiloes — Herculaneum 
 in America — Immense flocks of Cranes — History of Mrs. 
 
 GiiUatin- Valine's Mines 71 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Taplitt and Perry's Lead Mines — Geology a( the Lead 
 District — System of Galeaiferou- Veins — Their Struct- 
 ure antilogous to the Trap Ve'v.s at T'ofernish in Scot- 
 land — Farmington — Visit '.o the Iron Mountain . 75 
 
 CHAPrnu XXI. 
 
 Mine la Motte — Veins of G;ilena disturbed bv elertrie 
 Matter— Eiirthqifike at New Madrid i i 181 1— Frederic- 
 town — A Judge's Encoiniain on the Mis iiri Bar — P.ui- 
 ther Stories — Greenville— F;i re at mu opulent Missouri 
 Finner's— Life of ti S<|Maiier — How to ' brine np" the 
 Soverei'in People — Bear Oil Currency — Scene in a Couit 
 
 of Justice 78 
 
 CHAPTER XXH. 
 
 Big Black River— First Appeira'ice of Pjirroqiiei-ts— Elk 
 .and Buffalo- Little Black River — A Disaster, and a 
 Nighs in the Woods— [vory billed wooH peckers, a u/ one 
 of the Sovereign people un.-ilile to hold the renis ofG-iV- 
 ernment— A Forest on Fiie— The Ciurant River f!2 
 
IV 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 09 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 The " Military Road"— Eleven-aiile Point River— Obliging 
 Conduct of Widow Newland — The Advanttiges of 
 "camping out"— Our front and hind Wlieels quarrel; 
 the hind Wlieels turn back — Mr. and Mrs. Meriwether 
 —Two suspicious Travellers— Murder of Mr. Childers— 
 Extraordinary Spectacle produced by wild Pigeons- 
 Bury the remains of Mr. Childers . . . Page 80 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 Description of White River— Judge Tucker's Cabin; his 
 Account of the Murderof Childers— Account of the first 
 Judge Lynch, and the state of Legal Practice in his 
 Court — A successful Speculation in Lead — Clock Ped- 
 lars insinuating Persons — White River Mountain — A 
 
 Ruffian of the first order 88 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 Little Red River— A distressed Family of Emigrants— A 
 new kind of Grist-mill— Black Wolves— A wild Ameri- 
 can Scene — Reach the Arkansas River — A Tavern at 
 
 LitUeRock 92 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 State of Society at Little Rock— Don Jonathan— The Rev- 
 erend Mr. Stevenson— Newspapers versus the Bible— 
 aovernor Pope and his Lady— The Laws of Honour at 
 Little Rock— A Duel in the Dark— A Bully killed-A 
 College of Faro and Rouge et Noir— Arkansas Legisla- 
 tors—The Speaker murders a Member in the body of 
 
 the House— His Trial 94 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 Apology for the Manners of Arkansas— Manner of living 
 at Little Ruck — Aversion to Shutting the Doors — Ter- 
 tiary Deposit- Alluvial Bottoms, awd the Species of 
 Plants growing there— Visit to the Maramelles— German 
 Eniiiriants- Geolo>;v of the Mammelle Mountain— Enter 
 aniiiiniense Swampy Plain— Danger of travelling with- 
 out a Guide — Some apprehension of being obliged 
 treat the Wolves— Reach a House . 
 . CHAPTER XXVIIL 
 
 A Concert of Wolves— Ancient Bed of the Arkansas— An 
 Arkansas Honeymoon — Method of crossing a Bayou — 
 Depart from Little Rock for the Hot Springs of the 
 Washita— Explanation of a "Turn-out"— Stop at the 
 hest Hotel on the Road—" Nisby" and her " Missus"— 
 Stump Handle and Company— A fastidious Judge— Gov- 
 ernor Shannon's Hotel— -A Jury de circumstantibus 102 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 Arrive at Magnet Cove— An interesting Mineral Locality— 
 Strange effects of a Hurricane— Reach the Hot Springs 
 — Wluttington without his Cat-Rare Accommodations 
 —Description of the Springs— Fishes in Hot Water- 
 Temperature and Gaseous Contents of the Hot Springs 
 —The Travertine presents different Constituents below 
 
 the Smface ^"' 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 Curious and beautiful Mineral Structure of the adjacent 
 Country — Locality whence tlie Indians procured the 
 Mineral for their Arrow Heads— An unsophisticated 
 "Bar-hunter" — Panthers fond of Buffalo Tongues — 
 Strange single Combat betwixt a Hunter and a male 
 Buffafo- Reasoning Power of the Animal— State of the 
 Hunter's Nerves after the Battle . . ■ ■ H" 
 CHAPTER XXXL 
 l^ave the Hot Springs— Regain the " Militaty Road," and 
 cross the Washita— How to drink Coffee made ot Acorns 
 —The Caddo River— Mrs. Barkman, her extraordinary 
 Accomplishmpnts— A Hunter's House and Family— Ter- 
 tiary Deposits— A travelling Courthouse — A Knot of 
 Gamblers— A Paddy going to Texas . . .113 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 3ear-hunting— Approach a subcietaceous Country— Judge 
 Crose—iavspiited Territory betwixt Mexico and the Uni- 
 fo,t q.^t„< A Prairie Country and subretaceous Fossils 
 llGen'Mallhnrston-F'ot to wrest Texas from Mexico 
 —Beauty of the Country . < • • • • ^^" 
 CHAPTER XXXI 15. 
 Probable Origin of Prairie^Land most attractive vvhen 
 to be obtained without paying for- Mr Prior-Great 
 Abuse of the Government Land Sales- An Oasis in the 
 W^ilderness-(;ontrast between the educated and unedu- 
 cated Chisses— Two patriotic Members of the Sovereign 
 
 People. • • • "-^ 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. . 
 
 Mr Williams; his Adventures— Blunder of the Mexican 
 Government-Reach Red River-Cross Into the Me.v.can 
 Province of Texas-Lost Prairie, a l^f " '^'i' "^' "^ 
 Land-Surprising Crop of Cotton m a field of f^O »='^,^ 
 -The Abolition of Slavery a hopeless Case-The futme 
 
 —Wild Muscadel Grape '■'^•' 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. _, ^ , 
 
 Course and ancient Channels of Red River-The Great 
 
 Raft — Method adopted of cutting it out — Danger to which 
 New Orleans is exposed — Fight betwixt a Man and a 
 Panther — Tragical Story of a Hunter — Comical Relation 
 of a Solo played by a Negro to a Gang of Wolves— Fos- 
 sil Oysters in the Saline .... Page 125 
 CHAPTER XXXVL 
 Reach Little Rock again — A pleasant Christmas Eve — 
 Embark in a Steamer for New Orleans — A painful Mo- 
 ment — Structure of the Banks of the Arkansas — Snags 
 and Sawers explained — Frequent Change of the Chan- 
 nel of the River — Cotton Plantations — Cause of the Va- 
 riegated Structure of the Banks explained . . 128 
 CHAPTER XXXVH. 
 Approximative Method suggested of calculating the Age 
 of Fluviitile Deposits— brutal Conduct of the Passen- 
 gers—The Quapaw Indians a Tribe of the Osages — 
 Monsieur Baraqu6, his Adventures — A young Vagabond 
 — Post of Arkansas — Monsieur Notr<ibe — The River en 
 
 croaching upon the Country 132 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIH. 
 The Steamer boarded by Swindlers — Pandemonium afloat 
 —Day and Night Orgies— A Mysterious Lady— Printed 
 Rules to Decoy Passengers— White River— Reach the 
 Mississippi— Arrive at Vicksburg— Mr. Vick and his 
 brother Gentlemen — W^orse and worse — Compliments to 
 the Captain of a Steamer by the Gentry of Vicksburg — 
 A View of the Grand Gulf^Reach Natchez — A happy 
 Deliverance of the Swindlers — Judge Lynch in the 
 State of Mississippi — Arrive at New Orleans . . 135 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 The Delta of the Mississippi— Shiftings of the Channel of 
 the River — Formation of new Land at its Mouth — Visit 
 the Cemeteries— M<ide of contriving dry Graves — Pirati- 
 cal-looking Population — Green Peas out of doors, Jan. 1 
 — Li:era^ie and the Sciences — New Orleans American- 
 ised — Sunday Evening Meetings — Faro the principal 
 Business transaced in New Orleans — The Legislature 
 
 in Segsion — Good Theatres 139 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 Quadroon young Ladies, their hard fate — Liaisons of a 
 Bal de Societe— An amiable Father of several Families 
 — Good Prospect for the Anglo-Episcopal Cliiirch — .Span- 
 ish Cathedral — Depart from New Orleans — A Uailroad 
 — Embark in a Steamer fur Moiiile- A Sioi m — A Bisho]) 
 on Board — Come to an anchor— The Cay and River of 
 ^ Mobile — Tokens of Commercial Activity — Beauty and 
 Cleanliness of the town of Mobile — Spanish Creoles — 
 
 The Bolero 141 
 
 CHAPTER XLL 
 Embark in a Steamer, and ascend the Mobile and Ala- 
 bama — Tertiary Deposits at Fort Claiborne — Great Fer- 
 tility of the State of Alabama — Aptitude of the Creek In- 
 dians for Labour — Reach Montgomery, in Alabama — 
 Filthiness of the "principal" Hotel — Engage a carriage 
 to cross the Indian Territory — Country inundated — 
 Cross the Oakfuskee and enter the Creek Nation . 144 
 
 CHAPTER XLH. 
 Description of the Mnscogee or Creek People — Their 
 Sachem, M'GiUivray— Their Treaties with the Ameri- 
 can Government — The Chiefs Corrupted by the Georgi- 
 ans — Weatheifoid, the Sachem of the Lower Creeks, 
 attacks and massacres the Garrison at Fort Minims — 
 General Jackson takes the Field — Fatal Battle of Toho- 
 peka, or the Horse Shoe — Weatherford's Heroic Con- 
 duct — M'lntosh betrays his Countrymen, .ind is shot — 
 The Creeks compelled to cede all their Country— Apol- 
 ogy for the Whites 146 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 The Ruins of a Nation— Kateebee Swamp— A Turkey un- 
 plumis — Emigrants with their Slaves — Phlebotomy — 
 Diamond Rattle Snakes — Reach Columbus, in Georgia 
 —Falls of the Chatahixichie- Leave Columbus— Obser- 
 vations upon the Family of Naiades— Arrive at Augusta 
 — Railroad to Charlesion, in South Carolina — Reach 
 
 Columbia, in South Carolina 151 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 The Gentlemen of America— The Tariff and Nullification 
 —Wise Conduct of Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun— Warlike 
 Propensities of an Octoganarian philosopher— A black 
 animal chained on the roof of a Stage-coach— The char- 
 acter of the White Man elevated by the Slavery of the 
 
 Black one ^^^ 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 Inside and Outside Passengers in Chains— Bob Chatwood 
 and the Game of All Fours— A social Bottle— An Over- 
 turn in the dark— Reach Charlotte, in North Carolina- 
 Description of the Gold Region in North Carolina and 
 Virginia— Richmond, in Virginia— The Chesterfield Co^ 
 field— Speculations respecting it . • • • 15o 
 
 CoNCLCDiNQ Chapter 
 
 164 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The River Potomac, from its source to 
 its moutli, in the great Bay of Chesapeake, 
 divides the Atlantic frontier of the tjnited 
 States of America into two unequal parts ; 
 and being-, with the exception of the State 
 of Maryland, the boundary betwixt the 
 southern slave-holding states and the free 
 states to the north, may be said to form a 
 hne of demarcation betwixt their industrial 
 pursuits, their laws, and their manners. 
 
 To that portion which lies to the south 
 of this line the attenion of travellers has 
 been much less drawn than to that exten- 
 sive division of the American Republic 
 which lies to the north and west ; and it is 
 to supply, to a certain extent, the want of 
 information which exists respecting some 
 portions of the southern states, that the 
 author has drawn up the following pages. 
 
 It was during an interesting tour in 
 1834—1835 from the city of Washington 
 to the frontier of Mexico, and whilst in one 
 of the unfrequented and wild parts of the 
 territory of Arkansas, that he communica- 
 ted some account of those remote coun- 
 tries, and the manners of the frontier set- 
 tlers, to a distinguished scientific friend in 
 London, which not long after led to the an- 
 nouncement, by the late Mr. John Murray, 
 of a work substantially the same as the 
 present publication. But the author, who 
 was at that time residing in the United 
 States, had scarcely prepared it for the 
 press, when he was induced, upon the ad- 
 vice of some American friends of great re- 
 spectability, to reconsider his intention of 
 publishing. It was remarked to him, that 
 however sincerely he might wish to avoid 
 giving umbrage in any quarter, yet that the 
 work contained some opinions, and the re- 
 lation of some incidents, which could not 
 at that time fail to irritate a powerful inter- 
 est in the United- States, and might set him 
 at variance with many esteemed friends. 
 As this counsel came from a friendly and 
 judicious quarter, he determined rather to 
 suppress the work for a season, than to ex- 
 punge the passages objected to ; and he 
 was the less reluctant to make this sacri- 
 fice, because, intending to return to his na- 
 tive country, he could look forward to a 
 period when he could express with perfect 
 freedom any opinions that were on the side 
 of humanity, of rational liberty, and the 
 moral government of mankind. 
 
 On his return to England in the spring of 
 1839, his intention of devoting a portion of 
 his time to the recording of a few of the in- 
 
 cidents of a somewhat adventurous life, 
 thirty-six years of which had been passed 
 in various countries abroad, was again post- 
 poned. Within two months after his ar- 
 rival he was honoured by Her Majesty's 
 government with the appointment of Com- 
 missioner on the then existing boundary- 
 dispute betwixt Gi'eat Britain and the Uni- 
 ted States of America — an appointment, 
 the official duties of which, if they had not 
 engrossed all his attention, would, from ob- 
 vious considerations, have rendered it at ; 
 that time unadvisable to act upon his first 
 intentions. 
 
 Freed, at length, from that restraint, the 
 author has again taken up his manuscript, 
 •and having well considered the incidents 
 and sentiments contained in it, and finding 
 nothing there that can be deemed objec- 
 tionable by those who are only desirous to 
 have the truth placed before them, he has 
 at length resolved upon its publication ; as- 
 suring his readers that it is a faithful and 
 almost literal transcription from his origi- 
 nal journals, the incidents of the tour hav- 
 ing always been noted from day to day, and 
 the journal having been regularly written 
 up at least once a week. 
 
 That some of the opinions these incf- 
 dents elicited at the time may not be re- 
 ceived with the same favour by all those 
 under whose notice they may come, is very 
 likely to be the case ; for, in our day, the 
 field of English literature embraces an ex- 
 tensive and populous region of America, 
 where sentiments are cherished respecting 
 the rights of men, both black and white, 
 that are diametrically opposed to them. 
 The author, nevertheless, ventures to sub- 
 mit to the candour of those transatlantic 
 readers he may not have the good fortune 
 to please, that in all countries where free- 
 dom of opinion is not an illusion, but is real 
 and substantial, there are acknowledged 
 privileges which every fair writer can claim 
 to enjoy, amongst the plainest of which are 
 the describing truly what he sees, and the 
 expressing freely, but not presumptuously, 
 his opinions of what he has seen. 
 
 Of the enterprise and industry of the peo- 
 ple of the United States, of the wonderful 
 progress they have made in material civi- 
 lization, of the great beauty of their coun^ 
 try, and of the many desirable things to be 
 there admired and enjoyed, no one is dis- 
 posed to bear more favourable testimony 
 than the author : yet, however heartily an 
 Englishman may be disposed to commend 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tliese excellencies, so national and sensi- 
 tive are the inhabitants of that young- coun- 
 try, that if he ventures upon the invidious 
 task of pointing out those peculiarities in 
 the laws and nlanners of Republican Amer- 
 ica which he cannot be brought to admire, 
 he feels that he may not escape the impu- 
 tation of intending to offend, even when he 
 •would express in the most temperate lan- 
 guage his opinions of what neither his taste 
 nor his judgment can approve. This ex- 
 treme sensitiveness — which is never awa- 
 kened in America by the remarks of French 
 or German writers— had its origin perhaps, 
 with our transatlantic kinsmen, in their 
 anxiety about an ideal perfection, of which, 
 in virtue of their affinity to the mother- 
 country, her laws, literature, and religion, 
 that flattei-ed themselves they had attained 
 the enjoyment. Looking at the delusion 
 from that point, we can only regret that it 
 ishould have deceived a people endowed 
 with many eminent qualities, into a con- 
 firmed habit of placing an estimate upon 
 themselves, which has yet to receive the 
 sanction of mankind. Sensible and amia- 
 ble as many of the Americans are, the fa- 
 vourable impression they make upon those 
 who visit their country, is too soon over- 
 powered by the characteristic illiberality 
 of others who assume for it an excellence 
 which admits of no criticism ; and so ex- 
 acting is the tyranny of self-adulation, that, 
 except in the most select society, the stran- 
 ger is often compelled to be either a hypo- 
 crite or a mute. 
 
 If we were to condemn the American 
 who visits England for denying that the su- 
 perior civilization he witnesses there is 
 to be attributed to our monarchy, our dis- 
 tinctions in society, and the high moral ex- 
 amples which are the result of our social 
 institutions, he might with some reason 
 consider us ill-bred and illiberal. Obvious 
 as these truths might be to ourselves, he 
 could not with propriety be asked to admit 
 these consequences, since it would be to 
 require him tacitly to condemn the coun- 
 try which nursed him, and where he im- 
 bibed all his cherished opinions. In the 
 United States, however, it is not an imcom- 
 mon thing for an Englishman to be told 
 that his government is superannuated, cor- 
 Tupt, and profligate ; and, indeed, the same 
 sentiments are too often expressed in a 
 3nore offensive manner even in the Con- 
 gress.* Greatly as these extravagancies 
 are to be deplored, and deserving of cen- 
 
 * Vide Mr. Archer's speech, March 18, 1844. in the Sen- 
 mte of the United States. "Mr. Archer repeated that he 
 felt grieved and humiliated at the temper and the tone in 
 ■which gentlemen permitted themselves to speak hereof the 
 Government of Great Britain. Mr. A. was not here tn vin- 
 dicate that Government, but still less was he here to pour 
 out upon it all the oblonuy and vituperation which our lan- 
 guage could express, as the vilest and most faithless Gov- 
 ernment under heaven. The nanie of England seemed as if 
 it could never be uttered or referred to without some terms 
 of obloquy or reproach." — National Intelligencer. 
 
 sure as they are, yet they do not justify us 
 in cherishing an undiscriminating dislike 
 towards the inhabitants of the country 
 where they are uttered, although they sug- 
 gest many reflections upon the causes 
 which have made the descendants of com- 
 mon ancestors so dissimilar to each other. 
 
 It is not to be concealed, nevertheless, 
 that this frequent expression of aversion to 
 the mother-country, added to the late noto- 
 rious violations of the most solemn engage- 
 ments from the same quarter, have raised 
 a strong and deep-rooted prejudice on this 
 side of the Atlantic, which, although natu- 
 ral, is to a certain extent unjust, because 
 there is little or no discrimination observed 
 in it. The United States have not always 
 deserved the reproaches they have now 
 drawn upon themselves ; in the early part 
 of the history of their government public 
 decorum was highly valued and universally 
 practised, and American credit only eight 
 years ago stood as high all over the world 
 as the credit of any other countpy. The 
 change has been a great and an unhappy 
 one both for America and for Europe, and 
 if this were an occasion for tracing its 
 causes step by step, the author, who has 
 long watched its progress, would not de- 
 spair of accomplishing the task. Suffice it 
 to observe, at this time, that the sad degra- 
 dation has been gradually produced through 
 the arts of demagogues operating in tfie 
 different States, rather than by the action 
 of the federal government, which, although 
 the constant object of political intrigue, has 
 generally been administered with prudence 
 and dignity. 
 
 To trace all the incidents that character- 
 ise the Americans at the present time to 
 their remote sources, we should have to 
 look, amongst other things, to their geo- 
 graphical position, and to the period when 
 their colonies were planted ; for all com- 
 munities of men are distinguished from 
 each other by peculiarities derived, more 
 or less, from those institutions of govern- 
 ment which local situation as well as ori- 
 gin have imposed upon them. The Amer- 
 icans, though descended from them, are 
 very dissimilar to the English, and the de- 
 scendants of our settlers in New Zealand 
 will be far from resembling the Americans. 
 In the early part of the seventeenth centu- 
 ry the exclusive object of the mother-coun- 
 try in colonizing foreign countries, was to 
 open sources of wealth without reference 
 to those principles which make them per- 
 manently conducive to human happiness ; 
 but in our own days the acquisition of that 
 which constitutes real wealth is largely 
 understood to depend upon just laws and 
 good government both at home and abroad : 
 in forming the character, therefore, of a 
 colonial people with a view to bind them 
 in interests and in affection to the mother- 
 country, everything now seems to depend 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 upon the early establishment of wise laws 
 for the protection of the best interests of 
 society, and upon rehgious education. 
 Where these blessings prevail, true liberty 
 and tranquil enjoyment of life are most 
 sure to be found ; and where they do not, 
 and human liberty is left to itself, unre- 
 strained by religious feeling, an insolent 
 and bombastic nature is liable to be gen- 
 erated, which makes a people the tools of 
 their own blind passions, and obliterates 
 all reverence for the great objects which 
 good men believe to be the true end of ex- 
 istence. It is this abuse of liberty which has 
 so greatly changed the character of a peo- 
 ple eminently fitted for greatness by their 
 natural qualities ; has led them to trample 
 under foot the wise precepts of the most 
 illustrious founders of their republic, to re- 
 ject many of the lessons of rational free- 
 dom which have been ever before them, to 
 barter their invaluable privileges with a 
 demagogical despotism, for the magnilo- 
 quent, but empty, designation of " Sover- 
 eign People," and to prepare a future for 
 their country which seems to baffle con- 
 jecture. 
 
 Those in America who are so prover- 
 bially sensitive at every expression which 
 appears to criticise in the slightest degree 
 the country they love, or which tends to 
 abate the pretensions — long set up, and ac- 
 quiesced in by so many— of its " never be- 
 ing in the wrong," are always dissatisfied 
 with any thing short of unqualified eulo- 
 gium upon themselves and their country, 
 and are not apt to pardon the truth. This 
 would be matter of some regret to the au- 
 thor, if he did not know that the good and the 
 wise of their own country are united in the 
 condemnation of what he has animadverted 
 upon : amongst them are many to whom he 
 would be very averse to give offence : pain- 
 ful indeed would it be to him if any of those 
 excellent persons, whose friendship he was 
 proud of during a thirty years' residence 
 amongst them as an Englishman, should 
 imagine that he is capable, now or at any 
 time, of passing an indiscriminate censure 
 upon their nation, and of uniting with oth- 
 ers in the condemnation of all, for that 
 which has been conspicuous only with a 
 portion of their countrymen. 
 
 This too general prejudice, however, 
 does unfortunately exist in Europe, and 
 has grown to a fearful height in conse- 
 quence of the violation of those pecuniary 
 engagements which have been already al- 
 luded to ; delinquencies which, either from 
 want of information or from resentment, 
 have created a strong prejudice against the 
 whole frame of American society. But 
 let us be just! Reprehensible as these 
 .acts are, there are exceptions to them 
 which deserve the highest praise, and 
 which in the general indignation have 
 been almost entirely overlooked. The 
 
 world, it is true, has seen the opulent free 
 State of Pennsylvania, and the productive 
 slave State of Mississippi, two common- 
 wealths arrogating to themselves the lofty 
 distinction of " enlightened Sovereign 
 States," declining in one instance to pro- 
 vide the interest of the moneys they have 
 borrowed from their confiding creditors, 
 and refusing in the other even to acknowl- 
 edge their responsibilities ; not from ina- 
 bility, but because there is no human law 
 to compel them to be honest. Yet when 
 the just scorn of mankind is expressed 
 against them, it ought not to be forgotten 
 that Massachusetts, New York, Kentucky, 
 Ohio, Tennessee, and other indebted States, 
 have resolutely maintained their credit un- 
 der the most difficult circumstances, and 
 have placed themselves in honourable con- 
 tradistinction to their unscrupulous neigh- 
 bours. 
 
 These violations of the confidence which 
 the so-called securities of the fraudulent 
 States had acquired in Europe, in conse- 
 quence of the known resources of these 
 last, and of the specious circumstances un- 
 der which the first had been palmed upon 
 the unsuspecting, were preceded by the 
 plunder and waste of the whole resources 
 of the Bank of the United States, incor- 
 porated by the legislature of Pennsylvania 
 with a capital of thirty-five millions of dol- 
 lars, a great portion of which was owned 
 in Great Britain. Then came Repudiation, 
 or the doctrine that the acts of one legis- 
 lature, and even of one generation, are not 
 binding upon the next ; a doctrine which, 
 though it had its origin with Mr. Jefferson, 
 was first promulgated in Pennsylvania.* 
 Precedents so pernicious, coming from 
 one of the oldest and most opulent States 
 in the Union, unfortunately tei^hpted other 
 members of the Federal Union possessing 
 fewer resources, to follow in the same dis- 
 reputable course ; and thus was com- 
 promised in the end the reputation of the 
 whole republic. 
 
 Nor is this the only penalty which re- 
 publican America pays for her departure 
 from integrity : these unexpected infringe- 
 ments of public faith, and the manner in 
 which they have been defended, have call- 
 ed forth into greater relief the change of 
 opinion which has been gradually taking 
 place in Europe, in relation to the moral 
 influence which cheap republican govern- 
 ments were supposed likely to acquire with 
 the coming generations of men in all civil- 
 ized countries. Experience, which is the 
 only safe guide of men, has now shown 
 that, when ostentatiously applied to great 
 countries for the purpose of flattering and 
 leading the many, they call into operation 
 
 * A convention wiis hold there a few years ajo to remodel 
 the constitution, at which a very strong- jiarty— headed by a 
 leadin? member of the present Congress — apperircd in fa- 
 vour of nancelling all incorporations, and all contracts that 
 were opposed to '• first principles." 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 more corruption, and lead to a more rapid 
 degeneracy than can be possibly exhibited 
 under governmentsf where power is con- 
 fided to those who have the greatest stake 
 in the preservation of order, and who have 
 been trained to the responsibility of exer- 
 cising it for the benefit of the many. In- 
 deed, so complete has been this change in 
 the public opinion of Europe, that the ex- 
 ample par excellence, which the admirers of 
 a republican form of government once held 
 up to the admiration of mankind, has al- 
 ready become a beacon to the civilized 
 world, to warn all future generations 
 against those theories of government in 
 which the public welfare is not based upon 
 that solid and enduring foundation for the 
 government of a State — a constant selec- 
 tion of men of character and property for 
 its administration. 
 
 But here again a want of discrimination 
 in the judgment that has been formed of 
 the American people is equally apparent : 
 almost all those who have not knovvn them 
 in their own country attribute to them, alike, 
 a general degeneracy ; than which nothing 
 can be more unjust, since it excludes from 
 well-merited praise those patriotic men 
 who have constantly endeavoured to give 
 a salutary direction to the administration 
 of the public affairs of their country — men 
 who have long been, and who yet remain, 
 the victims of those demagogues to whom 
 their peculiar system of government has 
 given a preponderating influence. 
 
 No re-spectable person who has travelled 
 much in America is ignorant that in every 
 town, and in almost every part of the coun- 
 try, there are individuals distinguished from 
 the rest by education, manners, hospitali- 
 ty, and the possession of many of those 
 high quali'ties which make men truly re- 
 spectable in all countries, and render them 
 valuable acquaintances to the stranger who 
 has the advantage of knowing them. But 
 these excellent persons, with exceptions so 
 few that that they are scarcely worth enu- 
 merating, are rarely participators in the gov- 
 ernment of their country ; for, where the 
 popular party predominates, they are ex- 
 cluded by the possession of those very 
 qualifications that fit them for that high 
 purpose ; so seldom is it that a candidate 
 placed before the " Sovereign People," 
 without any other recommendation than 
 his fitness, is not rejected. 
 
 It would be going too far to assert that 
 this evil condition of things is, without 
 some qualification, to be necessarily attrib- 
 uted to a republican form of government , 
 because, even in the instance of the United 
 States, it has not always existed. In 1806, 
 when the author first visited that part of 
 America, it was a very happy country. 
 The bright examples which had exercised 
 so beneficent an influence at the origin of 
 the government, were not then forgotten. 
 
 The moral dignity of Washington, the wis- 
 dom of Franklin, the integrity of Jay, and 
 thevirtuesof many of their contemporaries, 
 some of whom were then living, were j-et 
 revered by the people. A breach of de 
 corum in the Congress, if it was not un- 
 known in those days, was at least sure to 
 be met by public reprobation ; and in the 
 State legislatures there was always a ma- 
 jority of individuals selected by their con- 
 stituents from among the most respecta- 
 ble members of society : at that time, in- 
 deed, in the State of New York, which has 
 always had a preponderating influence in 
 the Union from its population and wealth, 
 a property qualification was required by 
 the constitution both foj the Senate and 
 the House of Assembly. 
 
 In treating of this important subject it is 
 not to be forgotten that in an evil hour 
 (1821) for that Commonwealth, and for the 
 Union, a few experienced demagogues, at 
 a period when the members of the legisla- 
 ture had not been delegated for that pur- 
 pose, contrived the authorisation of a con- 
 vention of the people, to consider some 
 fundamental changes in its constitution. 
 There, playing upon the hopes and fears 
 of some of those from whom an inflexible 
 opposition was expected, and overcoming 
 by their arts the reluctance that was mani- 
 fested to enter upon the never-ending chain 
 of evil consequences which invariably at- 
 tend improvident concessions, these wily 
 agitators succeeded in converting the mob 
 into a constituency, by establishing '' Uni- 
 versal Suffrage," that fatal principle which 
 has been the leading cause of the prevail- 
 ing degeneracy. 
 
 Those who have been in a highly popu- 
 lous country, where universal sufi'rage and 
 frequent elections — ostensibly held for the 
 preservation of liberty — prevail, can best 
 understand how easy it is to make the 
 " Sovereign People," a mere Ochlocratic* 
 machine in the hands of skilful dema- 
 gogues ; or with what facility good men 
 are made odious to the masses, and gov- 
 ernment and society disorganised for the 
 purpose of plundering them. Armed with 
 this irresistible power, demagogues find no 
 difficulty in perverting those principles in 
 free constitutions which are intended for 
 the moral and civil protection of society, 
 or in excluding talents accompanied with 
 education, integrity, and wealth from the 
 service of the public. It is to the fatal sub- 
 stitution of universal suff'rage for character 
 and property, and the general departure 
 from the enlightened and honest intentions 
 of Washington and the other illustrious 
 founders of their republic, that we must at- 
 tribute the introduction into America of 
 that wild, democratic, mannerless, and 
 tyrannical rule, both in the constituency 
 
 From oxKos, a mob. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 IX 
 
 and its leaders, which promises no repose 
 for the present, and little hope for the fu- 
 ture. The friends of order may, indeed, 
 rally from time to time, but it is to be fear- 
 ed that it will be only when the excesses 
 of their opponents have created a tempo- 
 rary disgust : these, indeed, may be driven 
 from power for a while, but as long as uni- 
 versal suffrage exists, the vigilance of 
 demagogues will never sleep, and the same 
 scenes will ever be enacted over and over 
 again. 
 
 This experiment, therefore, of dignify- 
 ing the masses with the title of " Sovereign 
 People," and of attempting to provide for 
 the well-being of society by cheap republi- 
 can government founded upon a theoretical 
 equality in the privileges of men, if it is to 
 be judged of by the results which have al- 
 ready appeared, is a signal and instructive 
 failure, such as must attend every scheme 
 which permits the ignorant to govern the 
 wise, and transfers the rule which Nature 
 intended for the head to the inferior ex- 
 tremities of the body politic. 
 
 How instructive is this lesson to the 
 other governments of Christendom ! and 
 how interesting to ourselves, who had 
 hoped for some contributions to the com- 
 mon cause of rational liberty from the hap- 
 py opportunities which America had so 
 long enjoyed I The melancholy truth 
 seems too apparent, that when a people 
 reject the experience of the past, cast aside 
 the guidance of the wise and the virtuous, 
 and commit their honour and prosperity to 
 the tumultuous passions of the multitude, 
 they are sure to descend in the scale of true 
 civilization more rapidly than they rose. 
 
 Deep as is the regret which this eminent 
 failure has caused to the sincere friends 
 of civil liberty, it is immensely increased 
 when they see how glorious an opportuni- 
 ty the United States have lost of enlighten- 
 ing the new-born republican governments 
 of South America. The disadvantages un- 
 der which the old Spanish colonies assumed 
 their independence were great, and the 
 struggle to sustain their self-government 
 in an honourable manner was often sin- 
 cere, though seldom successful : if they 
 had been cheered on by a great example 
 of wise government, and scrupulous fideli- 
 ty t'> their engagements, on their own con- 
 tinent, the United States might have had 
 the glory of effecting for their sister re- 
 publics what Great Britain has so well 
 done, in the sphere within which she has 
 moved, for the general interests of man- 
 kind ; and have shown that " Liberty," 
 without rehgion, morality, and honesty to 
 guard it from desecration, is but a delu- 
 sion ; and that extent of territory gives no 
 power to a nation that she can exercise in 
 an efficient manner, unless she cherishes 
 those duties which alone acquire for a peo- 
 ple the respect of mankind. 
 
 The author is aware that these reflec- 
 tions may appear superfluous to some of 
 his readers in the introduction to a work 
 which does not aspire to be of a particu- 
 larly serious character. He has been led 
 into them, not from a desire to aggravate 
 the discontent which is now so generally 
 expressed, but to abate it by turning the 
 attention of his readers to some circum- 
 stances which have not been sufficiently 
 adverted to, viz., that the American peo- 
 ple were misled at an early period of their 
 self-government :* that whilst the cause of 
 these evils, which have attracted universal 
 attention, is to be found in that excess of 
 liberty which in America has degenerated 
 iuto licence, yet that the good and the wise 
 there have stood up manfully in the cause 
 of rational freedom : that although some 
 of the States have acted in a dishonoura- 
 ble manner, the greater proportion of them 
 have been faithful to tfleir engagements ; 
 and, finally, from a wish to state that if we 
 encourage the prejudices which have been 
 excited indiscriminately against all, by re- 
 fusing our sympathies to those who are 
 so eminently entitled to them, we only 
 increase the evil, and dispose those to 
 estrange themselves, whom we have the 
 justest reasons to draw near to us. 
 
 The author also is glad to add his opin- 
 ion, that there are good reasons for believ- 
 ing, that all the States which are defaulters 
 will ere long provide for the due fulfilment 
 of their obligations : their resources are 
 great and are continually increasing, and 
 the false step they have taken of destroy- 
 ing their own credit is now the main cause 
 of their embarrassments ; this they have 
 been made clearly to feel, so that they have 
 nothing to hope for their credit, either ux 
 their own country or in Europe, but by re- 
 turning to the sti-aight road from which 
 they havedeviated. 
 
 There is also another bright and encour- 
 aging spot on the horizon ; for if any faith 
 is to be placed in prognostics, the Uni-tcd 
 States ere long will come under the ad- 
 ministration of a chief magistrate, the in- 
 fluence of whose character will win back 
 for his country the credit which she has 
 temporarily lost. The whole civilized 
 world is concerned in the wish that that 
 salutary influence may be lasting, and 
 throw into obscurity all the errors of the 
 past. 
 
 No one is more sincere in that wish than 
 the author. To those in America who 
 may be disposed to put an unfriendly con- 
 struction upon anything that has escaped 
 his pen, he can only say that they do him 
 injustice, for he is beyond that period of 
 life when he could be indifferent to the re- 
 flection that he had purposely uttered opin- 
 
 * In the last chapter of this work a sketch will be given 
 of one of the fundamental causes of their deviation from 
 their ancient character. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ions which were unjust to any individual, 
 ortoanycommunity of men amongst whom 
 he has lived. His justification with those 
 to whom the free expression of some of 
 his opinions may not be grateful, is, that 
 errors of government which lead to injuri- 
 ous changes in the conduct and character 
 of a people, form a subject deeply interest- 
 
 ing to England, especially at a moment 
 when so many new settlements are being 
 planted by her ; and that his remarks not 
 benig the result of theoretical considera- 
 tions, he felt that he owed it as a duty to 
 his country to speak of what he had seen, 
 and of what he had carefully observed. 
 
TRAVELS IN THE SLAVE STATES 
 
 NORTH AMERICA, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Barnum's Hotel at Baltimore — Canvas-back Ducks — Soft 
 Crabs ; the process of changing their shells— Railroad to 
 Frederictnn in Maryland — Impositions practised upon 
 Travellers— Notices of the Geology of the Country— Har- 
 per's-ferry ; the Shenandoah Valley — Nationality of the 
 Germanico- Americans. 
 
 Any one who has endured for many days the 
 filth and discomfort of that caravansary called 
 Gailshj/s Hold at Washingion, the city of "mag- 
 nificent distances," will feel exceedingly rejoi- 
 •ced when, after a short interval of two or three 
 iionrs. lie finds himself transferred hy the rail- 
 road lo Barnum's at Baltimore. If there is an 
 liotel-keeper in the United States who merits 
 the commendations of a traveller, the veteran 
 Mr. Barnum may claim to be that person. His 
 neat private parlours and bed-rooms, his quiet 
 house, his excellent table, and the ready and 
 obliging attendance found there, leave the trav- 
 eller little to desire. 
 
 It was at Barnum's, many, many years ago, 
 m tlie opening of the winter, that I made my 
 fir.st essay upon what is universally allowed to 
 l)e|the greatest of all delicacies in the United 
 Stales, the Caimis-fiack duck — an exemplary 
 bird, which seems to take, — sua sponle, — the 
 most indefatigable pains to qualify himself for a 
 favourable reception in the best society : for in 
 the first instance be makes himself exceedingly 
 fat by resorting to the low marshy lands of the 
 ■Susquehannah and the borders of those streams 
 which are tributary to it, to feed upon the ripe 
 seed of the Zitanta aqualica, a sort of wild rice 
 which abounds there ; and then at the proper 
 season betakes himself to an esculent root 
 growing in the sedgy banks of the rivers, to 
 give the last finish to the tenderness, the juici- 
 ness, and the delicate flavour which distinguish 
 him above all other birds when brought to table. 
 But justice must be done to him by an able ar- 
 tist, or, great as his intrinsic qualities are, he 
 may be reduced to a condition that entitles hiin 
 even to be pitied by the humble scavenger-duck. 
 
 I had heard a great deal of this inestimable 
 bird before it was presented to me under the 
 auspices of Barnum, and was somewhat sur- 
 prised and disappointed at seeing him place on 
 the table, with great solemnity, a couple of 
 birds on a dish without a single drop of gravy in 
 it. Now every one knows that a quantum suff 
 of good gravy is to English rotis what fine sun- 
 ny weatiier is to the incidents of life, enabling 
 them to pass along smoothly and pleasantly ; 
 and, therefore, as soon as I had a little recover- 
 ed from my alarm, I could not help telling Bar- 
 num that I was afraid I should not like his can- 
 vas-backs. Upon which, asking my permission, 
 he took up the carving-knife, and making two 
 
 incisions in the fat breasts of the birds, the dish 
 instantly became filled with the desired fluid. 
 Had I not seen this, I could not have believed 
 it ! Then came the action of the rt.r.hauffoirs, 
 the dismemberment of the birds scarcely warm- 
 ed through at the fire, the transference of their 
 delicate flesh to our hot plates, and its recon- 
 coction in their own gravy, with currant jelly, 
 a soupcon of chateau margeaux, and a small 
 quantity of fine loaf sugar. We were three of 
 us to these two birds, and the great Barnum 
 had the satisfaction of hearing us declare that 
 the only defect they had consisted in their not 
 being of the size of turkeys. 
 
 Certainly this dish well deserves its great 
 reputation, and it is greatly to be regretted that 
 the genius of the hermit of the Chaussee d'An- 
 tin has never been inspired by it. 
 
 But although the period at which the tour 
 commenced, which will be narrated in these 
 pages, was not that of Canvas-back ducks, still 
 my family and myself, on leaching Barnum's 
 from Washington, towards the end of July, 1834, 
 found that the season for soft crabs was not yet 
 over, and that this is a dish of very great mer- 
 it, and little known in Europe. The crab, in 
 the United States, resorts in the early summer 
 months to the low shores of the rivers and bays 
 between the 38th and 39lh degrees of north lat- 
 itude, to discard its shell, in order to take an- 
 other more suited to its increasing size. The 
 process of throwing otTits shell is one which I 
 have often witnessed in all its stages, towards 
 the mouth of the Potomac river, and in various 
 parts of that great estuary the Chesapeake bay. 
 There these Crustacea are seen during the sum- 
 iner months in countless numbers, and of all 
 sizes, half buried in the mud, undergoing a se- 
 vere operation, which Nature, consistently with 
 the simplicity of all her works, has curiously 
 and appropriately adapted them to. When the 
 calcareo-mucous matter which exudes from 
 their bodies begins to rise, and to force the 
 shell a little upwards, the animal instinctively 
 seeks the low shores, as a place of refuge 
 against the voracious inhabitants of the rivers, 
 that would otherwise prey upon it when divest- 
 ed of its armour. In a short time the sutures 
 of the shells begin to relax, and the edible parts 
 to be separated from them by the intervention 
 of the mucous matter. When all is ready for 
 the great struggle, the animal makes its exer- 
 tion, and gradually bucks out, leaving the shell 
 behind, and sometimes with the loss of a claw 
 or two. The operation being over, the crab ap- 
 pears to be entirely exhausted, and is nothing 
 but a soft unresisting mass, prostrate in the 
 mud. But it gradually reacquires strength ; 
 mucous matter is constantly secreting and com- 
 
12 
 
 IN AMERICA. 
 
 ins to '!if5 surfao' <).;,, b liy. \>.;iriv a h.U>\vI}' 
 indurates, and lakes a crustaceous appearance. 
 In this stage, wliiLst the shell is exceedingly 
 soft, and the aninna! is flattering itself with get- 
 ting into a convalescent state, it is too often its 
 fate to be picked up and forwarded to Mr. Bar- 
 num, who serves it up fried with so much nice- 
 ty, that the epicure is able, with peculiar satis- 
 faction, to eat every portion of this savoury 
 dish, especially including the nice crisp shell. 
 This delicacy we found at Barnum's on our ar-' 
 rival, and all of us united in expressing our ad- 
 miration of it. 
 
 At this comfortable hotel, then, my family and 
 myself remained several days, making prepara- 
 tions for a tour to the Virginia Springs, in the 
 Alleghany mountains, which are watering-pla- 
 ces of great celebrity in the Southern States, 
 not only on account of their curative qualities, 
 but because they are resorted to by the families 
 of many opulent planters south and west of the 
 Potomac. Here I proposed leaving my wife a 
 short time for the benefit of her health ; whilst 
 my son and myself, pursuing the eastern flank 
 of the Alleghany mountains as far as we could, 
 should continue our geological tour west of the 
 Mississippi to the Mexican frontier. 
 
 Everything being ready for our departure, at 
 five o'clock A.M., on the 1st of August, we ex- 
 changed our precious comforts at Barnum's for 
 the confusion of a wretched dirty omnibus that 
 was to convey us to the railroad station, on our 
 way to Fredericton in Maryland, distant sixty 
 miles. In the hurry of the moment, when — 
 with our eyes scarcely more than half open — 
 there were so many things to look after, a small 
 chest of chemical tests, which I had been pre- 
 paring with great care, and some of the materi- 
 als of which I had obtained from Philadelphia, 
 was snatched up by one of the people, and strap- 
 ped on very insecurely behind with the trunks. 
 Before we had proceeded 150 yards from the 
 hotel, I saw this object of my anxieties come 
 tumbling down on the stones, and calling to the 
 Driver, he alighted and brought it to me, adding 
 with his characteristic twang, that it had the 
 " most onconceivable smell I reckon I ever put 
 my nose to." The first look was sufficient ; 
 the whole concern appeared to be smashed, ev- 
 erything was wet, and there was no remedy but 
 to place it on the floor of the omnibus. " There 
 goes the labour often days," said I in a piteous 
 tone ; " the whole box dished, and no end to 
 take hold of that is not reeking with muriatic 
 and nitric acid !" This was literally the fact. 
 There was enough in this incident to make a 
 man believe in bad omens : it was Friday, and 
 if we had stopped in Baltimore till Saturday, it 
 was very clear, at any rate, that the accident 
 would not have happened on a Friday. My son 
 somewhat consoled me by suggesting, that per- 
 haps those vials only were broken which could 
 be the most easily supplied, and I resolved to 
 chng to that hope. 
 
 On our arrival at the station, we found that 
 the deference which the railroad company af- 
 fected to feel for the ladies and gentlemen who 
 lodged at Barnum's, and for whose especial ac- 
 commodation they had sent a dirty omnibus at 
 an hour when it was impossible to procure a 
 clean one, was in keeping with the other pro- 
 fessions of those disinterested persons who live 
 
 by conveying ladies and gentlemen to and fro 
 in this bad world : instead of being comfortably 
 placed in a clean car with birds of a like feath- 
 er, we were most unceremoniously emptied into 
 the last car, with a set of as unshaven, unprom- 
 ising looking fellows as ever I was shut up with. 
 Amongst the rest was a horrid, dirty, little 
 humpbacked imp of the male kind, with a most 
 malicious physiognomy, and as pert and forward 
 as those unfortunate Jieings usually are when 
 they have received their education in the streets. 
 My wife was good naturedly disposed to submit 
 to every inconvenience but this ; the sight of 
 this object perfectly horrified her, and she could 
 think of nothing but the misery of sitting in the 
 same car with this creature for sixty miles. Pla- 
 cing myself betwixt him and her, with the un- 
 fortunate test-box under my seat, this little 
 creature perceiving me rather solicitous about 
 it, ill-naturedly kicked it away, when it occa- 
 sionally came in the way of his feet ; but I had 
 my revenge without taking much trouble, for he 
 contrived to empty what remained of the acids 
 into a little pool beneath him, and there, to my 
 somewhat satisfaction, he sat with his shoes in 
 them. We stopped to breakfast at Ellicot's 
 mills, a ceremony which gave a turn to our 
 thoughts ; and finding that Humpy Dumpy was 
 not going any farther, and that the weather was 
 going to be fine, we became more reconciled to 
 our situation : I therefore mounted the top of 
 the rail-car, and kept my ground there in tha 
 teeth of a column of smoke loaded with sulphu- 
 retted hydrogen, proceeding from the pyritical 
 coals of the furnace, which the wind frequently 
 urged upon me. 
 
 This railroad is laid in a very interesting ra- 
 vine, through which the river Patapsco flows 
 over its bed, consisting of granite and other pri- 
 mary beds. I was delighted at being wheeled 
 with the velocity of a locomotive through a sin- 
 gularly picturesque road, where such a variety 
 of primitive rocks presented themselves. At 
 Marriotsville, 13 miles from Ellicot's, the beds 
 became more fissile, and clay slate occasionally 
 appeared, but gneiss was the general rock ; and 
 at Sykesville, four miles farther, where we stoj)- 
 ped a short time, I found it contained small but 
 very transparent garnets. Farther on, at Mori-" 
 rovia, we came upon micaceous slate ; after 
 which the country to Fredericton became less . 
 uneven, and we passed many well-cultivated 
 farms, a band of limestone running through the 
 district, of which the farmers are beginning to 
 avail themselves as a manure. At Fredericton 
 we got to a tolerably good inn, and here my first 
 care was to overhaul my case of tests. One 
 large phial of refined alcohol was broken, as well 
 as one flint-glass phial of nitric acid and one of 
 muriatic acid. The labels were obliterated from 
 the other phials, and all the caoutchouc cover- 
 ings to the ground stoppers eaten off. Upon 
 applying to a Mr. Elliot, a druggist of the place, 
 he not only most obligingly assisted me to re- 
 pair my misfortune, but refused to receive any 
 compensation. Considering it, therefore, a good 
 rule to keep up an account-current of good turns 
 and evil turns with mankind, I set off the good 
 deeds of worthy Mr. Elliot against the evil ones 
 of the fellow who had not strapped the case on 
 well, and against the malice of little Humpy, 
 and closed the account. But I had to open it 
 very soon again. 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 13 
 
 At Baltimore I had paid to the agent of Stock 
 ton and Stokes our fare all the way to Harper's- 
 ferry, on the river Potomac, and had had the 
 prudent precaution to take a receipt, in which 
 it was stated that I was to he forwarded to 
 Harper's- ferry on that day. This the agent of 
 the company at Fredericton — a forward, imper- 
 tinent fellow — now refused to do. He swore it 
 was all a mistake; that I had not paid enough, 
 and he " reckoned what o?ider arth I could want 
 him to do it for, when he had no stage nor no 
 horses, no more than if there ivas no such 
 things to do it with." As I saw he was likely 
 to he as obstinate as he was insolent, I got the 
 landlord at the inn to send for another fellow, 
 just as great a cheat as the agent ; and having 
 ascertained from him what his lowest terms 
 were for a stage-coach and four horses to Har- 
 per's-ferry, I took him to the agent, and told 
 him if he thought the price too high, he must 
 now say so, as his employers would have to re- 
 fund it to me, for I was determined to go on. 
 This move on rny part brought him, as the 
 landlord very quaintly remarked, " to a non- 
 plush ;" he saw that my remedy against his 
 employers was a good one, and that further ob- 
 stinacy might cost him his place ; so, cursing 
 and swearing and vapouring about, and decla- 
 ring that lie never did meet with '• sich a onrea- 
 sonable parson" as myself, he at length pro- 
 duced a stage-coach and four horses for the 
 next 20 miles to the Potomac. If I had not ta- 
 ken a receipt, stating that I was to be conduct- 
 ed to Harper's-ferry on that same day, there 
 would have been no remedy for me, and I 
 should have been cheated out of the money ; 
 for the agent would have charged his employ- 
 ers for forwarding me, and would have put the 
 money in his own pocket. 
 
 We had an agreeable drive across the Cotoc- 
 tin mountain, a slaty chain in advance of what 
 is called the Blue Ridge ; and passing the bridge 
 thac crosses the Potomac, reached Harper's- 
 ferry before sunset, which gave me time to look 
 at the gorge through which the Potomac jias 
 worn its channel, and of which Mr. JetTerson, 
 in his Notes on Virginia, has spoken in some- 
 what extravagant terms. The Potomac is 
 shallow here, and is joined at Harper's-ferry by 
 the Shenandoah, a very pretty stream, from the 
 ■\y£st. 
 
 It would seem to be a sufficient answer to 
 those who have expressed an opinion that the 
 beds of mountain streams and the 'passages 
 which rivers make through chains of mountains 
 have been originally formed by fissures which 
 preceded the rivers, that the fissures are not 
 found beneath the general level of the bottoms 
 of the streams, and that the bottoms correspond 
 to form one general plane of descent to the 
 ocean. But independent of this objection to 
 such an hypothesis, it can be shown that al- 
 most all the phenomena connected with these 
 mountain channels bear direct testimony to the 
 opinion that these channels have been worn by 
 the rivers themselves ; and perhaps there is no 
 district m the world which contains more stri- 
 king proofs of this than the Alleghany mount- 
 ains, in which the sources of two great classes 
 of rivers are found, those which empty them- 
 selves into the Atlantic, and those which flow 
 into the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 We left Harper's-ferry at the break of day. 
 The issue of the Shenandoah from the gorge 
 through which it flows is very grand. The 
 rocks, composed of talcose slate, greenstone, 
 liornblendic and other vpry ancient slaty mate- 
 rials, jut over, in bold ledges, from the lofty and 
 craggy sides of the valley. To the left the 
 mountain is covered with forest-trees growing 
 amidst the crags, and beneath runs the pretty 
 river murmuring through the glen, in which the 
 rifle-manufactories of the government of the 
 United States are situated, the wheels of which ; 
 were creaking at this early hour, a pleasing si 
 proof of the industry that prevails here, i As^ 
 soon as we had got well out of the primary 
 rocks of the Blue Ridge, we came, at about two 
 miles from Harper's-ferry, upon the limestone, 
 occasionally alternating with slate, of the great 
 valley of the Shenandoah, which is in some pla- 
 ces about 30 miles broad. We stopped at 
 Smithsfield, 15 miles from the Potomac, to 
 breakfast ; but I neither found any fossils in 
 the rock, nor could learn of any having been 
 found in that neighbourhood. It appears, how- 
 ever, to be contemporaneous with some of the 
 limestone formations of the state of New York, 
 and to belong to the series subjacent to the old 
 red sandstone, which Mr. Murchison is at this 
 time engaged in the classification of in England, 
 with a perseverance and ability that promise the 
 most brilliant and unexpected results respecting 
 that portion of the geological column hitherto 
 only obscurely known to us as the transition 
 formations.* 
 
 Just as we had risen from our meal, up drove 
 the stage from Boonsborough, with no less a 
 personage in it than our little hunchback of the 
 day before. He looked so much like an imp in 
 disguise, sent by the father of evil to accompany 
 and annoy me wherever I went, that I felt a 
 sudden compunction come upon me as soon as 
 I saw him, on account of the nitric acid. Per- 
 haps his hoof had been injured by it ! He came 
 up to me, too, with the greatest possible famil- 
 iarity, and with a devilish impudence, that put 
 all sympathy for him out of the question. With 
 this dirty creature we had to travel to Winches- 
 ter, 15 miles, for, to our great dismay, he got 
 nto our stage ; and, indeed, if he had got upon 
 my back, as the old man established himself 
 upon the shoulders of Sinbad, I should not have 
 been exceedingly surprised, so completely as- 
 tounded was I at his unexpected appearance. 
 The road was very rough and knobby, occa- 
 sioned by the cropping out of the edges of the 
 limestone strata, over which we were travelling } 
 at right angles, and which dipped very rapidly { 
 to the east. The excessive jolting of the stage- I 
 coach kept everything upon the rock ; the dri- j 
 ver urged his horses as if he were possessed by I 
 a fiend, and we were obliged to hold on by the ^ 
 
 * Mr. Murchison's great work, 'The Silurian System,' 
 did not appear until 1839, seven years after he had engaged 
 in the investigation of the strata comprehended in it. But 
 as early as 1833, the year before this tour was made, he 
 had communicated to me the progress he was making, and 
 his first synopsis of the formations he had succeeded in re- 
 ducing to their natural order ; so that I was enabled, at the 
 earliest moment, to apply the information I received from 
 him to my own geological researches in North America ; 
 and subsequently, in 1836, to publish a Tabular View of 
 Rocks arranged upon Mr. Murchison's plan, and point out, 
 for the first time, American localities which justified the 
 extension of the Silurian System to North America. 
 
14 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 stage-coach to keep our seats : as to little 
 Humpy Dumpy, he was tossed up and down 
 like a shuttlecock, and at last got into a perma- 
 nent hideous grin, whether of satisfaction or 
 pain it was impossible to tell ; but it ended by 
 establishing one with us of a less equivocal 
 kind, for we got into a most irrepressible fit of 
 laughter, which I believe broke the spell, and 
 our dread of Gobbo was at length lost in the 
 amusement he afforded us. 
 
 Winchester is a neat, substantial town, with 
 some good cultivation about it : from thence 
 we contmued — without Gobbo — 13 miles to 
 Middlelon to dinner. The crops of Indian corn 
 on the route were good, and the horned cattle 
 larger and in better condition than those I had 
 seen in Maryland ; but they were a mongrel 
 breed, and, indeed, there is nothing like improve- 
 ment visible in this part of the country in any 
 kind of live stock. The Blue Ridge was in 
 sight on our left, and in half an hour after leav- 
 ing Middleton we came abreast of what is call- 
 ed the Massonetto mountain, a singularly beau- 
 tiful elevation of limestone in the shape of a 
 fork, the prongs lying to the north-east and the 
 handle to the south-west, conforming with the 
 general strike of the strata in the Aileghanies. 
 This mountain, which stretches about 70 miles 
 northeast and south-west, sinks at the south 
 into hummocks and slopes. The valley, between 
 the two forks, is somewhat cultivated, as I was 
 informed, and has a small stream running 
 through it, called Passage Greek, which empties 
 into the Shenandoah. Ammonites and trilobites 
 have been procured near this creek The dis- 
 tance of the two prongs from each other, at the 
 north, IS about six miles, and the north and 
 south branches of the Shenandoah run on each 
 side of ihe mountain, which, towards the south- 
 west, is, as I was told, about two miles broad 
 at the top I was further informed, that slates 
 alternated with the limestone in parts of this 
 interesting monument of ancient geological ac- 
 tion, which has thus modified the uniformity of 
 this valley. 
 
 From Middleton to Woodstock, a distance of 
 17 miles, we travelled across the edges of the 
 strata ; the road being altogether upon the bare 
 rocks, and the violent motion of the stage-coach 
 almost past enduring : the country, however, 
 was picturesque ; we had the Massonetto on 
 our left, and a broad ridge of the Aileghanies 
 on our right ; but we were extremely glad to 
 arrive at Woodstock, where we found attentive 
 people and tolerable accommodations. 
 
 At dawn of day we were all in the stage 
 again ; and, after travelling three or four miles, 
 we came to the place called " the Narrow Pas- 
 sage," where the road passes over a natural ter- 
 race of blue compact limestone, with a base 
 about 200 feet wide at the bottom, tapering up 
 to 20 feet in width at the top. On the south 
 cide the wail of this terrace is about 120 feet 
 higli, and is washed at the bottom by the north 
 fork of the Shenandoah, whilst the wall on the 
 north side is only 96 feet high, and is washed 
 by a small creek called Narrow Passage Creek, 
 wliich joins the Shenandoah to the north east 
 of this singular terrace. When standing on the 
 top, the streams on each side can be perceived, 
 and it would be difficult to understand the phe- 
 nomenon without a careful investigction. Hav- 
 
 ing established a good understanding with the 
 driver, he very obligingly gave me, as he called 
 it, "half an hour's law," which enabled me to 
 examine every part of it. After a drive of 13 
 miles we stopped at Mount Jackson to breakfast. 
 This valley is principally settled with Ger- 
 man people, some of whom are quite opulent. 
 The villagers, too, seemed all well to do in the 
 world, and have abundant means of mailing 
 travellers comfortable. It is said, however, 
 they have not always the disposition, being very 
 national, and quite indifferent about those who 
 are not of their race, I found the little Germait 
 which 1 spoke of great advantage to me he.e ; 
 " Wie gehts main lieber," accompanied with a 
 hearty shake of the hand, operated as a talis- 
 man, and we certainly had nothing to complaia 
 of It produced us a good and welcome break- 
 fast at Mount Jackson, at which we were joined 
 by two actors and two actresses, who were giv- 
 ing entertainments to these little German set- 
 tlements, and g-- and concerts, according to their 
 bills. They got into the stage-coai;h after 
 breakfast, and rode with us seven miles to New- 
 market, where they had an engagement to per- 
 form the next day, admittance being 25 cents, 
 or a quarter of a dollar. We found them very 
 civil people, and possessed of a great deal of 
 good sense. They said they succeeded tolera- 
 bly well, that the people were kind to tiiem, and 
 that they managed to save some money. There 
 was also an intelligent sort of person in the 
 stage-coach, who was born in this valley, and 
 was a nephew to one of the richest farmers ; 
 he had had the good fortune, however, to be 
 sent to receive his education at a college ia 
 Pennsylvania, and was now a man of some in- 
 formation. He gave me a deplorable account 
 of the ignorance and superstition of the German 
 settlers of this fine valley, where, according to 
 his account, human dullness could not be car- 
 ried much further. He said, that with few ex- 
 ceptions, they all believed in witchcraft to this 
 day, and that, only last year, the country people 
 refused to come to Mount Jackson with eggs 
 and other products of their farms, because a 
 strange dog, with a wild look, had been hunting 
 in the neighbourhood for some days, and had 
 driven some cattle into the Shenandoah, ft 
 was universally agreed by thein that this dog 
 was the devil ; and a young lawyer, who was 
 not disposed to tranquillize his neighbours, had 
 gone so far as to say that he had met him one 
 evening in his natural shape, with two eyes of 
 flaming fire, and each of them larger than his 
 head. Upon this Hans determined not to stir 
 from home, and the markets continued to be 
 bad as long as the dog was known to be about. 
 Our fellow-passenger also told me. that an old 
 uncle of his, who was worth 80,000 dollars, 
 asked him, when he returned from college, 
 what he had learnt there that he could not have 
 learnt at the German school. His nephew told 
 him, that, amongst other things, he had learnt 
 thai the sun did not go round the world, but 
 that it stood still, and the world went round it. 
 Upon which the old man said, "You dink so, 
 because de beobles at the college tells you so, 
 i)Ul I doesn't dink so, pecause I knows petter, 
 and I ought to know petter" 
 
 In the neighbourhood of Mount Jackson we 
 passed a very beautiful farm, with extensive 
 
TRAVELS IN AxMEKlCA. 
 
 15 
 
 rich low grounds, owned by a Gfrmaii cattle- 
 feeder and drover, of the name of Sternbergor, 
 who is said to be worth 300,000 dollars. These 
 Germans, like their brethren in Pennsylvania, 
 are plodding, frugal persons, who hoard their 
 profits in hard money, entertain a great dislike 
 to bank paper, and a stdl greater to the pay- 
 ment of taxes ; and as their lands are continu- 
 ally increasmg in value, are becoming a very 
 opulent community. Having very little love for 
 their countrymen, the English-talking Ameri- 
 cans, they do not sympathize much with their 
 politics ; and where a German candidate is op- 
 posed to an American, are furious electioneer- 
 ers. In Pennsylvania, where the people of Ger- 
 man origin are very numerous, they control the 
 elections entirely, and have it in their power to 
 put the government into the hands of Germans, 
 which they frequently do with the assistance of 
 a democratic minority of the Americans.* 
 
 Although we are still on the limestone, sand- 
 stone boulders and pebbles begin to abound, 
 evidently the remains of strata once forming an 
 integral part of the adjacent ridges. From 
 Newmarket we continued to Harrisburgh, a 
 distance of 18 miles, where we dined. This is 
 a pretty place, and has a sort of public square 
 with some good houses, but the most agreeable 
 thing I saw was a public spring of excellent 
 water, which they had had the good taste to 
 build a wall around, in the centre of the square. 
 The landlord of the house where we dined was 
 remarkably obliging and attentive — indeed we 
 find them all civil. From hence we proceeded 
 to Mount Crawford, eight miles, in the neigh- 
 bourhood of which there is a spring of water 
 which comes through the sandstone. We ne.xt 
 advanced by a very pretty and nmch less rough 
 road to Mount Sydney, having the Blue Ridge 
 on our left hand, distant about 12 miles. The 
 last stage to-day, still over the liniestone, was 
 to Staunton, nine miles, a good town, where 
 we found a decent inn. Here we were very 
 glad to get some repose after a rough ride. 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 Ascent of the first Alleghany Ridges — A dandy Rattlesnake 
 — Magnificent View across the AUeghaiiies from Warm 
 Springs Mountain— AiFeccing Reception at the Hotel of 
 the Warm Springs. 
 
 We were called at half-past three a.m., pre- 
 paratory to our crossing the Alleghany ridges, 
 on our way to the Warm Springs, distant from 
 lience about 56 miles ; and were tuld we should 
 find the road good, which is always a great 
 comfort where a lady is concerned. Keeping 
 with the limestone to Jennings" Gap — one of 
 those defiles which penetrate these ridges — 12 
 miles, we came to a clean tavern at the foot of 
 the hills, where we got a comfortable breakfast. 
 We now left the limestone valley, which we 
 had followed 130 mi'es, over a succession of 
 beds of limestone and slate, dipping to the east ; 
 and passing the Little North Mountain — which 
 is a sort of advanced-guard of the sandstone 
 lidge called North Mountain — where the land- 
 lord told me coal was found near some springs, 
 
 r * The dishimourahle conduct of the state of Pennsylva- 
 iHia, in relation to the non-payment of its debts, is fairly at- 
 tributable to the Germans 
 
 we came to the main ridge, and entered it at a 
 passage called Walker's Mountain, which has a 
 mean elevation of about 900 feet. The summit 
 is perhaps two miles wide; and is divided agaiit 
 into smaller ridges, with depressions, or valleys 
 and hummocks, imperfectly separating them. 
 The denseness of the woods, the pleasant air, 
 the refreshing cheerfulness of the mountain, 
 streams, and the delight at finding myself once 
 more in the Alleghanies, where I had so oftea 
 wandered, made this a very pleasant day to me. 
 
 Travelling in a public vehicle would seem to 
 present singular impediments to a correct in- 
 vestigation of the geology and natural history 
 of a country, as no doubt it does ; and if I had 
 not been already familiar with the structure of 
 the Alleghany ridges immediately west of the 
 Blue Ridge, I should have regretted the very 
 limited opportunity now afforded me of forming 
 accurate opinions. The general principles, 
 however, of what was already known to me of 
 the structure and direction of this remarkable 
 elevated belt were confirmed by what I saw 
 around. The reddish and grey sandstones of 
 the mountains, the slates and shales that alter- 
 nate with them, the limestones in the valleys, 
 and the general anticlinal structure of the ridg- 
 es, with their strata dipping in contrary direc- 
 tions on each flank, and often rising again, with 
 their imbedded minerals and fossils, on the op- 
 posite side of the valley, sufficiently bespeak 
 the nature of the movement which has raised 
 up these ridges, and left the valleys like fur- 
 rows between them. Indeed, I was delighted 
 to find this mode of travelling not so barren of 
 opportunity, but that I could derive a great de- 
 gree of enjoyment out of every branch of natu- 
 ral history that fell in my way. The roads 
 were by no means good ; the country was 
 mountainous and rocky ; our average pace did 
 not exceed three and a half iniles an hour ; and 
 the stage-coach stopped so often to water and 
 change horses, that we had an opportunity of 
 walking almost whenever we pleased — a privi- 
 lege we were all glad to avail ourselves of 
 
 As we were strolling up a hill, we had the 
 good luck to surprise a young dandy of a rattle- 
 snake, who seemed also to have a geological 
 turn, for he was basking at the mouth of his 
 habitat, a warm reddish sandstone, loaded with, 
 fine impressions of spirifers. His skin had a 
 beautiful velvety appearance, and attracted ad- 
 miration from us all. Poor fellow ! it was the 
 most unlucky day of his life, for it was his last ; 
 so, after making some fight, he gave it up at 
 length, and I bore away eight rattles from the 
 gentleman's tail. 
 
 At the end of 21 miles we reac^hed Clover- 
 dale,- and stopped to dine at a tavern where we 
 met with very civil people, who gave me all the- 
 information they possessed as to the extent of 
 any ridge, about which I inquired, where the 
 rock changed, where limestone was to be seen 
 on the hill-sides, and where in the valleys;, 
 where the mountain springs came through fiee- 
 stone, as they call all sandstones ; where min- 
 eral springs existed — coal, minerals, or any met- 
 als, they were not acquainted with ; whether 
 any fossil bones had been found in caves or oth- 
 er places; any rattlesnakes, any deer, any bears,, 
 any panthers, any wild cats, or any thing queer 
 of any kind whatsoever. To all such inquiries 
 
16 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 they gave rational and obliging answers. It is 
 always well in the traveller to propound ques- 
 tions of this kind, for the explanations he gives 
 to make them comprehend him set them think- 
 ing, and make them more intelligent sources of 
 information to those who succeed him. There 
 is something very delightful, too, in the racy 
 stories of the old hunters you meet in these 
 mountains ; some of which, however, it is quite 
 as well to receive cum grano salis. The travel- 
 ler who takes such an interest in the country 
 he is passing through, gets through it in a friend- 
 ly manner, and gleans a great deal of informa- 
 tion. At this place we had venison for the first 
 time ; hut the haunch was so wretchedly par- 
 boiled, and then put into the oven, which they 
 called roasting, that I was not tempted to taste 
 it, more especially as I saw it was a doe, and 
 had not the least fat upon it ; for the hunters 
 kill everything they meet, even a doe with a 
 fawn running by her side. We were not alone 
 at this venison feast ; a carriage-full of Ameri- 
 can fashionables from one of the large towns 
 assisted at it, and seemed to relish the wretch- 
 ed stuff surprisingly. They gobbled up and 
 praised the tasteless meat, and the country that 
 produced it, as if nothing better could be ima- 
 gined : but it is one of the amiable weaknesses 
 of the cockney part of this patriotic people, that 
 when they have read in English books of the es- 
 timation in which anything is held in England, 
 they invariably believe that what is good in the 
 Mother Country, from civil liberty down to ven- 
 ison, must be better in America ; and so con- 
 trive to make themselves as happy with the 
 shadow of things, as English people do with the 
 reality. 
 
 From this place we proceeded to the Warm 
 springs, 21 miles — a very interesting drive — 
 passing through a valley extremely uneven, 
 with hummocks of limestone here and there, 
 and made agreeable by a great many charming 
 mountain-streams. On its west side we had to 
 cross another ridge at a point called Warm 
 Springs Mountain, hut which was formerly 
 called Jackson's Mountain, after an old settler, 
 whose name is yet preserved in Jackson's Riv- 
 er, the south fork of which rises in the next 
 valley, where the Warm springs are. The mean 
 height of this ridge is about 850 feet, and its 
 summit, like that of Walker's Mountain, is about 
 two miles wide. The road which leads across 
 it, its subordinate ridges, their valleys and hum- 
 mocks, is a very good one, and winds for about 
 five miles from the east to the west base of the 
 mountain. More than two-thirds of this dis- 
 tance being on the east side of the ridge, I 
 walked up it at leisure, and certainly it is dif- 
 ficult to do justice, either with the pencil or 
 language, to the magnificent objects that were 
 continually presenting themselves. Ascending 
 the mountain, a succession of deep precipices 
 and glens presented themselves, environed with 
 dark blue woods and obscure bottoms that no 
 eye could penetrate, the fit habitations of pan- 
 thers and bears ; whilst from the western edge 
 of the summit there was a mighty landscape of 
 the Alleghany ridges, one succeeding to the 
 other, almost without number, until the most 
 distant was shadowed out upon the horizon by 
 a pale and misty magnitude, that invested the 
 whole picture with sublimity, and created an 
 
 impression of grandeur too lofty to be scanned 
 by aught living, save 
 
 " The lordly eagle when from craggy throne 
 He mounts the storm majestic and alone." 
 
 With one of the wheels locked, we commenced 
 the descent of the mountain at speed ; the dri- 
 ver dashed down as if he were mad. The road 
 was g:ood, but curving occasionally, and the 
 precipices were fearful. We had nothing to do 
 but sit still, hold our breath, and believe that if 
 we got down safe it would be very satisfactory. 
 And we did get down safe. In a very few min- 
 utes we exchanged the tranquil and elevated 
 feelings that are inspired by the simple honest 
 dignity of nature, for the distrust which ex- 
 perienced travellers entertain of the obsequi- 
 ously cordial reception which in every country 
 graces their arrival at the hotels of watering- 
 places. 
 
 Until it is determined that you do not go to 
 the rival hotel, the zeal in your service is over- 
 whelming; the landlord brings out his very best - 
 politeness, the waiters grin and bow, and the 
 other harpies stand ready to seize upon your 
 luggage, with an apparent disinterestedness 
 that would induce a novice to suppose that the 
 fable of the Prodigal Son was acting over again. 
 What an expenditure of fine feeling it would 
 cost travellers upon observing how deeply in- 
 terested and concerned about them everybody 
 appears to be, if it were not for the rising doubt 
 that their concern is as to how long you are 
 going to stay, and how much money they are 
 lijiely to get from you ! Covered with dust, and 
 impatient to get out of the stage-coach, we soon 
 announced our intention to stay a few days. 
 Having taken this important step, our luggage 
 was instantly whipped out of sight ; and sup- 
 posing we were following it, we ascended some 
 steps to the portico of a tolerably large hotel. 
 On gaining this, it was a matter that excited 
 our admiration to perceive how suddenly that 
 anxious solicitude, of which we had so lately 
 been the objects, had assumed an abstract po- 
 sition. The landlord had made his bows, the 
 waiters their grimaces, our names had been 
 taken, in limine in libro, and being regularly bag- 
 ged, we were left to provide for ourselves, not 
 a soul coming near us. A fiddle was screaking 
 in one of the rooms ; and we found ourselves 
 on the portico, in the midst of a number of 
 queer-looking ladies, with and without tour- 
 nures, corseted up in all sorts of ways, and 
 their hair dressed in every possible form. The 
 gentlemen, in greater numbers, were chewing, 
 spitting, and smoking, with an ease that evin- 
 ced their superiority, and all staring at us in 
 the most determined manner. Nothing was 
 more certain than that we were out of the 
 woods, had got into fashionable society, and 
 were now going to depend upon the tender 
 mercies of landlords, landladies, and dirty, im- 
 pudent, black waiters. After a good deal of 
 trouble, rooms were assigned to us ; and hav- 
 ing made our toilette and got some refreshment, 
 we entered the public parlour for awhile, to take 
 a look at those who had done us the favour to 
 stare at us on our arrival ; and being soon sat- 
 isfied, retired to get some repose after a fatigu- 
 ing day's journey. 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 17 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A Virginia Hotel iu the Mountains — A dancing Land.oru — 
 Incomparable beauty of the Warm Baths— Their gaseous 
 and solid contents — The Hot Springs — Curioas effect 
 produced upon them by an Earthquake— Geological Struc- 
 ture of the Ridges — View of the AUeghanies and the 
 Warm Springs Valley. 
 
 Having risen much refreshed at the dawn of 
 day, I went to the Thermal bath, and was so 
 struck with the luxury of this unrivalled phe- 
 nomenon, and with the general beauty of the 
 valley and the adjacent neighbourhood, that I 
 determined to remain at least a week. During 
 this period I was very diligent in investigating 
 everything around me, and committing my ob- 
 servations to my note book, all of which were 
 transferred to my journal the day preceding my 
 departure, which was on the 12lh of the month. 
 To avoid a formal entry of the proceedings of 
 each day, I shall now give a general narrative 
 of what 1 observed, both of the manners of the 
 place and the structure of the country, with an 
 account of the rare thermal waters of this inter- 
 esting place. 
 
 And first as to what is personal. Of the ho- 
 tel at the Warm springs not much is to be said 
 in commendation. It is kept by an old inhabi- 
 tant of the valley, a Col. Fry, a very worthy per- 
 sonage, who is much respected here, as he re- 
 ally deserves to be. He has a son, a very obli- 
 ging sort of person, who assists him in the man- 
 agement of the hotel, and both father and son 
 are not wanting in attention to their guests, es- 
 pecially to the ladies. These two excellent 
 persons are devoured by a passion for dancing, 
 and it used to be my great delight, on my re- 
 turn from excursions in the mountains, to goto 
 the ball-room in the evening to witness the ad- 
 mirable performances of Col. Fry with his old 
 lower extremities. The house is an awkward, 
 ill-finished, ill-furnished building, with all the 
 pretension of a well-established hotel in an old 
 settled country. The black domestics corre- 
 spond with the furniture and everything else. 
 There is a long dining-room with a low ceiling, 
 a small public parlour not capable of containing 
 one-fourth of the company, and a few moderate- 
 sized bed-rooms, in which families are accom- 
 modated indifferently enough. Wood cabins, 
 out of the house, are provided for single people. 
 The portico is the greatest comfort about the 
 place, being long and roomy, and affording a 
 comfortable walk for invalids and ladies in the 
 evening. The number of servants is quite in- 
 adequate to the crowd of company that is some- 
 times assembled there, and there is an eternal 
 bawlmg going on both in the house and at the 
 doors of the cabins, before breakfast and dinner, 
 from those who have no servants of their own. 
 "Waiter, there ain't not a drop of water in my 
 pitcher." " Waiter, who under arth has taken 
 the towel out of my chummberV "Waiter, I 
 swar you've brought me two odd boots ; one's 
 considerable too little, and the t'other's the most 
 almighty big thing what I never seed." One 
 night there was quite a row out of doors, as late 
 as eleven; somebody had abstracted all the pil 
 lows from a whole line of cabins, if such pin 
 cushions may be called by that name, when a 
 Kenluckian won a bet that he would put nine 
 of them into his coat pocket. At length, how 
 ever, they were found under the maitrass of 
 some one who had probably fancied his bed 
 C 
 
 was hard, and who had gone off in an early 
 stage coach. But the awful hour of the whole 
 twenty-four is that when dinner is announced, 
 and when the grand movement of ladies and 
 heir beaux takes place to the dining-room. 
 There a very good regulation prevails : your 
 name is put on your plate, so that your seat is 
 reserved and no one has a right to take it. The 
 last comers to the hotel are placed at the bot- 
 tom of "the table, and as the rest of the company 
 departs are " promoted" higher up towards the 
 top. 
 
 During our promotion we had many neigh- 
 bours and sat opposite to various persons, some 
 of whom were polite and mieresling, others 
 very much the reverse, just as it occurs in al- 
 most every situation in this world. The effect 
 of this constant movement was to bring us at 
 last to the very head of the company, and place 
 me next to the good-natured and fat landlady, 
 who did the honours of that eternal mass of ba- 
 con which is always the head dish at a Virginia 
 table. Besides this huge dish of bacon, which 
 left no room for anything else above, there were 
 the hams of the fat landlady and their appen- 
 dages, which on account of the narrowness of 
 the table were equally in my way below. The 
 meats, which were abundant, were so horribly 
 ruined in the cooking that it was exceedingly 
 difficult to guess what they were composed of. 
 There M'as, however, always a joint of mutton 
 or meagre venison, which Col. Fry, who was 
 very appropriately dressed in a blue check pina- 
 fore with sleeves to it, carved at a side-table. 
 The pastry was good and abundant, with plen- 
 ty of excellent milk, and lumps of beautiful 
 transparent ice to put into it, a luxury which is 
 universal in the pleasant state of Virginia from, 
 the mansion of the hospitable planter down to 
 the humblest cottage. As to the servants, they 
 were few in number and bad ; they were all 
 slaves, running up and down the sides of the 
 tables to change plates and serve water to the 
 guests, as rapidly as if they were on horseback, 
 endeavouring to make up by activity for want 
 of numbers, never stopping when they were 
 called to, and giving you no chance of catching 
 one but by sticking a fork into him. I was not 
 often present at tli.is ceremony, hut was told it 
 was the same thing every day. Col. Fry always 
 officiating as high-priest in his blue check robes 
 at the side-table, skipping from it to change the 
 ladies' plates, and if any one of them rose from 
 the dinner table to leave the room, he was in- 
 stantly at her side, armed with the carving-knife 
 in his right hand, and presenting his left arm ia 
 his most insinuating manner to conduct her to 
 the door. This extreme politeness not having 
 yet travelled to the Ohio, tickles the Kentucky 
 ladies wonderfully, and they are said to rise of- 
 ten from the table for the sake of being escorted 
 by the martial chief carver and his carving-knife 
 of state. 
 
 There was another exhibition at this house at 
 which I was frequently present, as it took place 
 in the evening, when my excursions were over. 
 After supper it is the custom at the Warm 
 Springs to adjourn to a place called the Ball- 
 room, which has a few wooden benches round 
 it, and one fiddler. This performer is a Paga- 
 nini in his way, for the great Italian played on 
 one string, and this man plays on one tune, for 
 
18 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 it was always the same. Lol. Fry takes the 
 most especial delight in this tune ; he is never 
 known to be tired of it, and with the exception 
 of his son, prides himself upon being the very 
 first gambado in Virginia. He certainly is the 
 most extraordinary dancing tavern-keeper I have 
 seen. Both father and son piquing themselves 
 on their politeness, no sooner is the business 
 of eating over for the day, than they transform 
 themselves every evening into masters of the 
 ceremonies; every lady as she enters the ball- 
 room is whipped up by one of them and dragged 
 to one of the benches, a proceeding which is 
 somewhat amusing the first evening of a lady's 
 arrival, when she does not know who they are 
 or what they are going to do with her. As 
 soon as enough are assembled to make a qua- 
 drille, the Fry firm pounce upon two of the last 
 comers to the hotel, refuse to take " No" for 
 an answer, and literally haul their partners to 
 the dance. Then commences the glory of Col. 
 Fry and his son, in the profound solemnity of 
 his bows, the indescribable flourislies they both 
 make with their legs, and the unremitting at- 
 tention they give to every minutia of the dance. 
 If the lady to whom the Colonel is dancing 
 should be talking to her next neighbour, and 
 does not commence an instantaneous fluttera- 
 tion with her lower extremities, the Colonel 
 skips to her side and raises a preposterous clap- 
 ping close to her ears with the palms of his 
 hands, so that in the course of the first quadrille 
 he brings them to such a state of discipline, that 
 they become as much afraid of him as if he was 
 one of the bears of his own mountains; and 
 when he seizes them by both hands to give 
 them one of his grand whisks round, they sub- 
 mit with all the resignation of a bird in the tal- 
 ons of a hawk. The Colonel loves to hear his 
 son praised, and admits that he dances the 
 modern style better than himself; "but," says 
 the Colonel, " I do more work with my legs 
 than he does, and at any rate he can't spring so 
 high." 
 
 These peculiarities in an innkeeper appear 
 very odd to those to whom they are altogether 
 new, but the Virginians are accustomed to these 
 manners, and estimate tliese accomplishments 
 in the landlord highly. The truth is, that he is 
 a very worthy, obliging man, and lived here 
 when visiters could hardly get accommodations 
 of any kind ; so that, being the sole dispenser 
 of all comforts, he has been at all times the 
 most important personage on the spot. Indeed, 
 it behoves every one who is passing through an 
 unsettled district to have some deference for 
 the landlord, especially if there is no other house 
 within twenty or thirty miles ; the host feels 
 this his advantage over the traveller, and thus 
 a custom, the reverse of that which obtains in 
 the towns, has grown up in the interior of Amer- 
 ica, of the guests paying attention to the landlord, 
 instead of the landlord paying attention to the 
 guests. 
 
 Whilst here I became acquainted with the 
 resident physician, Dr. Strother, a man of good 
 sense, and whom I should think a safe medical 
 adviser. From him I obtained a great deal of 
 interesting information regarding many locali- 
 ties in the neighbourhood, and always found his 
 conversation instructive and agreeable. It is 
 very important to those who use these warm 
 
 springs as a bath to consult this able physician, 
 as many persons have injured themselves by a 
 too free use of them. Considering how sur- 
 prisingly beautiful and luxurious they are, this 
 is not surprising. They rise through the lime- 
 stone in a marshy piece of ground, partly over- 
 flowed by the south fork of Jackson's River,. 
 which heads about three miles N.E. up the val- 
 ley. Over the main bath a rough octagonal 
 building has been raised, open at the top : the 
 diameter of the bath at the bottom is about 
 thirty-five feet, and the average depth is about 
 five feet. When you enter the door of the 
 building you feel a heat equal to that of a for- 
 cing-house, but you soon lose all consciousness 
 of it in the contemplation of what is before 
 you. First, you are struck with the unrivalled 
 beauty of the water, which is so enchantingly 
 pellucid, that you think you never saw any 
 water so diaphanous before, not even the wa- 
 ters of the Rhone where they issue from the 
 Lake of Geneva. Then the gaseous matter, 
 which keeps the water in a constant playful 
 state of ebullition, sometimes sending up streams 
 of large bubbles, then firing off a feu de joie in a 
 perfect shower of smaller ones. Enter when 
 you will, it is playing and sparkling like a vast 
 reservoir of champagne, and you would be never 
 satisfied with looking on and admiring this un- 
 rivalled spectacle, and would continue for hours- 
 to look and admire, if the perspiration trickling 
 down your face did not remind you that such a 
 hot place was not made to remain all day in. 
 But what words can do justice to the luxury of 
 plunging into and playing about in this pool of 
 perfect delight 1 Next i;o Champagne frappe de 
 glace, which is certainly the most glorious in- 
 vention after a hot day's hard geological work, 
 I think this water, frappe de chukur, is the great- 
 est enjoyment in the world, to any one who, 
 rising with the dawn, has been occupied until 
 noon wading through a burning sun, climbing 
 the rugged mountain's side, hammering rocks, 
 poking his half-willing hand — doubtful of the 
 rattle-snake — into holes after snail shells, and 
 who has had to trudge back with his pockets 
 and hands full of specimens, and with feet and 
 arms equally tired. It would be difficult for 
 him to imagine aught that could rival this ex- 
 traordinary bath, where the temperature is 
 about 98° Fahr., and where streams of gas go 
 gently creeping over his body, as if little fishes 
 were nibbling at him; where he has ample 
 room to flounder about, and entertains no ap- 
 prehensions of a cold shock when he jumps in, 
 or of cold air when he jumps out. 
 
 I was careful, however, never to pass more 
 than fifteen minutes in it ; that period was suf- 
 ficient to refresh me, and instead of being sleepy 
 and heavy after I came out, I felt more lively 
 and ready for conversation than at any other 
 time. It was fortunate, too, that my leisure 
 hour was the only one during the morning when 
 I could have the large bath to myself. From 
 four in the morning this bath was appropriated 
 every alternate two hours to the two sexes. I 
 was told that sometimes twenty women would 
 be in it altogether, and fine fun no doubt they 
 had, if one might judge from the laughter and 
 noise that proceeded from the place at such 
 times. The men, too, are not less gregarious, 
 and thus convert the most delicate of luxuries 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 19 
 
 into a state of things almost as bad, I should 
 suppose, as that in the Penitentiary. Old sick 
 men, young boys, husbands of charming wives, 
 fathers of beautiful daughters, all in the same 
 pickle together, mingling with the most extra- 
 ordinary lookmg tobacco-chewing, expectora- 
 ting, and villainous looking nondescripts. Where 
 are the waters that could undefile a man after 
 coming out of such a polluted liquid ! When I 
 was not so fortunate as to find tlie public bath 
 vacant, I used to secure a more modest bath 
 adjacent to the large one, in a very nice, and 
 not a very small private place, where you are 
 privileged to be alone. 
 
 The marshy ground in which these baths are 
 situated, contains in the three or four acres 
 which it comprehends, a prodigious variety of 
 springs, differing perhaps in nothing but their 
 temperature, which varies a little. Myriads of 
 bubbles are rising in every part of the brook, 
 which will no doubt be enclosed at some future 
 day to increase the number of baths. Near to 
 the modest bath a spring has been enclosed, 
 which is called the " Drinkmg Spring :"' this 
 has been rudely fitted up for the visitors to re- 
 sort to, and is said to be used medicinally with 
 success. The temperature is somewhat lower 
 than that of the large bath, being 94" Fahr , and 
 it evolves a slight quantity of sulphuretted hy- 
 drogen, which is not very disagreeable, leaving 
 a taste in the mouth not stronger than that which 
 IS produced by the albumen of a boiled egg. The 
 gaseous contents of these waters were princi- 
 pally nitrogen, carbonic acid, and a little sul- 
 pliuretted hydrogen.* The soluble salts are 
 carbonate, and sulphate of lime with magnesia. 
 Small crystals of sulphate of magnesia are some- 
 times found attached to stones where the spray 
 of the water has beaten, and a great deposit 
 of carbonate of lime mixed with a small propor- 
 tion of sulphate is made wherever ilie stream 
 runs, for, in proportion as it becomes exposed to 
 the air, the carbonic acid forsakes the lime, 
 which is then precipitated. Lower down. Where 
 the public road crosses the stream, this calca- 
 rous deposit is very considerable, and I'orms a 
 body of travertine upon which you can walk 
 across the stream. 
 
 During my residence at this place I walked 
 over to V\^e Hot-springs, about five miles distant, 
 in a south-western direction, dovvn the same 
 valley. About half a mile on the road there is 
 a well-defined gap to the right through the Back- 
 water Mountain ; and here it is evident from 
 the scooping out of the bottom, that when the 
 waters anciently' retired from this district, the 
 ^stream that has contributed to the denudation 
 of the valley has deflected, and caused the gap 
 through which the road to Huntersville now runs. 
 About four and a half miles from this is anoth- 
 er very picturesque gap, scooped, as it were, 
 out of the mountain, the slopes of which have a 
 graceful inclination to the bottom. This gap 
 is the termination of a short valley of about 
 S-'iOO yards, that here intersects the main val- 
 ley, which, together with the high road, it cross- 
 es at right angles. In this short valley are the 
 boi-spriMgs, with a small hotel for the reception 
 of persons who come for the benefit of the vva- 
 
 * Dr. Daubeny, of Oxford, who visited the warm s\ 
 in 1838, found the gaseous contents to consist of % 
 ge.fi, 6 carbonic acid, and 4 oxygen. 
 
 ters. To the left of the road, as you approach 
 the hotel, are several warm springs, as well as 
 a most delicious cold one ; but the Hot-springs, 
 which are used as baths, lie to the right, imme- 
 diately in front of the hotel. A new circular 
 bath has been recently constructed here, with a 
 diameter of more than thirty feet, but it pos- 
 sesses little of that natural beauty which is so 
 striking in the principal bath at the warm 
 springs, although the water is very transparent. 
 It is also inferior in another respect ; Dr. Goode, 
 the proprietor, having by a great oversight omit- 
 ted to enclose several very copious springs, 
 with their beautiful jets of gas quite adjacent 
 to the others, and having in their place enclosed 
 a quantity of dead ground. The temperature 
 was 94°, but would no doubt have been higher 
 but for this mistake, which has shut out at least 
 one hundred points of ebullition ; for in a con- 
 tiguous bath, called the Spout Bath, from its be- 
 ing brought a short distance in a spout, and. 
 made to fall from it into a reservoir, the tem- 
 perature was 102° Fahr. These waters appear 
 to be identical with each other as to their con- 
 stitutents, they all produce travertine, and have 
 a different proportion of carbonic acid from that 
 in the waters of the Warm springs.* To the 
 east of the road there is a singularly charming 
 water, such as I have never met with before. 
 It is collected in a section of hollow tree, called 
 a gum (because the Hquid-ambar styracifliia, or 
 gum-tree, is generally used for this purpose),^ 
 which is sunk in the ground; and, although it 
 possesses a temperature of 101° Fahr., it has 
 the property of quenching thirst as well as cool 
 water, at least it produced that effect upon me. 
 Being warmed with my walk, and hearing Dr. 
 Goode talk of a fine spring of cool water risincr 
 amidst the other springs which were all hot, 
 my imagination was dwelling upon this cool 
 spring long before we reached it ; but having 
 tasted the water in the gum first, I found it so 
 agreeable that I drank three glasses of it, and 
 allayed my thirst so perfectly, that I had no de-. 
 sire to drink from the cool spring when we 
 reached it; and, indeed, feeling thirsty again 
 before I went away, I hesitated for some time 
 which of the two I should prefer, and was final- 
 ly so pleased with the recollection of the warm 
 water that I gave it the preference, and was 
 very well satisfied that I had done so. This 
 was the first time I ever supposed warm water 
 could produce any effect upon me but that of an 
 emetic. This is, probably, a very valuable wa- 
 ter, of which time will disclose the great prop- 
 erties ; it is agreeable to the palate, and can.be.' 
 taken into the stomach in large quantitits wrtE^ 
 out disgust or inconvenience. It (>^s an ai^ree- 
 able chalybeate flavour. ah'J is slightly acidula- 
 ted with carbonic acid ; and I understand from 
 the proprietor that the country people admired 
 It as much as I had done, and that it had ob- 
 tained the name of the Sweet Spring. Very 
 near to this rises the cool spring, coming through 
 the limestone with a temperature of 60° Fahr 
 It is a very pure water, and is called the Free- 
 stone ^Spring, a very common name given to 
 rock springs. 
 
 Whilst I was standing at this spring with Dr 
 Goode, he related to me that during the last 
 
 * Dr. Daubeny examined these waters, and found the 
 gaseous matter to be composed of 6 oxygen and 94 nitrogen. 
 
20 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 summer, when sitting one day over the gum — 
 •which usually is full to within two inches — the 
 •water in it suddenly rose in a body and over- 
 flowed its edges ; this it continued to do for about 
 two minutes, when a violent ebullition of gas 
 commenced which lasted three or four minutes 
 more. The water now, from a pure transparent 
 state, became suddenly turbid, and remained so 
 for some time. Struck with this unusual phe- 
 nomenon he left the gum, and went to the baths 
 to see if the waters were disturbed there also, 
 but there was no apparent change, and he found 
 no reason to believe that the otlier waters had 
 been at all disturbed. At his return to the gum 
 he found the waters clear again, and at the or- 
 dinary level. The phenomenon had never been 
 repeated. Some time after this, looking into a 
 newspaper, he read, that on the very day, and 
 at the hour he observed this disturbance, a se- 
 vere earthquake had been felt in the central 
 parts of Virginia. As I remembered this earth- 
 quake very distinctly, I noted Dr. Goode's day 
 and hour, and on my return consulted my Jour- 
 nal of last year, and found that, being on a visit 
 "With rny soi» to Mr. Madison, the ex-president, 
 at his seat of Montpelier, in Orange County, 
 Virginia, we made an excursion into the Coun- 
 ty of Louisa, and passed a nigiit at the house 
 of a worthy gentleman named Halliday, who 
 related to us that the earthquake took place 
 precisely at the time -when Dr. Goode noted the 
 disturbance of the spring; that the movement 
 ■was sensibly felt upon his plantation and in his 
 house, and created a general dismay in the 
 neighbourhood. It was the subject of conver- 
 sation a long time after its occurrence, and hav- 
 ing collected information respecting it from 
 other quarters, Mr. Halliday thought he was 
 ■warranted in believing that his own residence 
 •was a sort of central point, towards which all 
 the rumblings converged that had been heard 
 from within fifteen miles of his plantation. He 
 had taken up the idea that the phenomenon did 
 not proceed from a cause acting subterraneous- 
 ly, but that it had its origin in the atmosphere, 
 and was of the nature of a discharge of electric 
 matter. A very long drought had succeeded 
 to a very rainy season, that had lasted five 
 •weeks. This was the same year that the great 
 meteoric discharge took place in November, 
 1833, and which, though silent as the play of 
 the Aurora Borealis, was singularly brilliant 
 and copious at Fredericsburg, in Virginia, where 
 I happened to be at the time. 
 
 In regard to the geological structure of this 
 part of the country, most of these ridges have 
 an anticlinal structure exceedingly disturbed, 
 the order of superposition of the rocks being 
 sandstone, limestone, and slate. In many parts 
 the most important beds have been carried away. 
 as appears to have been the case at the Warm 
 Springs Mountain, where there is sufficient evi- 
 dence that the surface of the country was much 
 higher at the first heaving up of this mountain ; 
 the rocks in many places dipping to the east al- 
 most vertically, whilst across they dip to the 
 ■west, showing that those which covered the in- 
 tervening space must have been rent asunder 
 by the movement. The limestone of the Warm 
 .Springs Valley appears to be of the age of that 
 which I had so long followed, of the Valley of 
 Shenandoah, and it is through this that the 
 
 thermal waters arise, in consequence of the 
 vent which has been given to them by the 
 mighty upheaval and removal of this mass of 
 mineral matter. In this Valley of the Warm 
 Springs, about a quarter of a mile .''rom the ho- 
 tel, up a road on the left of the ascent of the 
 Warm Springs Mountain in a N.E. direction, is 
 a limestone bed containing fine impressions of 
 producta, closely resembling P. Martini, with 
 flustra, cyathophyllum, cellepora, astrea, &c., 
 and I found specimens from this rock so much 
 resembling those of the Dudley limestone in 
 England, and of other calcareous rocks near 
 Lake Erie, that both from the character of the 
 fossils and the interesting groups which are 
 presented, they would seem to be equivalents. 
 
 From the pinnacle of the Warm Springs 
 Mountain (distant about 3000 feet from the toll- 
 house at the summit of the road), which is, per- 
 haps, about 1100 feet from the valley, and which 
 is formed by a heap of white quartzose sand- 
 stone, there is a splendid and most instructive 
 series of views of the Alleghany ridges. The 
 view to the east is very magnificent, but I se- 
 lected that to the west in order to include the 
 Warm Springs Valley, which is analogous, ac- 
 cording to its extent, to the other valleys which 
 respectively separate the ridges ; and my son 
 made a sketch, which very faithfully represents 
 the character of the landscape. The view 
 across the mountains extends, perhaps, forty 
 miles, the various ridges all appearing very dis- 
 tinctly, holding a parallel course to each other 
 from N.N.E. to N.E., with the exception of a 
 few irregular and transverse ridges that lie 
 across the valleys in some parts of the country ; 
 these have generally passages or gaps — as they 
 are here called — at one end or the other, or in 
 the centre, unless one or more large gaps di- 
 vide the ridges at some point adjacent to them. 
 
 These gaps are numerous and picturesque, 
 and it frequently happens that when the geolo- 
 gist has been strolling for miles in some narrow 
 valley hemmed in by ridges 600 or 800 feet 
 high, he comes upon one of them wide at the top 
 with a graceful slope, and a talus of detritus to 
 the bottom, like the gap of the Backwater 
 Ridge, which confines the Valley of the Warm 
 Springs to the west, and which suddenly opens, 
 and gives an ample and beautiful peep upon a 
 heavy ridge, which has the distinctive name of 
 the Alleghany Mountain, and sometimes the 
 Backbone Ridge, from its being a watershed for 
 the sources of rivers that flow from its west 
 flank to empty into the Gulf of Mexico, and 
 from its east flank to empty into the Atlantic 
 Ocean. , 
 
 It is through these gaps that the waters have 
 probably escaped which retired from the dis- 
 tricts when these ridges were upheaved from 
 the ocean, the channels by which they retired 
 being most likely governed by the relative soft- 
 ness of the strata. The temperature in these 
 valleys is, of course, much higher than on the 
 ridges. On the 8th of August I observed it at 
 nine o'clock a.m., on the pinnacle of the Warm 
 Springs Mountain, at 74°, whilst, by a corre- 
 sponding observation, made in the valley, it 
 was 88° Fahr. At that elevation the westerly 
 winds have their freshness unchanged by the 
 radiation and reflection of heat below, and are, 
 as I have often experienced on sultry days, per- 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 21 
 
 fecfly refreshing. One day, whilst I was sit- 
 ting on one of liie h)fliest peaks enjoying the 
 grandeur of the view, a humuiing-bird flew past 
 me, the only one I saw at that height. Land- 
 shells also are very scarce at this elevation : I 
 found some helices, however, in a cleft of the 
 white sandstone at the top of the ridge. The 
 pines are scrubby at these summits, and the 
 Calmia latifolia and the Vaccinium frondosum 
 or whortleberry, are found at the highest points. 
 The other plants on tiie slopes of the ridges are 
 chestnut, hickory, walnut, (Juglans), linden, lo- 
 cust (Robinia pseudo-acacia), and oaks red and 
 white. The flies that frequent the tops of the 
 ridges are a very large-sized variety. I met 
 with no snakes except the rattle-snake before 
 mentioned. Animals of chase are rarely found 
 in this part of the country except when mast is 
 plentiful. The bears and deer have generally 
 retreated to situations where man does not tor- 
 ment them so much, and only return when food 
 is scarce in their own districts, and when chest- 
 nuts and the acorns of the white oak, of which 
 the deer are fond, abound here. At such times 
 the panther {Fdis discolor), comes for the same 
 reason, not because he eats chestnuts, but be- 
 cause he knows that he shall find deer there. 
 The sportsmen and dogs in the neighbourhood 
 are out of all proportion to the game, and the 
 few deer that remain alive in the vicinity are so 
 worried by the dogs, that their meat is thin and 
 not worth eating. Bears are verv seldom seen. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The celebrated White Sulphur Springs — Mr. Anderson, a 
 character — Description of this Watering Place — Beauty 
 of tJie Alleghany Mountain — Our various adventures at 
 a Blacksmith's Boarding-house and Alabama Row — An 
 old Lady makes a double somerset — Our removal to 
 Compulsion Row. 
 
 On the 12th of August, a little after 4 a.m„ 
 we all got into the stage-coach for the White 
 Sulphur Springs, the great point of attraction 
 to all visitors to these mountains. At the end 
 of six miles we came to a gradual descent 
 through a very romantic woodland ravine, which 
 lasted eight miles, to Shoemates, where we 
 breakfasted. From this place to Callahan's, 13 
 miles, a sort of outlying mountain is crossed, 
 formed of a decomposing sandstone, which is 
 in some places very ferruginous ; this rock co- 
 heres so little, that at the summit of the hill the 
 sand is quite deep. Callahan's tavern is in a 
 very agreeable valley basin, and has that lofty 
 ridge, which is specially called Alleghany 
 Mountain, in front. The house is neat, and 
 promises some comfort, having a spring of deli- 
 clous cool water near to it. The next stage 
 of 1-5 miles lies for the greater part over the 
 Alleghany Mountain just mentioned, which ap- 
 peared to consist principally of slate and fissile 
 sandstone. On the summit I found fossiliferous 
 sandstone in place, with the usual spirlfers, en- 
 crlni, &c. The trees on this ridge are well 
 grown, and here, as well as in most of these 
 mountains, I observed that the ridges on then- 
 slopes are not craggy, but are covered with a 
 strong productive arable soil, capable of yield- 
 ing 40 hu«hels of Indian corn to the acre. Oc- 
 casionally I have observed fields of this corn at 
 
 an elevation of 700 feet above the valleys, and 
 when these slopes are worked with horizontal 
 ploughing along the sides of the ridges, the soil 
 is not carried away by the rains, as In the red 
 lands of the central counties of Virginia, where 
 vertical ploughing is practised, which creates 
 gulleys and chasms so broad as to lead in many 
 instances to the abandonment of the land. This, 
 therefore, will make a good grazing country in 
 time, and maintain a large population. At pres- 
 ent, lands in a state of nature, not distant from 
 the main roads, can be obtained at from three 
 to five dollars an acre, when in accessible situ- 
 ations ; at greater distances large tracts may 
 be obtained for 50 cents, and even as low as 
 sixpence sterling an acre, the parties in whom 
 the title lies living at a distance, and wishing 
 to sell it at any price rather than pay taxes for 
 what they derive no benefit frotn. For a long 
 period the farmers of this part of the country 
 will be obliged to pack all their agricultural pro- 
 ductions into the shape of hogs and cattle capa- 
 ble of carrying themselves to market, but there 
 are many things — if managed with prudence 
 and skill — would repay the exertions of active 
 men ; fine wools, fat sheep, fat cattle, and even 
 good tobacco, I am persuaded might be raised 
 here. If the rocky surfaces and uncertain eU- 
 mate of New Hampshire, and some parts of 
 Connecticut and New York, afford a hearty 
 subsistence to industry, and permit prudent 
 men to bring up large families in a happy and 
 honourable manner, certainly these fertile and 
 salubrious hills inight do the same. 
 
 We had heard from various persons at the 
 Warm Springs, who knew the place we were 
 going to, many rutnours relating to the White 
 Sulphur Springs, which— notwithstanding their 
 great celebrity at a distance — were of an un- 
 promising character ; we had been told that the 
 establishment was full to repletion — that all 
 persons were refused accommodation, whatever 
 their respectability might be, unless they brought 
 horses and carriages with them to augment the 
 sum total of expenditure. Any little lawyer or 
 storekeeper in Virginia, by rigging out a dirty 
 old vehicle, and travelling with it at the rate of 
 25 miles a day, could, we were assured, gel in; 
 whilst those who came in the stage-coach only 
 got out, for the sober truth was, that if they 
 would not receive you, there was no other place 
 to go to. Persons, therefore, of the greatest 
 worth, seeking relief from the waters, and who 
 came in the stage-coach because they would 
 not destroy a good equipage and horses in a 
 long journey of five or six hundred miles, were 
 said to be turned away without ceremony, or 
 directed to farm-houses in the neighbourhood, 
 under strong promises to provide quarters for 
 them the next day ; and were thus kept de die 
 in diem with renewed promises and lying excu- 
 ses until their patience was exhausted. In ad- 
 dition to this, we were told that if you did get 
 In, you were poisoned and embittered by a filth, 
 a confusion, a want of common honesty, and a 
 total want of personal comfort, that rendered 
 the days and nights equally horrible. 
 
 We were ill prepared for such a state of things, 
 for our friend Colonel Fry had certainly done 
 his best for us both in the way of comfort and 
 dancing, and we had left him with the kindliest 
 feelings. On our approach to the White Sul- 
 
22 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 ■phur Springs, therefore, my mind was some- 
 what disturbed as to what our fate would be. I 
 had a lady with me who was an invahd, and 
 who had come expressly to drink the waters, 
 and I began to be afraid of meeting with diffi- 
 culties beyond my control. It was true I had 
 taken the precaution to write to a well-known 
 friend who had gone there in his carriage, and 
 with his own horses, and who was supposed to 
 have great influence with the proprietor, Mr. 
 Caldwell. I had therefore a friend at court, 
 and that friend had written to me that Mr. An- 
 derson, the prime minister of the proprietor, 
 had promised to provide accommodations for us 
 against our arrival. But unfortunately I had 
 heard a great deal of Mr. Anderson at the Warm 
 Springs ; the impartial world there seemed dis- 
 posed to agree in doing him justice, and a lady 
 from Kentucky, whom he had not been too at- 
 tentive to, told me that " if Anderson vvarn't 
 the biggest liar that ever was to belong to Vir- 
 ginny, then there was a great one to be born 
 yet." The stage-coach in which we were was 
 full of people, agitated by the same hopes and 
 fears as ourselves, all anxious to get the first 
 interview with this Mr. Anderson, a personage 
 now grown into the highest importance with 
 us all ; when, unluckily, as we were approach- 
 ing the place, another stage-coach whipped 
 past us full of people, which threw us all in de- 
 spair, and we suspended for the moment our 
 secret contrivances to anticipate each other, to 
 unite in reproaches against our driver for per- 
 mitting the other coach to pass us. 
 
 The moment our vehicle stopped I jumped 
 out, and immediately found a group of people 
 talking to a person who was answering the va- 
 rious eager inquiries they were putting to him. 
 This was a short, thick-set fellow, with a filthy 
 black hat hanging on one side of his head, at an 
 angle of about 45°, his garments as unpromis- 
 ing as his beaver, his arms a-kimbo, and his 
 whole appearance vivified with a fierce, cool, 
 and brazen-faced strut, that made a perfect 
 character of him. I had been cherishing some 
 faint hope that the great Mr. Anderson, the 
 Metternich of this wonderful establishment, 
 might have a touch of the gentleman in him, 
 and be disposed to assist me in my need : this 
 animal, thought I, cannot be Mr. Anderson ; hut, 
 considering the levee about this matchless in- 
 dividual, my mind somewhat misgave me, and 
 I doubtingly inquired of him where I could see 
 Mr. Anderson 1 The answer was not long in 
 coming, and to my somewhat dismay, I heard 
 the important declaration, " I reckon I am Mr. 
 Anderson." I then mentioned my name and 
 the reasons I had for supposing that an apart- 
 ment had been reserved for me ; upon which, 
 without the least circumlocution, he said, " Look 
 ye. Mister, I han't room for a cat, to say no- 
 thing about your family." If ever individuals 
 ■were in " a considerable particular fix," we now 
 might claim to be in the rare situation which 
 would ^deserve so felicitous a paraphrase, for 
 the driver of the stage-coach having thrown 
 our luggage on the ground, ordered my family 
 to get out, as he was going to take his vehicle 
 away : here, then, we were without friends or 
 lodgings, or sympathy from any one. Address- 
 ing myself to this Anderson again, I told him 
 we had been induced to come on, by assurances 
 
 that he had engaged to procure us lodgings, 
 and that he must do it, for we could not stay 
 out of doors all night. The fellow now advised 
 me to go to a house two miles distant until the 
 morning, when he said he would do his veiy 
 best for me, admitting that much interest had 
 been used to procure lodgings for us in the es- 
 tablishment, and assuring me that he had the 
 best dispositions to serve me. The question 
 was now how to get to this house, and whilst 
 I was endeavouring to arrange this, a little lame 
 man, witii a very Jewish face — who seemed to 
 belong to the establishment, and who hobbled 
 about with a stick — brought an unshaven but 
 civil spoken man to me, who said his name 
 was Servoy, that he lived only half a mile from 
 the Springs, in a cottage I had observed as we 
 drove up, and that he would accommodate us 
 with a room to ourselves until we removed to 
 the Springs. 1 immediately closed with this 
 offer. Mr. Servoy undertook to procure a sort 
 of carriage to convey us to his place, and whilst 
 these matters were arranging I took an oppor- 
 tunity of looking around me with a mind some- 
 what more at ease, which I was too busy to do 
 before, even if I had not been prevented by a 
 dense crowd, principally composed of dirty, 
 spitting, smoking, queer-looking creatures, that 
 had assembled upon our arrival. 
 
 The establishment of the White Sulphur 
 Springs seemed to consist of a pack of unprom- 
 sing-looking huts, or cabins, as they are called, 
 surrounding an oblong square, with a foot walk 
 in the centre, railed off from a grassy plot on 
 each side of it. At the entrance into the estab- 
 lishment — which has very much the air of a 
 permanent Methodist camp-meeting — you have 
 on the left a miserable-looking sort of barrack, 
 badly constructed of wood, with a dilapidated 
 portico. Nothing can exceed the frowsy ap- 
 pearance of this building, which contains the 
 grand dining saloon, where daily between three 
 and four hundred persons assemble to a kind of 
 scramble for breakfast, dinner, and supper. A 
 few of the cabins had a comfortable-looking ap- 
 pearance, and these were the private property 
 of genteel families residing in various parts of 
 Virginia, but who have a right to occupy them 
 only in person, and not by proxy. This oblong 
 square descends rather rapidly towards the 
 south-west to the spring, which is surrounded 
 by a small colonnade, with seats around it, gen- 
 erally filled by persons, many of whom are in- 
 differently dressed, and are constantly smoking 
 and spitting. Others are quietly waiting, with 
 emaciated sallow faces, made ghastly with fev- 
 er and ague, until the time comes to drink 
 another glass of the sulphuretted water, the 
 gaseous effluvium of which extends far around. 
 A few paces from this is another reservoir of the 
 water, surrounded with a curb-stone, where the 
 negro servants assemble and drink in imitation 
 of their masters, and out of which water is dip- 
 ped for the use of the horses in the contiguous 
 stables. From these springs other rows of cab- 
 ins are visible, of an inferior kind, but all having 
 a very unprepossessing look. One of these 
 rows is called Fly Row, from the myriads of flies 
 which constantly infest it. Other rows have 
 still more objectionable names. Some of them 
 have received names from the visitors, such as 
 Probaiwn Row, an inferior locality, where fam- 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 23 
 
 ilies are placed until they can be better provided 
 for. 
 
 We found Mr. Servoy's house exceedingly in- 
 commodious, and their manner of living rude 
 and irregular. This man, who was really an 
 obliging person, was a country blacksmith, and 
 having perceived during the past season that 
 the accommodations at the springs were insuf- 
 .ficient, and having discovered a moist puddle on 
 his own premises, which encouraged him to be- 
 Jieve it might become a spring, had made an 
 addition to his house, and had abandoned the 
 anvil for the vocation of entertaining company, 
 for which he was as much titted as we were for 
 making horse-shoes. The good people did their 
 very best to entertain us ; but the meat and the 
 cooking were alike detestable ; the bread and 
 the butter were both bad ; and only the milk 
 tolerable, of which, fortunately there was an 
 abundance. There was a tine spring of cold 
 water, too, on the premises, which was an in- 
 valuable luxury. 
 
 Nature, however, always attractive in this in- 
 teresting country, compensated as far as she 
 could for all these inconveniences. The house 
 ■was situated upon a charming knoll on the west 
 side of Howard's Creek — a tributary ol the great 
 Kanhaway River that discharges into the Ohio 
 ■which meandered at its foot. In front there 
 was an enchanting view of the Alleghany moun- 
 tains, the spurs of which, clothed with noble 
 woods, sometimes projected into the valley, and 
 sometimes ran parallel with the flanks of the 
 mountains, whose beautiful and picturesque ser- 
 rated summits, sometimes undulating in round- 
 ed hummocks, like the Resegone of the moun- 
 tains of the Lakeof Como, in the Milanese, and 
 at others presenting acute ridges and peaks, 
 bore every where a rich velvety appearance, 
 from the depth and luxuriance of their forests. 
 With these sweet views around us, with the 
 agreeable excursions we made, with bread and 
 mdk and good water, and occasional visits to the 
 White Sulphur Springs, to remind Mr. Anderson 
 of his engagement with me, we got over live 
 days at our host's the blacksmith. He, on the 
 other hand, took in every body who would come; 
 and many were the unfortunates who, like our- 
 selves had reached the end of their journey with- 
 out finding a home there. Unfortunately, whilst 
 his house was full — having crammed sixteen 
 people into a space not sufficient for half that 
 number — the "help" he had engaged to assist 
 his wife and children in cooking and waiting 
 upon the guests went away, because " sich a 
 power of folks it was o?ipossible to sarve ;" and 
 not being able to procure another in the imme- 
 diate neighbourhood, he was obliged to go to 
 Lewisburg, a small town about nine miles off, 
 to get one. During his absence, Mrs Black- 
 smith having to make all the beds, cook all the 
 victuals, and wait upon every body in the bar- 
 gain, came to the same conclusion that her 
 •'help" had done ; and as various significant 
 hints were thrown out by some of the company 
 that it was likely she understood blowing the 
 bellows better than making people comfortable, 
 she very sensibly thought that the best way of 
 diminishing the quantum of dissatisfaction was 
 to get rid of some of her guests. During her 
 husband's absence, the dinner the first day con- 
 sisted of a hunch of something she called beef. 
 
 brought to table in such a state that it was im- 
 possible to divine whether it had been roasted 
 or boiled, or what had been done to it ; it was, 
 moreover, so tough and stringy, that alter vari- 
 ous unhappy attempts, it was found out of the 
 question to hope to masticate it ; whereupon all 
 the guests in utter dismay grounded their arms, 
 " gave it up," and rose from the table. Never 
 was the chief of a state more puzzled with an 
 insurrection than she was when her child, who 
 was waiting on the table, went and told her 
 mammy that the company " wouldn't touch the 
 beef no how." This being an overt act that 
 directly involved the authority of the govern- 
 ment, she met it in the true Cyclopian spirit. 
 Flying into the room, without a moment's delay, 
 she gave notice, in the most intelligible man- 
 ner, " I aint a-going to work myself to death to 
 please nobody. I reckon, if you are so nice, you 
 know where to get better; so go as soon as you 
 like, for you shan't stay here no longer." 
 
 This proclamation produced the ett'ect that all 
 energetic measures timely adopted by govern- 
 ments usually do, and was felt to be particularly 
 cutting in that part where we were told to jro 
 as soon as we liked, as if we, poor devils ! could 
 like to go when there was no place for us to go 
 to. At length the blacksmith returned, and 
 without any " help," and in an ill humour, which 
 was an unusual occurrence. We had a speci- 
 men of it in the evening. One of the company, 
 who had gone without dinner, observed to him 
 that it was past eight o'clock ; that he had had 
 no dinner ; and that he wanted his tea, which 
 ought to have been ready at six. Upon which 
 Mr. Servoy observed that " the folks was doing 
 the best they could for the boarders ; and if the 
 boarders warn't satisfied with that, why there 
 was no sich thing as satisfying the boarders, for 
 folks couldn't do nothing more than their best — 
 that every body knowed ; and if any of the 
 boarders warn't satisfied with his folks, why he 
 didn't want their company." This speech, 
 which was instantly produced in place of tea, 
 showed us that we ought not to be very partic- 
 ular as to what we got as long as we stayed here, 
 and effectually put us upon our good behaviour. 
 
 In the mean time I was forming a very close 
 acquaintance with the premier, Mr. Anderson. 
 Two or three days I visted the springs, to see if 
 it was possible to soften his obdurate heart, and 
 get admission into the paradise of filth and con- 
 fusion over which he presided : each time he 
 made me the most grave promises to take me 
 in the next morning, which, when it came, he 
 as regularly broke, alleging all sorts of excuses, 
 and bringing all sorts of defensive armour out 
 of his inexhaustible stock of subterfuges and 
 lies, to meet the rather critical cross-examina- 
 tions I found it necessary to submit his reasons 
 to. At length it became too bad ; be had taken 
 others in who came subsequently to us, and 
 could no longer plead that they were on the list 
 before us. My friends now complained to Mr. 
 Caldwell, the proprietor, who promised to inter- 
 cede in our favour ; and upon this Anderson en- 
 gaged positively to receive us the next day at 
 twelve o'clock, but when that hour arrived he 
 again broke his word. 
 
 Being now utterly tired out with his prevari- 
 cations, lies, and subterfuges, I walked over 
 with my son and told him, that as he had ad- 
 
24 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 mitted tliat I had borne with his conduct with 
 good temper and moderation, my anger was 
 liiisly to be proportionabiy violent ; that I could 
 no longer stay at the blacksmith's, and that if 
 I was not taken in forthwith, I should leave the 
 Whit^ Sulphur altogether ; but I desired him to 
 understand that it was my fixed purpose to leave 
 such a memorandum upon his shoulders as 
 would be talked of by all who visited the moun- 
 tains for generations to come. Upon this Mr. 
 Anderson scratched his head, and said, "I'll 
 tell you what, Mr. F., I can do for you ; I can 
 give you No. 29 now directly, if you choose 
 to go into it, but I can't give you a whole 
 cabin for two or three days to come." Five 
 minutes before this he had sworn he had not 
 a hole to put a cat in. We now moved to 
 No. 29, which was a single room, with two beds, 
 in a row of inferior cabins called Alabama Row ; 
 my son having procured a dingy-looking hole 
 to pass the night in, at the public tavern where 
 the post-office was kept. Here, in the adjoin- 
 ing rooms, we found numerous acquaintances 
 who had been in quarantine like ourselves. The 
 room was an oblong about 12 feet long, and 
 very narrow, consequently very inconvenient. 
 This row was built against the side of a hill ; 
 and the room, which extended the whole width 
 of the row, had two doors. The western one 
 opened upon the hill, and you could step out 
 upon it immediately ; but the eastern and prin- 
 cipal entrance was by a steep flight of broken 
 and dangerous wooden steps. Furniture there 
 was none inside, except two low bedsteads 
 coarsely put together with rough planks ; and 
 the narrow wooden frame on which I was to 
 sleep was so broken-backed that it tilted up in 
 the middle. Finding it utterly impossible to 
 sleep there, I had to get up again after I had 
 lain down, and make a tolerably even surface 
 by filling up the inequalities with articles from 
 my own wardrobe. The mattress was full of 
 knots, and what was in the thing that was in- 
 tended to be my pillow I never ascertained ; but 
 a gentleman informed ine that he and his wife 
 having, after the usual vexatious delays, got into 
 some room resembling ours, as soon as they 
 laid down for the night, found their pillow not 
 only very disagreeable from a sickening odour 
 that came from it, hut gifted with some curious 
 hard knobs in it that were moveable. As it 
 was out of the question to sleep upon it, he threw 
 it on one side, and had the curiosity to examine 
 it in the morning, when he discovered that they 
 had not only bountifully put a handful or two of 
 dirty live feathers into it, but the necks, with 
 the heads to them, of two chickens and a duck. 
 I have not the least doubt of the truth of this, 
 for the slaves who attend to such matters have 
 entirely thrir own way, and there is no one to 
 examine their conduct. 
 
 Tlie next morning I made loud complaints, 
 and we were moved into No. 31, wliere the beds 
 were much better, and we certainly gained by 
 the exchange. This No. 31 was south of our 
 first room, and more down hill, consequently 
 the wooden steps at the entrance were much 
 steeper and higher. They were ten in number, 
 sharp, jagged, wooden things, a fall from which 
 would m most cases produce a broken limb, as 
 they were at an inclination of about 55°. It 
 was not long before an instance was afforded 
 
 of the danger attending such contrivances. A 
 respectable old lady, stout, and slow in her 
 movements, who inhabited a cabin below ours^ 
 hearing the tea-bell ring, and hurrying to obey 
 the summons, thought she could get quicker 
 down by going out at the eastern than at the 
 western door ; and the poor dear lady was not 
 mistaken in her conjecture, for having reached 
 the steps, she prudently thought she would take 
 hold of the knob of the door and see if it was 
 well shut ; but, unluckily, taking hold of the 
 key instead of the knob, and giving it a jerk, it 
 came out, and she made a regular somerset be- 
 fore she got to the bottom, happily without break- 
 ing any limb. This and other inconveniences 
 induced me to apply again to Mr. Anderson, who 
 had taken rather a complaisant turn ; he ac- 
 cordingly moved us to Compulsion Row, a line 
 of cottages made with frames instead of squared 
 logs, the roofs of which were not quite finished. 
 Their exterior looked tolerably well, and at any 
 rate they were new and would be sweet ; be- 
 sides, they had a small private portico before 
 them which afforded some shade. The sound 
 of the carpenters' hammers and saws presented 
 an objection to our emigrating to this colony ; 
 but we saw advantages in the change which de- 
 termined us to move, especially as the cottage 
 offered to us actually contained two rooms, the 
 precious privileges of which were beyond all 
 estimation. Taking, therefore, an affecting 
 leave of our friends in Alabama Row, we gath- 
 ered our household gods and goods together, 
 and made a grand movement across the whole 
 establishment of the White Sulphur. In three 
 or four trips with my papers, fossils, &c., and 
 the slaves carrying our trunks, in the course of 
 an hour we were established in No. 3, Compul- 
 sion Row. 
 
 It was a very pretty, lively young lady who 
 gave this name to the place. Mr. Anderson had 
 put some families into private cabins, the pro- 
 prietors of which suddenly appeared to claim 
 their rights, and this brought him, as he feeling- 
 ly said, " to a h'U of a nonplush." The weath- 
 er was setting in very bad, and the proprietors 
 not only insisted upon coming in, but had made 
 their own servants carry their luggage into the 
 cabins, so that it seemed to him as if he had no 
 place to put the actual possessors in but the 
 Land of Promise. The family that had to sur- 
 render was in great distress, when suddenly 
 Mr. Anderson's countenance beamed with that 
 sort of satisfaction which sometimes illumines 
 the features of genius, and which could hardly be 
 surpassed by that of Newton when the discove- 
 ry of gravitation relieved him from so many 
 difficulties. "I have it," exclaimed he: "you 
 shall go to the new buildings ; they are not quite 
 finished, but you will be comfortable. Boys, 
 take the luggage over directly." The parties 
 followed their trunks, came to the buildings, 
 which were ceiled tightly in, with clap boards, 
 the doors were hung, and things looked quite 
 nice outside. But when they got in, they found 
 that half of the roof not seen from the road 
 without any covering whatever, except the raft 
 ers that were waiting for the shingles or wood- 
 en tiles ; the floors also were full of chips anC 
 shavings, and the hearths were not laid. Very 
 soon after they got into the house and its inter- 
 esting secrets, it began to rain hard ; and there 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 25 
 
 "being (inly half a roof, 1 hey might as well al- 
 most have l)een out of doors. Then came loud 
 complauits and remonstrances to the grand func- 
 tionary, will) declared that this was quite o«reas- 
 onahle ; that he could not stop it raining ; that 
 nohody but the carpenter could do that ; and he 
 promixed that he should do that to-tnorrow. Un- 
 der these circumstances the family, not liking 
 to take up their abode on the high road, made 
 the best they could of it, and stayed in the half 
 cottage by compulsion. This is one of the in- 
 stances of the confusion produced by a fraudu- 
 lent system of pretending to accommodate ev- 
 ery body, when there is only room for a few. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 State of Society at Compulsion Row— Fine flavour of tiie 
 Oysters at New Orleans.— Priv.ite Cabins at the Springs 
 —A Cyclopean Kitchen— Merciful Plan of Killing Bul- 
 locks with the Rifle — Extraordinary performances at 
 Dinner— Mr. Wright's Shanty in the Woods— Generals 
 who liiive never been Soldiers— The Ferryman and the 
 Traveller without a title. 
 
 If I had heard this story before we moved 
 into Compulsion Row, we should certainly have 
 never been inhabitants of it. Our portico was 
 common to two cottages united by one roof. 
 Each cottage had two rooms of a sufficient size, 
 and as far as space went we were satisfied ; the 
 roof also was tight, but there was no ceiling to 
 either of the rooms, and we looked up upon the 
 rafters. On examining our premises a little 
 more particularly, we were sorry to perceive 
 that the partition-wall, which was common to 
 us and the next cottage, was only carried up 
 part of the way to the roof; all above the line 
 where a ceiling was intended to be placed to di- 
 vide the lower from the upper room, was entirely 
 open space, except where tiie rough brick chim- 
 ney reared itself up in a rather uncomely man- 
 ner, so that if a quarrel had existed betwixt us 
 and our neighbours, we could have carried on 
 the war by throwing missiles at each other, 
 with almost as much facility as if there had 
 been no wall at all. The inconvenience arising 
 from this "bad state of the fences" soon mani- 
 fested itself. We heard the door of the adjoin- 
 ing cabin open, followed by the sound of heavy 
 footsteps of several coarse men, as we soon dis- 
 covered, by the loud, drawling, unceasing vulgar 
 conversation they got into. We had, however, 
 no blaspheming, and this I was grateful to them 
 for ; but in its place we had such a torrent of 
 ungrammatical holdings forth about temperance 
 societies, Sunday schools, tracts, and the utter 
 wickedness and lost state of everybody but them- 
 selves, that at times many persons would, I 
 dare say, have felt it quite a relief if they had 
 taken to cursing and swearing. When we re- 
 turned to our cottage for the night, these self- 
 righteous persons seemed to be still labouring to 
 express their spite against their fellow-creatures. 
 More stupid, disgusting stuff I never listened to, 
 than that which came from these conceited, 
 selfsanctitied, canting jackasses, nor in my 
 opinion can anything tend more to suppress true 
 religious feeling than such contemptible trash as 
 they uttered. They were all democrats, too, to 
 a man, which made them quite perfect. In the 
 morning we were awoke by their hawking and 
 D 
 
 spitting, and beginning to talk as insipidly and 
 disgustingly as ever. 
 
 During the next day, these farthing candles 
 to lighten the Gentiles were exchanged for an- 
 other set of a different kind, equally low and 
 vulgar, but without their canting. This new 
 company, four in number, with two very small 
 beds to sleep in, were constantly engaged in dis- 
 putes about bacon — not Bacon, the great philos- 
 opher of England, but salt bacon of Virginia. 
 One of them maintained that in " the hull woorld 
 there was no sich bacon as Virginia bacon." 
 Another, who was a Kentuckian, felt himself 
 hurt by this observation, and put in an immedi- 
 ate rejoinder, saying, "I allow the Virginians 
 do flog all mankind at praising themselves, and 
 their bacon might be pretty good, but it war'nt 
 to be compared, no, not for a beginning of a 
 thing, to the bacon of the western country, 
 where the land was an almighty sight finer, pro- 
 duced better corn, and, of course, made better 
 hogs." The Virginian now became nettled, and 
 swore they had "more reel luxuries in old Vir- 
 ginia than they had in the hull woorld" and ask- 
 ed the Kentuckian if they had "oysters in Ken- 
 tucky, and clams, and sich-like ;" finishing with 
 a declaration that the finest land in the "hull 
 woorld" was in Southampton County. These 
 oysters silenced the Kentuckian, who, living far 
 in the interior, had never seen any ; but a resi- 
 dent of the state of "71fas«asippi," who could 
 not stand this boast of fine land, put it to the 
 Virginian whether they could grow sugar in 
 Southampton County, and added that he had 
 " always heer'n that the hawysters of New Or- 
 lecns had sich a o?taccountable fine flavour, that 
 they would knock the hawysters of Old Virginny 
 into their ninety-ninth year any day." " I 
 reckon they get that from the yellow fever," re- 
 joined the Virginian. This is pretty much a 
 specimen of the conversation of these noisy fel- 
 lows, who having come together in the stage 
 coach, Anderson, to our great discomfort, had 
 crammed into this room. I had opportunities 
 afterwards of seeing these persons in the porti- 
 co, and their external appearance corresponded 
 to their conversation ; they were ill-dressed, 
 vulgar-looking fellows, drawn from the class of 
 slave-dealers and land speculators. 
 
 Language cannot do justice to the scenes we 
 witnessed, and through which we had to pass at 
 the White Sulphur Springs. It must appear in- 
 credible to those who have heard so much of the 
 celebrity of this watering-place, but who have 
 never been here, to be told that this, the most 
 filthy, disorderly place in the United States, with 
 less method and cleanliness about it than be- 
 longs to the common jails of the country, and 
 where it is quite impossible to be comfortable, 
 should from year to year be flocked to by great 
 numbers of polite and well-bred people who have 
 comfortable homes of their own, and who con- 
 tinue to remain amidst all this discomfort, which, 
 from the nature of things, they know is un- 
 changeable. This requires some explanation. 
 
 The waters of this region have been frequent- 
 ed by the Virginians during a long period, for 
 relief from the liver complaints and debilitated 
 constitutions occasioned by the annual unhealth- 
 iness of all those low parts of Virginia which 
 e.xtend as far as the tide-water penetrates up 
 the Atlantic rivers. The bilious and intermit- 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 tent fevers general to that flat country, compel 
 almost all the proprietors who can afford to 
 leave their plantations, to fly to the salubrious 
 air of the mountains, where they usually remain 
 from July until the first frosts set in in October. 
 "When these waters first became known, and be- 
 fore roads were made, everybody came on 
 horseback, rude huts were constructed for their 
 personal accommodation by those who came, 
 and the game with which the country abounded, 
 ■venison, partridges, and bear's-meat, supplied 
 their tables. In time roads were opened, and 
 families were enabled to come with greater 
 comfort, and to bring articles of furniture and a 
 few of the luxuries of life with them : this grad- 
 ually led to settlements, and to a market at the 
 springs for the productions of the settlers. The 
 waters soon acquired a deserved celebrity, and 
 ■were annually resorted to by many of the most 
 distinguished persons of Virginia. At length 
 this part of the district became private property, 
 and some of the visitors, to ensure themselves 
 the greatest possible degree of personal comfort, 
 entered into an agreement with the proprietor 
 that he should build for them small wooden cab- 
 ins, to contain two or three rooms. The ex- 
 pense of erecting each of these cabins, not ex- 
 ceeding 200 dollars, was to be defrayed by the 
 person for whom it was built, the privilege being 
 reserved to him and his family of occupying it 
 whenever he or they came in preference to any 
 body else, he being bound to leave the key with 
 the proprietor when he went away, who had then 
 the right to put other persons into it. These 
 privileged visitors pay the same weekly charge 
 per head for their board that all others do, and 
 some of them bring their cooks and make an ar- 
 rangement for a private table, so that they, not 
 being obliged to mingle with the heterogeneous 
 mass, have a degree of enjoyment that others 
 cannot participate in. At present, the increased 
 population and wealth of Virginia cause great 
 numbers to resort to these celebrated waters ; 
 but it so happens that the proprietor, Mr. Cald- 
 well, is a man of a simple indolent, and inactive 
 character, who pays no attention to his own af- 
 fairs ; the consequence is, that he is unceasingly 
 plundered by those who do look after them. 
 
 It would be impossible for such a state of 
 things to exist if the establishment were under 
 the management of a person gifted with good 
 sense and activity. The place might be made a 
 mine of wealth to such a man. Everything con- 
 curs to make the speculation both profitable and 
 permanent. The wide celebrity of the curative 
 properties of the water, the beauty and salubrity 
 of the country, the prevalence of the opinion that 
 it is necessary to drink the waters at least a 
 fortnight, the residence during the whole of the 
 summer months of so many genteel families, the 
 affluence of intelligent individuals from every 
 part of the Union abounding with pleasant and 
 instructive information, are a sutficient guaran- 
 tee for the certainty of the returns that would 
 reward the exertions of the right sort of man. 
 Indeed, if cleaidiness and order only prevailed, 
 it would be the most delightful watering-place I 
 have visited in the United States. To a lover 
 of nature the country abounds in attractions, and 
 when the day's excursions are over, what with 
 social visits to families backwards and forwards, 
 agreeable evening walks when the sun has de- 
 
 clined, the news by a regular daily mail, the 
 general and particular intercourse maintained 
 amongst those who are acquainted with each 
 other, and the re-union at night of the company 
 in the ball-room, this establishment, situated in 
 a romantic and plentiful country, might be con- 
 verted into a refined rural residence, during the 
 summer, for a thousand persons ; whilst the 
 poor invalids who hie to this Bethesda, uniting 
 the use of the waters with temperate exercise, 
 a fine mountain air, and the pleasures of society, 
 would bless the place to the latest day of their 
 existence. If the proprietor were capable of 
 accomplishing so much good, he would not only 
 double his profits, which are said to exceed 
 thirty thousand dollars per annuiri, but receive 
 the praises of every one ; but abandoning the 
 concern to Anderson and a pack of worthless 
 {ree black servants, one-half of everything is 
 wasted, and he is thus driven to contract for the 
 cheapest things he can procure, and to give his 
 guests the worst things that can be procured in 
 the country. Milk, which is so plentiful at the 
 Warm Springs, is not to be had here. The 
 kitchen, which opens into the dining-hall, is a 
 dark cavernous-looking place, resembling a sub- 
 terranean furnace, with dirt and offal of every 
 sort thrown upon the floor, whilst human beings 
 are obscurely seen, some of them standing at the 
 great fires and others running about as if they 
 were so many Cyclops ; all of them are negroes, 
 a circumstance of great importance to the one 
 hundred and fifty private black servants in at- 
 tendance here, who are thus enabled to get the 
 choicest morsels to themselves, an advantage 
 they avail themselves of to its fullest extent. 
 Hence the prodigious waste, for they and the 
 dingy Dinahs consume more meat, bread, sugar, 
 and butter, than their masters three limes over, 
 and only pay half-price ; so that the practice of 
 turning white visitors away who have no ser- 
 vants, and taking in those who have black ones, 
 is a losing one to the proprietor, though he does 
 not see it. A beeve and eight sheep are killed 
 every day after dinner, and either wasted or 
 consumed within the twenty-four hours. Con- 
 tracts for these are made with cattle-drovers, 
 who drive twenty or fifty, as the case may be : 
 the usual price paid being three cents, or about 
 three haffpence a pound for the meat when 
 dressed, the hide and tallow being thrown in. 
 When the lot is brought by the drover an aver- 
 age animal is selected, killed, dressed, and 
 weighed, and the whole lot paid for, per head, 
 at the same rate. The rest are put into a field 
 of thirty acres, closely fed, and one of them is 
 killed every day. When the servants have 
 dined, the butcher, with his attendants, goes to 
 the field, selects an animal, has it shot with a 
 rifle, and brings away the carcase in his waggon. 
 These black fellows, who have very little feel- 
 ing for dumb animals, or for anything but them- 
 selves, one day put several balls into a poor bul- 
 lock, which being furious, tore down the fences, 
 and took to the woods; hearing of this, my 
 son, who is an admirable marksman, went to 
 the place, took the rifle from the negro, and the 
 animal being overtaken, put a ball into its head 
 at a distance of upwards of 100 yards, which 
 cut the spinal marrow, and killed it instanter. 
 
 The next day the people apprehending some 
 similar difficulty from the cattle being very wild 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 27 
 
 in consequence of having been chased the day 
 before, came to my son and asked him to offici- 
 ate again. Being curious to see the operation, 
 I accompanied him to the field, where we found 
 some difficulty in getting sufficiently near to 
 them ; at length they drew up into a group, and 
 the butcher having designated a black one with 
 a small white spot on its forehead, which was 
 in the midst of them, my son wailed till it pre- 
 sented its head towards him, when he fired at 
 about 150 yards, and the animal immediately 
 dropped on its knees, and rolled over. It was 
 dead before the butcher could run up to let the 
 blood out. This is certainly a merciful way of 
 killing horned cattle when the shot is a sure one. 
 The ball upon this occasion went in about two 
 inches from the top of the forehead, exactly in 
 the centre, and from thence passed into and cut 
 the spine. I never saw a neater shot fired. 
 The animal was now skinned, dressed in a rude 
 manner, and carried to the house, where part of 
 it was cooked for supper .the same evening. 
 
 People seem always to be eating meat here, 
 and to have no choice whether it is tough or 
 tender, fat or lean — at least you hear nothing 
 which induces you to suppose so ; and, indeed, 
 those who have a gross taste and voracious 
 stomachs must fare well here, for there is any 
 quantity of nasty looking dishes of animal food 
 placed three times a day before them. 
 
 But in this establishment, that might be as 
 unrivalled in its comforts as it is in its natural 
 advantages and beauty, everything is alike, a 
 scene of dirt and confusion ; and a charming 
 rural retreat from the heats of the summer is 
 thus disgraced with all the filth and nastiness 
 of a badly conducted hospital. Into the details 
 of his affairs the proprietor never enters. His 
 orders are to take everybody in, and never were 
 orders more faithfully executed. The manner 
 in which this over-peopled and under-fed place 
 is daily provided for, is certainly unique. At 
 six in the morning the first bell rings, and a little 
 before seven the second bell announces that 
 breakfast is on the table in the dining-hall. Now 
 the doors of the cabins are thrown open, and the 
 polite and the vulgar are seen converging from 
 €very quarter to a scene of indescribable confu- 
 sion and filth. On the dirty portico, in front of 
 the hall, all assemble in a dense crowd as if 
 some extraordinary exhibition was to be pre- 
 sented, and there are three doors of entrance. 
 Suddenly these doors are opened from within, 
 and then it is important for every gentleman to 
 take care of the lady under his charge. Having 
 forced your way inside after a desperate squeeze, 
 the next thing is to find your seat. Where 
 three hundred have to sit in a place which 
 scarce affords room for two hundred, it is better 
 to be first than last. A single man stands no 
 chance for a place if he is not on the alert ; yet 
 I must do the visitors the justice to say, that 
 although the motto is of necessity, sauve qui 
 veut, perd, qui vcut, yet the claims of a lady 
 seemed to be always promptly admitted. The 
 only thing like system which is in favour 
 of the visitors, is the having your name placed 
 on your plate, as at the Warm Springs— a cus- 
 tom absolutely necessary to avoid a general 
 scramble for seats. We always found our 
 names on our plates, which were placed in 
 front of a dirty bench without a back to it. 
 
 But who can describe the noise, the confusion 
 incident to a grand bolting operation conducted 
 by three hundred American performers, and a 
 hundred and fifty black slaves to help them ? It 
 seemed to me that almost every man at table 
 considered himself at job-work against time, 
 stuffing sausages and whatever else he could 
 cram into his throat. But the dinner-scene pre- 
 .sented a spectacle still more extraordinary than 
 the breakfast. And, first, as to the cooking, which 
 was after this mode. Bacon, venison, beef, and 
 mutton, were all boiled together in the same 
 vessel ; then those pieces that were to represent 
 roast meat were taken out and put into an oven 
 for awhile; after which a sort of dirty gravy 
 was poured from a huge pitcher indiscriminate- 
 ly upon roast and boiled. What with this 
 strange banquet, and the clinking of knives and 
 forks, the ratthng of plates, the confused running 
 about of troops of dnty slaves, the numerous 
 cries for this, that, and the other, the exclama- 
 tions of the new comers, " Oh, my gracious ! I 
 reckon I never did see sich a dirty table-cloth," 
 the nasty appearance of the incomprehensible 
 dishes, the badness of the water brought from 
 the creek where the clothes were washed, and 
 the universal feculence of everything around, 
 the scene was perfectly astounding. Twice I 
 tried to dine there, but it was impossible. I 
 could do nothing but stare, and before my won- 
 der was over everything was gone, people and 
 all, except a few slow eaters. I never could 
 become reconciled to the universal filth, as some 
 told me they had got to be, and my wife would 
 literally have got nothing to eat if I had not 
 given a douceur to the cook, and another to one 
 of the black servants, to provide her every day 
 a small dish of fried venison or mutton, for 
 which we waited until it was placed before 
 her ; this, with very good bread — and it always 
 was good — was her only resource. Much 
 squeezed as we were at first, there was a sen- 
 sible relaxation and more elbow-room in a very 
 few minutes, in consequence of the great num- 
 bers who had the talent of bolting their " feed" 
 in five minutes. A gentleman drew my atten- 
 tion to one of these quick feeders, who had been 
 timed by himself and others, and who had been 
 observed to bolt the most extraordinary quanti- 
 ties of angular pieces of bacon, beef, and mut- 
 ton, in the short period of two minutes and a 
 half. This was a strange, meagre, sallow-look- 
 ing man, with black hair and white whiskers 
 and beard, as if his jaws had done more work 
 than his brains. All the bolters went at it just 
 as quick feeders do in a kennel of hounds, help- 
 ing themselves to a whole <lish without cere- 
 mony, cutting off immense long morsels, and 
 then presenting them with a dexterous turn of 
 the tongue to the anxious oesophagus, would 
 launch them down by the small end foremost, 
 with all the confidence that an alligator swal- 
 lows a young nigger, into that friendly asylum 
 where roast and boiled, baked and stewed, pud- 
 ding and pie, all that is good, and too often 
 what is not very good, meet for all sorts of no- 
 ble and ignoble purposes. These quick feeders, 
 with scarce an exception, were gaunt, sallow, 
 uncomely-looking pel-sons, incapable of inspiring 
 much interest out of their coffins, always ex- 
 cepting, however, the performer with the white 
 whiskers, whose unrivalled talent in the present 
 
28 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 state of the drama, might, perhaps, be turned to 
 great account in some of the enlightened capi- 
 tals of Europe. 
 
 Chemical solutions, to be made perfect from 
 solid materials in the proper time, require first 
 a little mechanical aid, that the greatest possi- 
 ble quantity of surface may be presented to the 
 solvent power. If men would reason thus about 
 the faculties of the stomach, the gastric juices 
 woulfJ perhaps have a better chance of fair play. 
 Nature has provided us with teeth for the me- 
 chanical purpose, and if men will not assist ht r 
 they must pay the penalty, and continue to be 
 taxed with dyspepsia, and the ghastly physiog- 
 nomies that not only afflict themselves, but those 
 innocent persons who are compelled to look upon 
 their unearthly visages. The consequences of 
 this pernicious habit of quick feeding which is so 
 general in America, I never perceived more stri- 
 kingly than at this place. 
 
 . The proprietor of this watering-place, in addi- 
 tion to his plan of over-trading, has had recourse 
 to another scheme which deserves the strongest 
 reprobation. He lets one of his houses to a set 
 of sharpers, who keep a public gaming-table, 
 that is open day and night, where faro, roulette, 
 rouge et noir, and other desperate games are 
 played. Thus every direct encouragement is 
 given to vice, and inducements held out to the 
 vilest fellows in the country to flock to the place 
 for the express purpose of preying upon the com- 
 pany who support his establishment. Inconsid- 
 erate and ingenious young men, who accompa- 
 ny their families here, are thus exposed to the 
 worst temptations, and frequently acquire habits 
 that render them miserable for life. 
 
 I can speak with more satisfaction of the ball- 
 room, where the company has an opportunity of 
 assembling every evening, and where younsr per- 
 sons who love to dance can amuse themselves 
 very well : for the musicians are far above the 
 ordinary rate of those found at American water- 
 ing-places. The refreshments too, which are 
 handed about, appeared clean and very fair, a 
 remarkable departure from the usual course of 
 things here. Some flashy-dressed men whom I 
 saw in this room, not connected with known 
 families, but who merely appeared as bystand- 
 ers, were pointed out to me as members of the 
 co-fraternity of gamblers, who drop in here to 
 sieze opportunities of inveigling the young men 
 away to rouge et noir. Being an Englishman, 
 I was asked by some ladies if I knew Colonel 
 Smith of the British army, who had served at 
 Waterloo, and answering in the negative, he 
 was pointed out to me waltzing with a young 
 lady. The colonel, for an Englishman, had a 
 most suspicious-looking heard from ear to ear, a 
 prodigif)us display of gold walcliguard, a gait 
 that did not look very much like Waterloo, and 
 a face with a pair of hairy jowls to it, so remark- 
 able for low expression, that I could not help 
 forming a very unfavourable opinion of him. 
 Soon atter, drawing up to where he was stand- 
 ing talking to his partner, not to hear what he 
 was talking about, but to hear the sound of his 
 voice, I detected my fine friend in a moment, for 
 his language, whi(-h came out by mouthfuls, was 
 of a low, flowery kind, quite unknown to gentle- 
 men, and what more especially blew him up, 
 was his attempt to keep down the drawling ver- 
 nacular of the State of Mississippi ; in attempt- 
 
 ing to save himself at that point he lost himself 
 and Waterloo altogether. I now advised the 
 brotherof oneof the ladies he had made dancing 
 acquaintance with, to ask him what regiment he 
 had served in, but the fellow equivocated so 
 much that I had no longer any hesitation in 
 giving my opinion of the true character of this 
 swell, who, soon after perceiving the wind was 
 no longer fair for him, ceased to come to the 
 ball-room. This place was the only part of the 
 establishment where cleanliness and decorum 
 prevailed, for the reason, I suppose, that the 
 enteel families who had their private cabins 
 always attended it. But there, as well as every- 
 where, a never-failing topic was the general dis- 
 order, and dirt, and utter want of personal com- 
 fort. 
 
 For the last two days of our stay my stomach, 
 was so entirely overcome by the disgusting fecu- 
 lence of the dining-hall, that I absented myself 
 at every meal, getting something occasionally 
 to eat at a very odd fellow's, who had run up a 
 shanty in the woods not far from the Springs, 
 and which I had accidentally met with in my 
 rambles. This man was named Wnght, and he 
 had formerly kept an oyster-cellar atBaltimore. 
 Any one who knows how to fry oysters, gener-'"\ 
 ally knows how to fry anything else; and as/ 
 Baltimore is a place that not only contains a ''! 
 class of jolly citizens, but captains and no cap- , 
 tains without number, of slave-ships and pirati- 
 cal vessels, who live in oyster-cellars when they 
 are on shore, it may be presumed that Mr. 
 Wright came here to show his talent in that 
 line. In fact he told me that having been for a 
 short time last year to the White Sulphur, "the 
 doings there was sich as he never seen afore," 
 and perceiving an opening for his own talent, he- 
 first secured the right to a small piece of land 
 in the woods near to the road, without any body 
 suspecting his object, then ran up a slight log- 
 hut by way of experiment, and afterwards 
 brought from Baltimore various kinds of confec- 
 tionary, with Champagne, Madeira, claret, bot- 
 tled ale, rum, brandy, gin, lemons, sugar, and 
 indeed all the appliances of a jolly existence. 
 He had also secured a quantity of ice, and had 
 set up some rough tables, with leafy bowers 
 over them, at which I have, upon various occa- 
 sions, after a hard day's work in the mountains, 
 had the justest cause to admire his skill in veni- 
 son steaks, mutton chops, and in the concoction 
 of inimitable ice punch. Here, too, when the 
 thermometer was at 90°, we were always sure 
 of getting a delicious glass of ice lemonade. 
 At the period of my departure Mr. Wright was 
 becoming a formidable rival to the bar-room of 
 the White Sulphur, where cock tails, gin slings, 
 gum ticklers, mint juleps, phlegm cutters, and 
 other American sherbets, were brewed from 
 morn to night for the crowds of spitting and 
 swearing, cursing and coughing, smoking and 
 stinking reel gentlemen that passed their time 
 there ; and such was his success that his inten- 
 tion was to extend his operations the succeed- 
 ing year. 
 
 One of the advantages I had derived from my 
 residence here consisted in a great variety of 
 designations that were given to me by different 
 people. If we are to believe the professions ot 
 Republicans, they abhor titles of every kind, yet 
 they seem constantly to betray a confirmed han» 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 29 
 
 kering after them; upon tlie principle, I sup- 
 pose, that things whicii are very rare always 
 have a high value placed upon them, and thai 
 when diauionds are not to he had, weak people 
 ■will gratify their vanity by wearing paste. In 
 Massachusetts and the New England States 
 the plainest farmer, as soon as he is elected to 
 the State Legislature, is metamorphosed into 
 " Tlic Hommrahle Mr. Slick." In New York a 
 young lawyer, for political services, is named 
 Inspector-General of the Militia — an office with- 
 out duties and without emolument, as tlie militia 
 never assembles in a body — and so becomes 
 dubbed General for life, although he may be 
 turned out of his office the next election. A 
 General Officer of the United States army once 
 told me that he dined with the Governor of 
 New York by invitation, and that whilst at 
 table, hearing repeatedly, " Shall I have the 
 honour of a glass of wine with you, General !" 
 he at first took the compliment to himself, filled 
 his glass, and looked for his man ; but as he 
 always failed in catching his eye, he began to 
 be more cautious, and at length perceived to 
 his surprise, that instead of being the only 
 General at the T.able, there was a very con- 
 siderable sprinkling of them, not one of whom 
 had ever been a soldier. But here, in Virginia, 
 the rage for titles is greater even than at the 
 north. Almost every person of the better class 
 is at least a Colonel, and every tavern-keeper 
 is at least a Major. Occasionally a few Kapims 
 are met with amongst the stage-drivers, but 
 such an animal as a Leiotenant only exists on the 
 muster-roll of the Militia, for I never heard of 
 any one having seen a live one in Republican 
 America. A well known gentleman of Win- 
 chester, in this State, related an arnusing anec- 
 dote to me on this subject. Crossing the Po- 
 tomac into Virginia, with his horse, in a ferry- 
 boat, the ferryman said, " Major, I wish you 
 ■would lead your horse a little forward," which 
 he immediately did, observing to the man, " I 
 am not a Major, and you need not call me one." 
 To this the ferryman replied, "Well, Kurnel, I 
 ax your pardon, and I'll not call you so no 
 more." Being arrived at the landing-place he 
 led his horse out of the boat, and said, " My 
 good friend, I am a very plain man, I am neither 
 a Colonel nor a Major, I have no title at all, 
 and I don't like them. How much have I to 
 pay youl" The ferryman looked at him, and 
 said, " You are the first white man I ever cross- 
 ed this ferry that warn't jist nobody at all, and 
 I swar I'll not charge you nothing." 
 
 If the various people I had dealings with at 
 this place had acted upon this principle with 
 me, I should have saved a good deal of money ; 
 for Mr. Wright, seeing me curious about rocks 
 and shells, always called me Doctor; most of 
 the people at the Springs, with whom I had 
 formed an acquaintance, called me Colonel; 
 and some of the blackeys that waited upon me, 
 called me Judge. 
 
 CHAPTER VI, 
 
 The system of Alleghany Ridges caused by an upheaval 
 from below, and the White Sulphur Springs a conse- 
 quence of the movement— Gaseous contents of the 
 ■VV'ateis— VV^hite Rock Mountsiins — Horizontal FossU- 
 iferous Strata in place. 
 
 The Alleghany Mountain, or Backbone Ridge, 
 mentioned at page 20, is the central part of this 
 broad elevated belt which traverses so great a 
 portion of North America. We had now cross- 
 ed it. and found a sensible change in the general 
 dip of the strata, a circumstance of itself suffi- 
 ciently indicative of the origin of this great 
 belt, a very brief account of which will now be 
 given. 
 
 The Alleghanies, which is the general name 
 the ridges of this belt have obtained in North 
 America, have their south-western termination 
 not more than 200 miles from the Gulf of 
 Mexico, and run through the continent in a 
 general direction of north-east, far into that 
 part of Canada which lies north of the St. 
 Lawrence ; for although the distinct manner ia 
 which the various ridges are separated from 
 each other in the more southern parts of the 
 belt is often all but lost in those northern parts, 
 yet the great limestone valley, which more or 
 less accompanies it throughout its extent, and 
 which is most conspicuous in Pennsylvania, 
 and that valley of Shenandoah in Virginia which 
 has been spoken of at page 13, distinctly ap- 
 pears in the vicinity of Lake St. -John, near the 
 heads of the Saguenay River. The length, 
 therefore, of this elevated belt cannot be far 
 short of 1700 miles, and its breadth may be 
 estimated from 80 to 120. That the whole 
 series of ridges has been raised from a lower 
 level, and that the maximum upheaving force 
 has been in the direction of this Backbone 
 Ridge, which is the most elevated of them all, 
 is apparent from the general structure of the 
 ridges; for although the more higlily com- 
 plicated fractures and arrangement of the beds 
 of the eastern ridges, where every form of dy- 
 namic action appears to have been exerted, 
 shows that a singular intensity of (orce pre- 
 vailed there ; yet the general movement ap- 
 pears to have been a simultaneous and undu- 
 latory one, evidences of an anticlinal and syn- 
 clinal bending being common to the entire belt. 
 This movement, whether it commenced from 
 the west of the east, was evidently less pa- 
 roxysmal in the central part of the belt, for the 
 rocks at the Backbone Ridge begin to dip west- 
 wardly instead of easterly as they did before; 
 and in advancing in a westerly direction to- 
 wards the Mississippi, they gradually lose their 
 inclination, and come more or less to the hori- 
 zontal level. It is probable, therefore, that the 
 mineral water of the White Sulphur has been 
 liberated from its subterranean abode by the 
 same sort of movement that has brought the 
 waters of the Warm Springs to the surface. 
 The White Sulphur Springs, so called not fVom 
 any efflorescence of sulphur, but from the pale 
 yellowish colour of the conferva' that you see 
 around the sides of the spring, are on the south 
 side of Howard's Creek, a pretty stream that 
 rises to the north-east, and flows into the Green 
 Briar river. In various parts of the valley, and 
 in the vicinity of this stieain, I observed that 
 the waters were tainted with sulphuretted hy- 
 drogen, as well as tho-se at the White Sulphur 
 Springs ; it is probable therefore, tliat if the 
 stream vi'ere diverted a little from its course, 
 other mineral springs equivalent in value to 
 those now in use would be discovered. 
 
 The gaseous contents of the waters are nitro- 
 
30 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 gen, sulphuretted hyJrogen, with perhaps small 
 portions of carbonic acid ; hence they resemble 
 the Harrogate waters in England, and like them, 
 are not particularly agreeable to the taste, the 
 sulphuretted hydrogen being nauseous, and the 
 sulphate of magnesia and other constituents in 
 them very bitter. I only drank of them once, 
 and not being fond of nasty things, never had 
 the curiosity to taste them again. The tempe- 
 rature is moderate ; after a long rain it ranges 
 from 61° to 63°, and is somewhat higher in dry 
 weather ; but as perhaps it never rises higher 
 than 65°, the waters cannot be said to be ther- 
 mal in the sense that those are in the Warm 
 Springs Valley, and only so in proportion to 
 their excess over the atmospheric mean. The 
 valley in which the sulphuretted waters are 
 situated is very beautiful ; the outlines of the 
 hills also are pleasingly rounded off, as decom- 
 posing sandstones often are. In the dry beds 
 of mountain brooks which abound here, quan- 
 tities of fossil impressions on sandstone are 
 found, producta, encrinites, &c., the bed of 
 which, until the 23rd, I had not been able to 
 find in situ. On that day my son and myself 
 made a rather fatiguing excursion up the White 
 Rock Mountain, one of the most conspicuous 
 eminences in this part of the country, lying 
 about west by south from the White Sulphur. 
 
 The base of this mountain comes down to 
 the Levvisburgh turnpike, about three miles 
 from the spa, but hearing it was not very ac- 
 cessible on this side, we began the ascent under 
 the farthest peak to the south ; and getting en- 
 tangled in a hunter's path, we at last thought 
 we were too far to the south, and were ascend- 
 ing the skirts of the main Alleghany ridge. In 
 order to see where we were, we clambered up 
 a very steep ridge on our riglit, at an angle of 
 about 60°, and with great difficulty reached the 
 top. On the other side there was a deep gloomy 
 dell, thickly clothed with a forest that had yet 
 been respected by man, and which seemed to 
 be the proper abode of panthers during the heat 
 of the day. From hence we saw the White 
 Rock Mountain, which was the object of our 
 excursion, distant at least two miles, and tower- 
 ing above the little hills below. We had be- 
 come so exhausted in clambering up the ridge 
 where we were now standing, that our day's 
 undertaking began to assume an importance we 
 had not invested it with before ; and, afraid to 
 waste our strength, which we should have done 
 if we had attempted the mountain by way of so 
 intricate a dell, we determined to retrace our 
 steps, so that we lost three hours before we 
 reached the point where we thought it advis- 
 able to commence the ascent. 
 
 There was a house about a mile from us, kept 
 by a person called Dixon, and thither my son 
 went to get some water and acquire informa- 
 tion. On his return he reported that there was 
 no path, that the mountain was excessively 
 steep, and that if we got up — as his informant 
 stated — we should not be worth sixpence when 
 vfe got down. It is remarkable how incurious 
 and indolent the white people of this district 
 are ; they never enter upon any occupation un- 
 less there is money to be made by it, or unless 
 they are compelled to do so. Every man has 
 a horse, hence you never see any one but a 
 negro on foot ; and they cannot comprehend 
 
 why individuals shouiu wander from the high 
 road, and place themselves in difficult and dan- 
 gerous situations, especially when they are with- 
 out arms to kill game, or to defend themselves 
 with ; the difficulties, therefore, that present 
 themselves to any little enterprise that is out 
 of the common way, are very much magnified 
 by them, and they always discourage rather 
 than comfort you. After resting a short time, 
 we determined to finish the adventure, and be- 
 gan the ascent. We were two hours and a half 
 before we reached the highest peak, which ap- 
 pears to be about 800 feet above the level of the 
 valley. The ascent commenced by a very rough 
 slope, and a small ridge leading to the base of 
 the main peak : its inclination in many places 
 was near 60°, and every part of the soil and 
 herbage was so glossy and slippery, as well aa 
 the soles of our boots, that we were continually 
 falling, and could never have got up without the 
 aid of the branches and twigs that we held on 
 by. We were constantly obliged to take breath, 
 in order to make a rush at any other shoot above 
 which appeared strong enough to hold us. 
 
 The view from the summit of the peak, which 
 is a rather flat level of about half an acre, is ex- 
 ceedingly fine : the entire length of the valley is 
 distinctly seen, but distance destroys the beau- 
 ties of its details. Farther to the west you see 
 the mountamous ridges that run through Green 
 Briar Valley. We remained at the top only 
 long enough to make a sketch of the scene, the 
 geological features of which are less distinctly 
 marked than those presented in the view of the 
 Alleghany ridges from the Warm Springs Mount- 
 ain. On our descent we deviated a little to the 
 right, finding it so extremely steep as to be rath- 
 er dangerous ; but seeing a rock projecting there, 
 the beds of which appeared nearly horizontal, t 
 went to it ; and it turned out to be the red fer- 
 ruginous sandstone with fossils in situ, of which 
 I had previously found specimens in the dry 
 brooks. This rock is about 100 feet from the 
 summit of the mountain. Having often found 
 fragments of this fossiliferous rock midway in 
 the valley, it is evident there has been a great 
 destruction of the ancient surface. From this 
 point we let ourselves, with the aid of the twigs, 
 down a slope, which had a very sharp inclina- 
 tion, and if it had terminated in a mural escarp- 
 ment, our situation would have been somewhat 
 precarious : as it was, we had a dark gloomy 
 dell beneath us, and evening was approaching. 
 Had any accident happened to either, or to both 
 of us, we should have been very much embar- 
 rassed, for men provided with nothing but port- 
 folios, hammers, thennometers, and instruments 
 for observation, would find them of very little 
 use on breaking a limb. We had left our lodg- 
 ings as early as nine a.m. ; we had been told it 
 was but four miles to the top of the mountain, 
 were unprovided with any thing, and night was 
 setting in. Water was what we most suffered 
 the want of Afraid of getting entangled in the 
 dell beneath us, we retraced part of our steps, 
 until we reached a point from which we could 
 proceed on a horizontal line along the mountain 
 side, until we regained that by which we as- 
 cended. 
 
 The thorny Robinia pseudo-acacia abounded 
 so much that my clothes were torn to tatters ; 
 and, being at length brought into as bad a situa- 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 31 
 
 lion as Humphry Clinker was, I was obliged to 
 tie them up with my pocket handkerchief, and 
 exchange my short roundabout jacket for my 
 son's longer shooting coat. When we reached 
 the first peak, which we had called Little White 
 Rock, we again deviated to the right, and, leav- 
 ing the line of our ascent, plunged into the dell 
 in search of water, about which we both of us 
 felt very anxious. I soon perceived an unusual 
 dampness in the air, which bore the smell of 
 water, and, following a small dry brook some 
 distance, we, to our great joy, found a spring 
 of delicious water. Here we refreshed our- 
 selves most luxuriously ; and, reinvigorated, at 
 length extricated ourselves from the dell, and 
 T'eached the high road. It was night when we 
 reached our lodgings, exhausted and worn out, 
 but supper was over, and we could not procure 
 even a piece of bread. Dressing ourselves in 
 haste, we got again in motion, and dragging our 
 reluctant limbs to the place where Wright's 
 shanty was, we sat down to a venison steak and 
 a bottle of ale ; having finished which, we tramp- 
 ed back again to the White Sulphur, and made 
 our appearance at the ball-room, where our 
 friends were beginning to inquire for us. We 
 had been incessantly in motion for eleven hours. 
 
 During my stay at this place I remarked that 
 the adjacent hills, as well as the establishment 
 of the Spring, were generally covered with fog 
 until past eight in the morning, after which hour 
 it is dispersed by the sun. In rainy weather 
 the fog is unusually heavy, and then a little fire 
 is acceptable both morning and evening. It 
 rained on the 20th of August, and on the 21st I 
 found the thermometer at seven a.m. gave 62° 
 Fahr. for the temperature of the water, and 56° 
 for the atmosphere. When the sun broke out, 
 the thermometer rose immediately to 82°, and 
 at noon to 91°. 
 
 As to the curative properties of the waters 
 of the White Sulphur Springs, they appear to be 
 universally and justly admitted. I had various 
 opportunities of conversing with intelligent phy- 
 sicians who annually attend them, and they all 
 concurred in stating their great efficacy in re- 
 lieving persons afflicted with obstructions of the 
 liver, dyspepsia, and the derangements arising 
 from those bilious and intermittent fevers to 
 which people who inhabit low marshy lands on 
 the large rivers are subject. This opinion seems 
 to be sustained, as well by the successful cures 
 which they annually perform, as by reasoning 
 founded on medicinal theories. These sulphur- 
 etted waters have also obtained a reputation for 
 being useful in cutaneous complaints. I had an 
 evidence of this in my son, who arrived in this 
 region troubled with large ringworms in various 
 parts of his face, which were soon, by the use 
 of the waters, successfully cured. But the most 
 active causes, which perhaps concur with the 
 waters to the restoration of health, are the jour- 
 ney to the mountains, the exchange of a low in- 
 fected atmosphere for the invigorating air of a 
 salubrious region, the fine exercise enjoyed in 
 the hills, and a relief from the cares of business. 
 The inhabitants of the marshy lands of the tide- 
 water districts live there at an expense of health 
 both fearful and unavoidable, but the fertility of 
 the land makes the temptation irresistible. Since 
 man, therefore, will go and increase and multi- 
 ply under such unfavourable circumstances, ex- 
 
 changing health for wealth, it ought to be con- 
 sidered a providential dispensation that there, 
 should be a mountainous region containing so 
 many precious resources so happily situated — 
 midway, as it were, between the inhabitants of 
 the low lands of the Atlantic Ocean, and those 
 of the basin of the Mississippi. Here they can 
 annually congregate, reinvigorate their sickly 
 fraines, and by communicating to each other the 
 information they bring from their respective 
 countries, reciprocally enlarge their minds, carry 
 home useful information, and become, in every 
 sense of the word, more united as citizens of 
 the same nation. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 Paying beforehand as bad as not paying all — Journey to the 
 Sweet Springs — Beauty of the country — Gaseous and 
 solid Contents of the Waters— Remarltable dam formed 
 of Travertine — Ancient Travertine 350 feet above the 
 level of the present Springs, probably derived from them 
 before the Valley e.\isled — Proofs of the ancient Surface 
 being lowered. 
 
 This morning, August 27th, found us stand- 
 ing, at five A.M., by the road side, with our lug- 
 gage, ready to get into the stage coach, in which 
 our places had been taken to the Sivcet Springs, 
 and ■paid for two days before. Prudent people,- 
 who wish to be quite sure of getting away from 
 this Tophet, will of course secure their places 
 several days beforehand by paying for them. 
 We had now to learn that this was insufficient. 
 When the coach stopped, I perceived it had its 
 full complement of nine passengers inside. As 
 it was perfectly clear that I had a right to places 
 there, I immediately opened the door, when a 
 general growl informed me there was no room. 
 The greater part of the passengers were men, 
 not of whom seemed disposed to stir. Those 
 .•\mericans who are underbred, rather plume 
 themselves upon their deference to ladies whea 
 travelling, and I have often seen them somewhat 
 officious in their politeness, ar far as trifles 
 went ; as if they wanted to show that they 
 knew it was not usual to be rude when it could 
 be avoided, or to spit upon ladies' gowns when 
 they could do the same thing over the side of a 
 steamer. But as to their giving up any good 
 substantial thing they were in possession of 
 without an equivalent, that was a virtue that 
 did not seem to ente.r at least into the contem- 
 plation of this stage coachful of animals, for not 
 one of them offered to resign his seat to my 
 wife, though I told them my places had beea 
 paid for two days, whilst scarce one of them 
 had engaged his place previous to the preceding 
 evening. I now appealed to the driver, who re- 
 fused to interfere, and said we might get on the 
 top. The very idea of putting a lady on the top 
 of such a preposterous machine as that stage 
 coach, was an absurdity. Looking more nar- 
 rowly into the inside, to see if there was any 
 decent person that I could hope to prevail upon,. 
 I espied a dark ill-looking mulatto, and asked 
 him civilly to ride on the top, but Mr. Gamboge 
 liked his place as well as the rest, and refused ; 
 upon which I called my son, and told the fellow, 
 that if he did not without farther delay evacu- 
 ate the premises, we would instantly drag him 
 out neck and heels. Seeing we were in earn- 
 est, he got out sulkily, and my wife get in. I 
 mounted the top, and my son wisley prefeied. 
 
32 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 walking the whole 18 miles, for a cold bleak fog 
 covered the Alleghany mountain, and I suffered 
 very much outside, having put on nothing but a 
 Jiglit dimity round-about jacket, expecting to 
 Tide inside. The road was very good, and led, 
 in a southern direction, througli many romantic 
 dells and defiles of the Alleghany mountains, 
 into a broad valley, where the Sweet Springs 
 are situated, at the foot of an inferior ridge, here 
 called Peter's Mountain, and which is probably 
 a continuation of the ridge called Warm Springs 
 Mountain, distant from hence about 50 miles in 
 a north east direction. 
 
 This ample valley is most agreeably diversi- 
 fied with hummocks, spurs, and knobs jutting 
 out from the mountains, all of them well wood- 
 ed, and interspersed with numerous sequestered 
 coves and wild looking little vales which sepa- 
 rate them. At 11 miles from the White Sulphur 
 we came to an enterprising settler's called Crow, 
 who keeps a tolerably clean tavern, and here a 
 small stream, in front of his house, runs on the 
 limestone. Three miles from this place, and 
 four from the Sweet Springs, the country opens, 
 the mountains recede, luxuriant crops of corn 
 are seen growing on the fertile bottom-land, 
 through which the stream flows that takes its 
 rise at the Sweet Springs; indeed all the adja- 
 cent country possesses a great deal of beauty, 
 which is increased by a lofty and very graceful 
 knoll that rises innnediately south of the springs. 
 
 The cabins of the establishment, though by 
 no means as good as they might be, were rurally 
 dispersed over the foot of the slope, and nu- 
 merous handsome single umbrageous oak-trees 
 served as a shade from the hot beams of the 
 sun, and added much to the pleasing aspect of 
 the scene. We were put into a cabin that was 
 old and rude enough, but it was roomy and wa- 
 ter-tight, and we had no disagreeable neighbours. 
 What a delightful country this would be if there 
 were none but clean well-behaved people in it ! 
 Here then, finding a tranquil and agreeable rest- 
 ing-place, we determined to remain a few days, 
 and recover from the disgust we had experi- 
 enced at the White Sulphur. We found an abun- 
 dance of clean and good provisions, venison, mut- 
 ton, good bread and butter, and excellent milk ; 
 the pastry was also good and abundant ; and, 
 amidst this general plenty and cleanliness, and 
 the constant obligingness of Mr. Rogers the 
 lardlord, and his family, we soon got into capi- 
 tal good humour again with everybody and 
 everything in this charming district. We heard 
 of other springs not far from us; there were the 
 snU sulphur, the red sulphur, and others; those 
 who had visited them spoke highly of the clean- 
 liness and abundance of those establishments, 
 and I found that Mr. Caldwell enjoyed an undis- 
 puted notoriety for everything that was offensive 
 to the visitors to the mountains, a fact which 
 •points to the inevitable results which attend in- 
 dolence and want of capacity. I had such a 
 long tour before me, that I had not time to visit . 
 the other springs, and therefore devoted the 
 short period I remained here to some very curi- 
 ous natural phenomena in the neighbourhood, 
 which had never attracted public attention, and 
 the most remarkable of which was the manner 
 in which travertine had been deposited here, 
 both in ancient and modern times. 
 
 The Sweet Springs break out very copiously 
 at the foot of a pretty knoll, which extends about 
 
 I three quarters of a mile to Peter's Mountain, 
 ' and are received in a neat reservoir appropria- 
 ted to drinking, the surplus being conducted by 
 different conduits into two separate baths. In 
 the bath I found the temperature 72^ Fahr., the 
 atmospheric temperature in the shade being 57° 
 30', and in the sun 62°. I never remained in 
 the bath more than five or ten minutes, and al- 
 ways felt a delicious glow on coming out, which 
 left me without lassitude, and had a very bra- 
 cing effect. The gaseous contents were nitro- 
 gen, carbonic acid in abundance, and perhaps a 
 little oxygen ; all these came up very freely 
 through the transparent fluid, as at the Warm 
 Springs. The solid contents are carbonate of 
 lime, sulphate of magnesia, sulphate of lime, 
 and a very minute quantity of iron. The 
 sweetish taste they have, which has given 
 their name to the waters, is probably occa- 
 sioned by a small quantity of magnesia in com- 
 bination with carbonic acid. These are not 
 the only mineral waters in this valley ; other 
 springs come to the surface in it. Not more 
 than half a mile to the north-east from the Sweet 
 Springs, there is one of a similar character ; and 
 at no great distance, various chalybeate springs, 
 with some that contain sulphuretted hydrogen. 
 But to return to the curious deposits of ancient 
 and modern travertine. 
 
 Before the waters of the Sweet Springs have 
 left their source 100 yards, they begin to depos- 
 it carbonate of lime, which has formed into a 
 regular travertine on the sides of a brook run- 
 ning near the enclosure of the establishment, 
 and which pursues its course thence through 
 the rich bottom of the valley. When the stream 
 has flowed on for about two miles, it reaches a 
 fall, where there is a saw-mill. This fall is 
 about 550 yards wide across the valley, and is 
 called by the country people the Beaver-dam, 
 they supposing it to have been constructed by 
 the beavers in past times when they existed in 
 this valley. In fact, from its great width, and 
 from the circumstance of many logs lying on its 
 slope, it is not surprising that it should be 
 thought to be the remains of one of the well- 
 known structures of these animals. On exam- 
 ining this fall and its broad slope, now entirely 
 grown up with bushes and brakes, I was sur- 
 prised to find that it was not a log-dam con- 
 structed by beavers, but that the whole slope 
 consisted of calcareous matter of the same 
 character as that I had observed at the Sweet 
 Springs. It was evident, therefore, that the 
 stream, now only a few yards broad, had once 
 covered the whole surface of the valley, and 
 that the water, in passing over this fall, which 
 must have been a very gentle one at first, had 
 gradually built up a calcareous dam to its pres- 
 ent height, over which its waters had at some 
 period been discharged, as in the case of ordi- 
 nary dams, over the whole breadth of 550 yards. 
 
 In this curious phenomenon we have evidence 
 of a surprising diminution in the volume of a 
 thermal water; and reflecting upon this, it 
 struck me that, if it were so, the flat land at 
 the bottom of the slope below the dam must 
 also have been covered by this calcareous stream 
 in proportion to its breadth, and upon examining 
 it I found it to be so, the travertine extending 
 for a great distance on each side of the now 
 diminisljed volume. I then followed the stream 
 for three quarters of a mile, to a cascade forty- 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 33 
 
 two feet high and about six feet wide, projected 
 in a very beautiful sheet upon a strong bed of 
 slate, highly inclined, which in many places 
 was covered with a stalagmitie floor of traver- 
 tine, a foot thick. On scrambling down to the 
 slate, I had a front view of the cascade, and 
 saw that it was projected from a bold mural 
 ledge of travertine, from which depended an 
 infinite variety of stalactitic rods and pilasters. 
 Amongst other curious appearances, I observed 
 a fir-tree (Abies Canadensis), about forty years 
 old, in full life, with its roots and about seven 
 feet of the stem entirely encrusted with calca- 
 reous matter. 
 
 Near to the foot of this wall of travertine, 
 which was more than forty feet high, were 
 openings to various caverns — similar to some 
 spacious ones I had entered in the broad calca- 
 reous dam higher up the stream — with numer- 
 ous depending stalactites, resembling filigree 
 work and petrified mosses, the fretted appear- 
 ance of which is caused by the spray of the 
 cascade. 
 
 Mineral waters of this character, when they 
 pass rapidly over shallow or stony places, or 
 are in any manner thoroughly exposed to the 
 action of light and air, are most prone to deposit 
 their solid constituents, especially lime — a fact 
 which accounts for these deposits. When this 
 valley was formed, the stream probably passed 
 over a gentle rapid, which, breakmg the water, 
 would cause the deposit ; and this increasing in 
 height until the volume of the stream was di- 
 minished to its present width, or had contracted 
 in consequence of the accumulation of vegeta- 
 ble and alluvial matter, the slaty bottom, being 
 dammed up, would be converted into a fertile 
 valley capable of producing 10,000 bushels of 
 maize annually: another beautiful instance of 
 the beneficent manner in which provident Nature 
 operates in favour of man. For here we see 
 the springs of life not only issuing from unfath- 
 omable subterranean depths to the surface of 
 the wilderness, ready to restore the enfeebled 
 constitution of the suffering Southerner, but 
 be-hold them, after administering to his wants, 
 mechanically engaged, by a simple process in 
 harmony with the laws of nature, in producing 
 the means even of sustaining those who come 
 here to seek relief, and in embellishing every- 
 thing around. These are amongst those charm- 
 ing lessons we receive from Nature, which dis- 
 pose our hearts to see a Divine care for us in 
 everything. 
 
 I was one day returning to my cabin with 
 some fine specimens of travertine rods formed 
 in concentric circles, and a collection of beauti- 
 fully encrusted leaves in a state of perfect pre- 
 servation, when I met Mr. Rogers, the landlord 
 of the establishment, an old inhabitant, and a 
 very intelligent and wctrtliy persun. He as- 
 sured me that some years agu, when huniing 
 deer in the hills, he had seen some rocks, at a 
 great height above the valley, exactly resem- 
 bling them. Being a man of good judgment, 1 
 prnpu.sed to hiin to accompanv me to the place, 
 and he cheerfully assented. Mounting his horse, 
 and accompanied by me on foot, he led me about 
 six miles in a north direction ; but so many 
 years hatl elapsed since he had casually observ- 
 ed the place, and the deep dells and hills, 
 clothed with their everlasting woods, resembled 
 
 I each other so much, that we passed the whole 
 morning wandering about, climbing one hill 
 and descending another, till I began to think he 
 had been mistaken, and told him so. He would 
 not admit this, and proposed trying another hill- 
 side before we returned, called Snakerun Moun- 
 tain, one of the outliers of limestone, of which 
 there are many in this valley, and there I fol- 
 lowed him. Being on horseback, and in ad- 
 vance of me, I heard him holla, and knew from 
 the cheerful sound of his voice that the game 
 was found. As he approached, I saw he held 
 in his hand a piece of rock, and, on joining him, 
 I immediately recognised it for a piece of very 
 ancient, weathered travertine. He now con- 
 ducted me to the brow of a hill, at least 350 
 feet above the level of the Sweet Springs, and 
 there, to my great surprise, I saw a huge mural 
 escarpment of ancient travertine skirting the 
 brow of the hill, with innumerable weather- 
 worn remains of old stalactites ; whilst the 
 body of the escarpment resembled in every par- 
 ticular the recent one at the cascade, abounding 
 in large moulds of calcareous matter, which had 
 formerly enclosed logs and branches of trees. 
 The pendent stalactites, too, were constructed 
 of concentric circles, so that I had the complete 
 evidence before me that a stream of mineral 
 water of great breadth, loaded with carbonate * 
 of lime, had for a length of time passed over 
 this brow, and formed this very ancient escarp- 
 ment. The surface of the rock contained in 
 many parts those circular perforations made by 
 stones and gravel kept whirling about in them 
 by eddies, which are vulgarly called pot-holes, 
 and which are to be seen in the vicinity of all 
 rapid streams. This Snake-run Mountain stood, 
 as I found by compass. N.N E. by E. from the 
 Sweet Springs ; and Peter's Mountain, in an- 
 other part, where I got a peep of it through the 
 trees, bore E. of the place where I stood. 
 
 Here was an extraordinary phenomenon ! 
 
 an immense deposit of travertine lying 350 feet 
 above the present level of the spring from whicli 
 it was probably derived ; for it seems to be 
 .■susceptible of no other explanation than that 
 the level of the valley was, at some remote 
 period, much higher than it is now, and that the 
 Sweet Springs were then at the same level 
 with this ancient travertine. Before the valley- 
 was scooped out by the currents v/hich retired 
 —perhaps when the Alleghany ridges were ele- 
 vated— it is probable that the whole surface of 
 the now deeply sulcated region was of one con- 
 tinuous level, and that the Sweet Springs came 
 to the surface through the limestone, on a level 
 with this ancient escarpment : but when the 
 valley was swept out, the hard, compact lime- I 
 stones resisted, and remained behind, as we 
 now find them, in the calcareous hummocks; ; 
 whilst the conglomerates, shales, and sandstones 
 were broken down and carried away. Since ' 
 that period, the softer parts of the formations 
 occupying that part of the valley where the 
 springs now are have been gradually worn 
 down, permitting the stream to take a new 
 direction, and make new deposits ; whilst the 
 old travertine remains a monument of the an- 
 cient level of the country, and one of the strono-- 
 est geological proofs of the extraordinary changes 
 that have been effected in the general surface. 
 These mountainous countries have indeed 
 
34 
 
 TRAVELS IX AMERICA. 
 
 Tindercrone great cnanges. I have frequently 
 found fragments of conglomerate sandstone (old 
 red) abounding on the slopes and in the valleysl 
 together with slabs and pieces of encrinital 
 limestone, once, no doubt, at the same level 
 with the beds near the summit of White Rock, 
 near the "White Sulphur. The conglomerates, 
 too, in this district, appear to have been in situ 
 above the hishest existing summits of this re- 
 gion, for I ha^•e repeatedly found bouldered frag- 
 ments of them on their tops ; and near Bedford, 
 in Pennsylvania, the same conglomerates are 
 still founii in place on the sandstones of the 
 Backbone ridge. 
 
 The general order of the strata in this part of 
 the country is but a repetition of the ordinary 
 succession of slates, limestones, and sand- 
 stones, the last of which are occasionally very 
 ferruginous. Sometimes the surface of the sum- 
 mits consists of slates, at other times of sand- 
 stones : the modifications which the ridges have 
 received appearing to be in proportion to the vi- 
 olence of the movement which has elevated 
 them, and the subsequent action of the retiring 
 waters. Limestones generally form the bottom 
 of the valleys, but where the ridges have taken 
 the anticlinical form and have been dislocated, 
 the limestones are often found on their flanks. 
 i About live miles to the N.W. of CroWs, I found 
 anthracite coal cropping out in a lerruginous 
 sandstone, on the left bank of a stream called 
 Fork Run, which drains a small valley : the 
 strike of the coal, which contained a great deal 
 of sulphuret of iron, was the same as that of 
 the ridges, N.N.E. and S.S.W. This bed of 
 anthracite had never been disturbed, being com- 
 pletely covered under the tiat land of the valley, 
 except where the stream has laid it bare. The 
 coal seems to follow the flexure of the hills, as 
 in the Alleghany ridges of Pennsylvania, a fact 
 which I saw more clearly at another locality on 
 the south side of the Sweet Springs .Mountain, 
 not far from a Mr. Wiley's. The ferruginous 
 beds at the top of the Sweet Springs Moimtain 
 are sometimes very rich, and would probably 
 give from 50 to 60 per cent of iron. The ridges 
 about here are well wooded, and have generally 
 a good soil to the top, capable of making excel- 
 lent grazing land. With iron, and coal and 
 limesume to flux it, 1 see no impediment to a 
 thriving population estabhshing itself here here- 
 after. Worse land, without these valuable 
 minerals, will sell for 25 dollars an acre in many 
 parts of the State of New York, whilst many of 
 these fresh and fertile lands are offered, as I am 
 informed, at one cent an ?.cre, to avoid the pay- 
 ment of taxes. The tine bottom land, however, 
 of the Sweet Springs is not to be purchased at 
 that rate ; a great portion of it is already culti- 
 vated, and produces heavy crops of corn, being 
 composed for many feel of dark-coloured vege- 
 table matter mixed upwiih the fragments of old 
 land-shells, helix, paludina, anculotus, and a 
 prodigious quantity of planorbis. in consequence 
 of the presence of carbonate of lime. They 
 were ditching a part of this fat land whilst I was 
 there, which gave me an opportunity of making 
 a collection of these shells : anicingst other 
 things, I saw them take out from a depth of about 
 six feet the cranium of an ox, which turned out 
 upon inspection to be the skull of one those buf- 
 faloes which inhabited the country before it was 
 
 settled by the whites. It is not remarkabls 
 that their bones should be found in such a situ- 
 ation, as they usually congregate in places 
 where salt springs and wild grass are to be ob- 
 tained : indeed the buffalo must have frequented 
 this valley within the memory of man, for there 
 is an aged man near the White Sulphur who 
 asserts that he has killed several animals of 
 that race at the mineral spring there. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Depart on foot across the Moanlains to Fincastle — Decidu- 
 ous and evergreen Trees aliernating with the Soit— Fin- 
 castle, !i V rginia Town— .Mr. Jolierson the Confucius of 
 the United States — Free-thinhingand I'niversal Suffrage 
 h-s grand Nostrums for giKxl Giivemment — .\ patriotic 
 proposition lo blow Virginia "sky-high" to save its Con- 
 stitution — Botetiiuri Sprins-s — .\ Camp of Xearo Slave 
 drivers — The Coffle of Slaves crosses New Kiver man- 
 acled and fettered — The Nesro drivers in i 
 
 H.wiNG looked at the most interesting objects 
 in this part of the country, and conhded my 
 wife to the care of some iViends, my son and 
 myself, having still an arduous tour before us 
 as far as the ^lexican frontier, set off on foot at 
 an early hour on September 3rd, for Fincastle, 
 distant 29 miles, forwarding our luggage by the 
 stage. It was a beautiful morning, and we 
 soon got to the south side of Peter's Mountain. 
 Here, in a small valley, on the property of Mr. 
 Brooke, and at the bottom of another ridge 
 called Pott's Mountain. I observed a strong bed 
 of anthracite coal, bearing N N.E. ; it was a 
 promising-lookinsr deposit which had not been 
 disturbed, and therefore did not disclose the 
 thickness of the vein. The limestone lies very 
 near to it, and not tar distant there was a min- 
 eral spring of sulphuretted hydrogen rising 
 through a pyritous slate. Farther to the south, 
 there is a lofty hummock, or hill, exceedingly 
 steep, entirely composed of rich iron-stone, 
 which we left the road to examine. Having 
 rather fatigued ourselves here, we left the place 
 and began the ascent of Pott's Mountain, up 
 which the road ran for four tedious miles to the 
 lop, near which we found a delicious spring of 
 cool water with a large trough to receive it, and 
 here we washed and refreshed ourselves. The 
 view from the summit is very exiensive, pre- 
 senting many extensive ridges on each side 
 densely covered with the foliage of the unvary- 
 ing forest, but without a vestige of the labour of 
 man. except at the very top of the mountain, 
 where, owing to there being an extensive de- 
 posit of clay, a small pottery has been estab- 
 lished forlhe purpose of manufacturingearthen- 
 ware. .\s we descended the mouniain on the 
 01 her side, we met with numerous springs 
 coming out from beneath the clay, and at the 
 foot of the ridge we came to a fertile piece of 
 land where a Mr. Scott kept a small tavern. 
 From hence we proceeded to Craig's Creek, 
 which we reached long after sunset. Usually 
 at such places there is a passing place made of 
 squared timber for foot passengers, but here we 
 could find none, and in the exceedingly faint 
 starlight that disclosed things but imperfectly, 
 we were quite uncertain which was ihe ford. 
 There was no resource, however, but trying, so 
 down we sat on the beach and stripped to it, 
 and entered the stream which was about 150 
 feet wide. What had appeared at first lo me- 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 35 
 
 nace us with embarrassment now became a 
 source of the greatest satisfaction, the tempera- 
 ture af the water beinir, so very agreeable as to 
 refresh our feet exceedingly, which were some- 
 what bruised and chafed. Being always pro- 
 vided with towels for emergencies of this kind, 
 we sal down very cheerfully to refresh our- 
 selves as soon as we had reached the other 
 side, and then pursued our walk for an hour, 
 which brought us to a tavern kept by a person 
 of the name of Price, where we got some re- 
 freshment and were glad to repose ourselves 
 after an unceasing tramp by a tolerable night's 
 rest. We had walked 25 miles .since eleven in 
 the morning, over a very rough country. 
 
 In the morning I examined a sulphuretted 
 spring near the house, and advised the proprietor 
 to divert the course of a brook which ran too 
 near it, for, being at a higher level, the waters 
 of the brook mixed themselves with those of the 
 spring, and not only diluted it, but brought its 
 temperature down to 52°. After breakfast we 
 ascended Caldwell's Mountain, another emi- 
 nence which separated us from the valley in 
 which the town of Fincastle is built, and which 
 is a continuation of the great limestone valley 
 running west from Harper's- ferry : in the ferru- 
 ginous slaty sandstones towards the top, we 
 found large elliptical nodules of ironstone embed- 
 ded in concentric circles, some of which were 
 three feet long and twelve inches broad. On 
 descendmg the mountain we took a sketch of 
 some conical peaks on the summit of an adja- 
 cent ridge, wliich were separated from each 
 other by deep sulcated depressions coming down 
 its side ; these showed a bright green foliage of 
 hickory, maple, chestnut, and other deciduous 
 trees, whilst the ribs of the ridge on each side 
 of the depressions showed nothing but dark 
 green evergreens of the fir kind. The clouds 
 partially covering the cones of these peaks 
 whilst the sun was gleaming upon their sides, 
 they made an exceedingly pretty and rather un- 
 common picture, for the contrast between the 
 foliage of the evergreens and the summer-leav- 
 ed trees — occasioned, I supposed, by a curious 
 alternation of slate and sandstone — was very 
 strong. Here we sprung the only head of game 
 we saw during the walk ; a fine large cock 
 pheasant (letrao cupido), as they are called here, 
 with his crest and whiskers erect, was strutting 
 about in a wild way and chicking like a hen. 
 After observing for a time his fantastic move- 
 ments, which resembled those of a pouter 
 pigeon, with great pleasure, we alarmed him, 
 and he rose with a loud cuck-a-ra-ra voice and 
 a strong wing, and flew arross the dell with 
 great velocity. This pleasing incident relieved 
 the solitude of the scene very agreeably. At 
 the bottom of the mountain we came upon the 
 limestone again, and on our approach to Fincas- 
 tle we passed an opulent-looking plantation 
 with a very respectable mansion-house, sur- 
 rounded with a stout limestone wall. As this 
 had been taken in blocks from a quarry in the 
 neighbourliood, I examined it, and found that it 
 contained some fine specimens of producta. 
 
 Fincastle is a monument of colonial times, 
 taking its name from one of the titles of Lord 
 J M more, who was Governor of Virginia when 
 the rebellion* broke out there in 1775. The 
 principal Street of this straggling village is very 
 
 narrow, hut the place contains some respecta- 
 ble families, and just at this period the court c* 
 justice was sitting, and which occasioned a great 
 bustle of lawyers and country-people. To judge 
 from appearances the science of law seemed to 
 be a litlle more cultivated than any other in Vir- 
 ginia ; for, with the exception of a few country- 
 gentlemen of the ancient families, all the mea 
 of any influence in the Slate appear to be law- 
 yers. They fill the Slate legislature and direct 
 all its proceedings ; they represent the State ia 
 Congress, and take their full share there of all 
 the talking and all the political intriguing that is 
 going on ; and as it occurs in most of the other 
 States, the political parties are frequently chang- 
 ing their ground as well as their designation, to 
 suit the ''cry" under which their candidates are 
 brought forward ; so that whilst they all profess 
 to be most religiously devoted to the mainte- 
 nance of the Constitution of Virginia, they have 
 forty difTerent ways of interpreting it, each of 
 which is most stoutly maintained to be the 
 true exposition of the Jeffersonian doctrines. It 
 is well known to those who have travelled a 
 great deal in the United States, that Virginia is 
 one of the most agreeable parts of the Union, 
 that there are many persons in it who eminently 
 deserve the character of gentlemen, and that 
 Virginians are, generally speaking, a lively and 
 ingenious people, full of kind attentions to those 
 who go amongst them. In the days of Wash- 
 ington and the men of his time, the political 
 topics of the day might be comprehended with- 
 out much difficulty ; for although men of sense 
 and character differed about the local applica- 
 tion of measures, yet they were united in the 
 support of practically good and intelligible prin- 
 ciples of government : but the complexity of 
 political opinions in modern times is so great, 
 that a traveller who is merely passing througli 
 the State, and has not paid particular attention 
 to Virginian politics, is quite baffled in the at- 
 tempt to understand what he reads or what he 
 hears. 
 
 The principal cause of this degeneracy from 
 the straightforward and simple principles of the 
 old school, is fairly attributable to that eminent 
 person who is considered by many of his admi- 
 rers in .America and in Europe to be the Confu- 
 cius of the United States. Now whether this 
 parallel is flattering to the memory of Mr. Jef- 
 ferson or not, it would certainly seem to be true 
 that he believed, as that antique philosopher did, 
 that litlle was wanting to produce good govern- 
 ment amongst mankind beyond a string of well- 
 coiieocted abstract maxims ; he therefore be- 
 queathed to his countrymen a set of opinions 
 that were quite independent of anything taught 
 by the Christian religion, and whici^ *^. - 
 extent he had derived, di"-- ,„ , , ' '^' "* ^ . 
 P-.i-.o cf fk • . -'""g his residence in 
 
 Pans at the period of u,e French RevoUrrron. 
 irom those Gallic philosophers who. dissatisfied 
 vvith the con(i,t{„n of man as it develops itself 
 through the various degrees of intellect, temper, 
 and physical power with which Providence has 
 endowed him, attempted to bring ail to a philan- 
 thropic equality by the lively action of the guU- 
 lotine. ^ 
 
 Before Mr. Jefferson's time Virginia was a 
 happy English colony, a better copy of the mo- 
 ther-country than any of the other colonies. 
 She had numerous independent country gentte- 
 
36 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 men, whose fathers, as the custom of the day 
 was, had sent their sons " home" to be educated 
 at Oxford and Cambridge, and she had an es- 
 tablished endowed Protestant Episcopal Church. 
 It was Mr. Jefferson who uprooted tiiat church, 
 and confiscated the glebes and parsonages. 
 His maxim was " to let religion take care of it- 
 self," never attending to the obvious necessity 
 of cherishing religion for the two important pur- 
 poses of consolmg the poor and ignorant, and 
 giving a Christian and wise direction to the 
 power of the rich. Those grievances which 
 the colonists had just reason to complain of 
 from the British government, found in Mr. Jef- 
 ferson an active exponent ; he soon became the 
 leading patriot in his native State, and drew in 
 many gentlemen, who disliked the man, to sup- 
 port his ineasures. It was but a short time, 
 however, which elapsed after the acknowledg- 
 ment of the independence of the United States, 
 and the establishment of the Federal Govern- 
 ment, before he turned his attention to over- 
 throwing the influence of the gentlemen who, 
 with General Washigton at their head, had uni- 
 ted with him in their opposition to the mother- 
 country, and he was successful. 
 
 In exchange fur a Federal Government rest- 
 ing for its maintenance upon character and pro- 
 perty, he succeeded in substituting one based 
 upon free thinking and universal suffrage, two 
 grand incarnations of fancied virtue totally with- 
 out the principles they stood in the place of. 
 Hence the necessity of all his political dogmas 
 and maxims, to reconcile absurdities, most of 
 which, like many other oracles, can be made to 
 assume every possible phase by acute and inge- 
 nious persons, when it is necessary to avoid the 
 exposure of their intrinsic worthlessness. 
 
 I was exceedingly amused by the conversa- 
 tion at the public table of the inn where we stop- 
 ped, at which a great number of country law- 
 yers were assembled, most of whom were disci- 
 ples of Mr. Jefferson. Nothing could exceed the 
 extraordinary propositions which were brought 
 forward and warmly defended by metaphysical 
 subtleties of the wildest character. Every dis- 
 putant asserted that the argument of his adver- 
 sary was utterly subversive of the Constitution ; 
 so that if the opinion of any one of them had 
 been admitted to be founded on reason, it was 
 clear that it would be at the expense of the Con 
 stitution. A grave looking gentleman, who, 
 from his conversation, I took for a Federalist 
 of the Washington schnol, made a quiet obser- 
 vation of that kind, which brought out one of 
 the most loquacious disputants: thumping his 
 hand upon the table, he exclaimed with energy, 
 '^By * * -, before I'd let any man hurt the Con- 
 stuu""" ^ haif's breadth, Id blow old Virginia 
 sky-high '" T."^'" °'^" ^^ averting dangers from 
 the'consiituti.m'by a hc-oic explosion of the 
 Commonwealth itself, is an -nslructive illustra- 
 tion of the practical tendency of Jeffersoman 
 philosophv ; for it cannot but be highly encour- 
 aging to the patriots of all countries who culti- 
 vate the subtleties of metaphysical equality and 
 universal suffrage, to discern in them a potency 
 which, up to the present times, has not been 
 equalled even by gunpowder. 
 
 Finding it impossible to accomplish the whole 
 of our proposed journey on foot, and being now 
 \ipoa a road where the mail ran, we booked 
 
 ourselves in the stage-coach, and started the 
 next morning over an execrable road of knobby 
 limestone, stopping a short time at Botetourt 
 Springs, another name that reminded aie of co- 
 lonial times. Here there is a mineral water of 
 sulphuretted hydrogen, not much dissimilar to 
 tliat of the White Sulphur. The establishment, 
 when compared with the other Virginia springs 
 I have visited, looks very respectable ; the 
 buildings, which are wooden cabins elsew-here, 
 are well constructed of brick, and placed in a 
 neat quadrangle, at the end of which is the ho- 
 tel, containing a large hall, with an excellent 
 parlour well furnished ; every thing at the place 
 looked comfortable, but there were only three vi- 
 sitors there. A mile or two from these springs 
 is Tinker's Mountain, which has a singularly 
 symmetrical saddle-formed shape. Farther on 
 we came to a small settlement called Big Springs, 
 one of those immense natural basins of pure wa- 
 ter not uncommon in limestone districts, and 
 which seem to abound in this well-watered 
 country. We next ascended to a poor sort of 
 town called Christianburgh, forty-eight miles 
 from Fincastle, on the way to which we crossed 
 several branches of the Roanoke River, which 
 empties into the Atlantic Ocean. 
 
 Here we slept, and departing very early in 
 the morning, found ourselves somewhat unex- 
 pectedly upon an extensive table-land, not at ail 
 cut up by ridges and valleys. This continues 
 to New River, one of the tributaries of the Ka- 
 nawha, which empties into the Ohio. We 
 found the descent to this stream rather rapid, 
 and the river broader than any we had passed, 
 being about 200 yards wide. On this water- 
 shed the waters which flow into the .\tlantic, 
 and those which flow into the Gulf of Mexico, 
 have their sources, in some places very near to 
 each other. 
 
 Just as we reached New River, in the early 
 grey of the morning, we came up with a singu- 
 lar spectacle, the most striking one of the kind 
 I have ever witnessed. It was a camp of negro 
 slave-drivers, just packing up to start ; they 
 had about three hundred slaves with them, who 
 had bivouacked the preceding night in chains in 
 the woods ; these they were conducting to Nat- 
 chez, upon the Mississippi River, to work upon 
 the sugar plantations in Louisiana. It resem- 
 bled one of those coffles of slaves spoken of 
 by Mungo Park, except that they had a caravaa 
 of nine waggons and single-horse carriages, for 
 the purpose of conducting the white people, and 
 any of the blacks that should fall lame, to which 
 they were now putting the horses to pursue 
 their march. The female slaves were, some 
 of them, sitting on logs of wood, whilst others 
 were standing, and a great many little black 
 children were warming themselves at the fires 
 of the bivouac. In front of them ah, and pre- 
 pared for the march, stood, in double files, about 
 two hundred male slaves, mariackd and chained 
 to each other. I had never seen so revolting a 
 sight before ! Black men in fetters, torn from 
 the lands where they were born, from the ties 
 they had formed, and from the comparatively 
 easy condition which agricultural labour affords, 
 and driven by white men, with liberty and equal- 
 ity in their mouths, to a distant and unhealthy- 
 country, to perish in the sugar-mi]is of Louisi- 
 ana, where the duration of hfe for a sugar-mill 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 slave does not exceed seven years ! To make 
 this spectacle sfll more disgusting and hideous, 
 some of the principal while slave-drivers, who 
 were tolerably well dressed, and had broad- 
 brimmed while hats on, wil/i black crape round 
 (hem, were standing near, laughing and smokmg 
 cigars. 
 
 Whether these sentimental speculators were, 
 or were not — in accordance with the language 
 of the American Declaration of Independence 
 — in mourning "from a decent respect for the 
 opinions of mankind," or for their own callous 
 inhuman lives, I could not but he struck with 
 the monstrous absurdity of such fellows putting 
 on any symbol of sorrow whilst engaged in the 
 exercise of such a horrid trade; so wishing 
 them in my heart all manner of evil to endure, 
 as long as there was a bit of crape to be obtain- 
 ed, we drove on, and having forded the river in 
 a flat-bottomed boat, drew up on the road, 
 where I persuaded the driver to wait until we 
 had witnessed the crossing of the river by the 
 "gang," as it was called. 
 
 It was an interesting, but a melancholy spec- 
 tacle, to see them effect the passage of the riv- 
 er : first, a man on horseback selected a shallow 
 place in the ford for the male slaves ; then fol- 
 lowed a waggon and four horses, attended by 
 another man on horseback. The other wag- 
 gons contained the children and some that were 
 lame, whilst the scows, or flat-boats, crossed 
 the women and some of the people belonging to 
 the caravan. There was much method and 
 vigilance observed, for this was one of the sit- 
 uations where the gangs — always watchful to 
 obtain their liberty — often show a disposition to 
 mutiny, knowing that if one or two of them 
 could wrench their manacles off, they could 
 sotm free the rest, and either disperse them- 
 selves or overpower and slay their sordid keep- 
 ers, and fly to the Free States. The slave- 
 drivers, aware of this disposition in the unfor- 
 tanate negroes, endeavour to mitigate their dis- 
 content by feeding them well on the march, and 
 by encouraging them to sing " Old Virginia nev- 
 er tire," to the banjo. 
 
 The poor negro slave is naturally a cheerful, 
 laughing animal, and even when driven through 
 the wilderness in chains, if he is well fed and 
 kindly treated, is seldom melancholy ; for his 
 thoughts have not been taught to stray to the 
 future, and his condition is so degraded, that if 
 the food and warmth his desires are limited to 
 are secured to him, he is singularly docile. It 
 is only when he is ill-treated and roused to des- 
 peration, that his vindictive and savage nature 
 breaks out.* But these gangs are accompanied 
 
 * This practice of driving gangs of slaves through the 
 country to the southern nj;urkets has been to a great ex- 
 tent discontinued on account of the dangers and inconve 
 niences it is unavoidably subject to : for the drivers are 
 not all equally prudent and vigilant ; often outraging the 
 slaves by brutal trealraent, and then trusting too implicitly 
 to their apparent humility. Watching their opportunity, 
 the s!;ives have sometimes overpuwered them, put them 
 to death, and dispersed themselves. The attention of 
 these speculators in men has thus become tiu-ned lo the 
 expediency of embarking them at some port in one of ihe 
 slave- holding states, and sending them to New Orleans 
 by sea. 
 
 This scheme, however, as far as regards the speculators, 
 seems to be obnoxious to the same (ibjecli<in that applies 
 to marching them by land, and amoimis, in fact, to the 
 introduction of the domestic slave-trade of the United 
 States upon the great highway of nations. In the case 
 
 by Other negroes trained by the slave-dealers to 
 drive the rest, whom they amuse by lively sto- 
 ries, boasting of the fine warm climate they are 
 going to, and of the oranges and sugar which 
 are there to be had for nothing : in jiroportion 
 as they recede from the Free Slates, the danger 
 of revolt diminishes, for in the Southern Slave- 
 States all men have an interest in protecting 
 this infernal trade of slave-driving, which, to 
 the negro, is a greater curse than slavery itself, 
 since it too often dissevers for ever those affect- 
 ing natural ties which even a slave can form, 
 by tearing, without an instant's notice, the hus- 
 band from the wife, and the children from their 
 parents ; sending the one to the sugar planta- 
 tions of Louisiana, another to the cotton-lands 
 of Arkansas, and the rest to Texas. t 
 
 of the Creole, slave-transport, which occasioned so much, 
 excitement in the United Slates, and led to a protracted 
 negotiation between the Federal Government and the 
 Government of Great Britain, the cargo of slaves over- 
 powered their keepers whilst on the voyage, and loot 
 refuge in a British dependency. They were reclaimed as 
 property ; but as our laws admit of no property in human 
 beings, the legality of the claim was denied, and the denial 
 was acquiesced in. There seems to be no distinction, in 
 the eyes of humanity, between chaining and transporting 
 slaves by land or by sea, and any European government 
 that would recognise claims for aid or compensation, 
 founded upon the inabilitj- of slave-drivers to protect their 
 interests upon the high seas, although when bound from 
 one American port to another, would substantially give 
 countenance to the slave-trade. 
 
 t One day, in Washington, whilst taking a hasty dinner 
 preparatory to a journey, I received a letter from a benevo- 
 lent lady^ioAicA letter I have preserved— entrealins me in 
 the most pressing terms to endeavour to procure the en- 
 largement of a slave called Manuel, who had been her 
 servant. She stated that he had been decoyed to a public 
 slave depot in the skirts of the city, had been seized and 
 detained there, and was going to be sold into the Southern 
 States, and that the delay of an hour perhaps would be 
 too late for interference. This poor fellow was the prop- 
 erty of the principal hotel-keeper in the place, a person 
 called G*****; who, when the Congress was not in 
 session, and he had little or no occupation for his slaves, 
 was in the habit of hiring them out to families by the 
 month, as domestic servants. This Manuel, who was 
 auout twenty-six years old, had belonged to his present 
 master a great many years, was very useful in the hotel, 
 and had married a female slave born in G * * * * *'s house, 
 by whom he had four or five little children. I had ob- 
 served him when visiting at this lady's, and was struck 
 with his pleasing manners. She informed me at the time 
 that he was in everything exemplary in his conduct, and 
 that on Sundays he always went to church with his wife 
 and children, whom he w'as training up in the most admi- 
 rable manner. 
 
 Inconvenient in many respects as it was for me to inter- 
 fere at that time in a matter of this kind, I felt that I should 
 not be satisfied with myself if I disregarded her entreaties, 
 and, therefore, determined instantly to go to this slave- 
 depot. In a few minutes a carriage took me to a large 
 brick edifice in the suburbs, and being directed to a room 
 where the superintendent was, I went there, and found 
 that it was neither more nor less than a jail that I was in ; 
 manacles, fetters, and all sorts of offensive things were 
 lying about, and on casting a look at the hard features of 
 the superintendent, I saw at once that he was the jail- 
 keeper. Informing him that I wished to see a coloured 
 man of the name of Manuel, he took up a ponderous key 
 and conducted me to a door with chains drawn across it, 
 and, unbarring and unlocking it he called the poor fellow, 
 whom I immediately recognised. This door opened into 
 a very spacious prison, where several coloured people 
 were walking about, but without manacles ; and stepping 
 into it, I asked Manuel what had h-.ppened. He then 
 told me the following story : 
 
 His master had sent him to the depdt with a message to 
 the superintendent, who, on his arrival, locked him in the 
 prison. Towards evening his master told his wife that he 
 was surprised Manuel had not returned, and she had bet- 
 ter take the children a walk there to see what was the 
 matter. Thus were these poor unsuspecting people all 
 entrapped. Manuel on the arrival of his wife and family 
 saw into the plot he bad been the victim of, and coupling 
 it with some other circumstances that had not struck hun 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 Revolting as all these atrocious practices are, 
 still lliis "Institution" — a term with which 
 some of the American statesmen dignify slavery 
 and the circumstances inherent to it — as it ex- 
 ists in the United States, does not appear to me 
 to have heen fairly placed before the judgment 
 of mankind by any of those who have written 
 concerning it. All Christian men must unite in 
 the wish that slavery was extinguished in every 
 part of the world, and from my personal knowl- 
 edge of the sentiments of many of the leading 
 gentlemen in the Southern States, I am persua- 
 ded that they look to the ultimate abolition of 
 slavery with satisfaction. Mr. Madison, the 
 Ex-President, with whom I have often conversed 
 freely on this subject, has told me more than 
 once that he could not die in peace if he be- 
 lieved that so great a disgrace to his country was 
 not to be blotted out some day or other. He 
 once informed me that he had assembled all his 
 slaves — and they were numerous — and oflered 
 to manumit them immediately ; but they in- 
 stantly declined it, alleging that they had been 
 born on his estate, had always been provided 
 for by him with raiment and food, in sickness 
 and in health, and if they were made free they 
 would have no home to go to, and no friend to 
 protect or care for them. They preferred, there- 
 fore, to live and die as his slaves, who had ever 
 been a kind master lo them. This, no doubt, 
 is the situation of many humane, right-thinking 
 proprietors in the Soutliern States ; they have 
 inherited valuable plantations with the negroes 
 born upon them, and these look up to their mas- 
 ter as the only friend they have on earth. The 
 most zealous, therefore, of the Abolitionists of 
 the Free States, when they denounce slavery, 
 and call for its immediate abolition, overlook the 
 conditions upon which alone it could be effect- 
 ed. They neither propose to provide a home 
 for the slaves when they are manumitted, nor a 
 compensation to their proprietors. Without 
 slaves the plantations would be worthless ■. there 
 are no white men to cultivate them ; the newly- 
 freed and improvident negroes could not be 
 made available, and there w^ould be no purcha- 
 
 at the time, now perceived that his master, wanting to 
 raise a sum of money, had sold them all. The poor fel- 
 low brought his wife and neat little children to me : she 
 was a modest, well-dressed woman, appeared very wretch- 
 ed at the idea of being sold away from her husband and 
 her children, and implored me most earnestly not to leave 
 them there. On seeing me, they had conceived the hope 
 that I had come to buy them all. to prevent their being 
 separated, and they both protested in the most vehement 
 and affecting way that they would be faithful to me until 
 death. I told them that was impossible, that I never did 
 own a slave, and never intended to own one ; that Mrs. 
 
 had written to inform me of their misfortune, and 
 
 that I would do all I could to pecsuade gome of my friends 
 to do what they wished me to do. 
 
 Leavinj; a little money with them, I drove to the house 
 of a genileinan who knew what it was most advisable 
 to do in such a case, but he gave me veiy httle conso- 
 lation. He said that he knew of several transactions 
 ofG***** of a similar character ; that he had more 
 than once purchased slaves to prevent their being sent 
 •to the South, and that he would interest himself in the 
 affiiir, but that it would take some time to put anything 
 in train for their relief. I left W.ashinston that evening, 
 and on my relurn some months afterwards, had the satis- 
 faction of learning Uiat the publicity I had given to the 
 affair had prevented the separation of these unfortunate 
 but respectable persons. 
 
 sers to buy the land, and no tenants to rent it. 
 The Abolitionists, therefore, call upon the plant- 
 ers to bring ruin upon their families without 
 helping the negro. In the mean time the Abo- 
 litionists, not uniting in some great practical 
 measure to effect the emancipation of ail slaves 
 at the national expense, suffer the evil to go on 
 increasing ; the negro population amounts now 
 to about two millions, and the question — as to 
 the Southern States — will, with the tide of time, 
 be a most appalling one, viz., whether the white 
 or the black race is to predominate. 
 
 The uncompromising obloquy which has been 
 cast at the Southern planters, by their not too 
 scrupulous adversaries, is therefore not de.serv- 
 ed by them ; and it is but fair to consider them 
 as only indirectly responsible for such scenes 
 as arise out of the revolting traffic which is car- 
 ried on by these sordid, illiterate, and vulgar 
 slave-drivers — men who can have nothmg what- 
 ever in common with the gentlemen of the 
 Southern states. This land traffic, in fact, has 
 grown out of the wide-spreading population of 
 the United States, the annexation of Louisiana, 
 and the increased cultivation of cotton and su- 
 gar. The fertile lowlands of that terrilory'can 
 only be worked by blacks, and are almost of 
 illimitable extent. Hence negroes have risen 
 greatly in price, from 500 to 1000 dollars, accord- 
 ing to their capacity. Slaves being thus in de- 
 mand, a detestable branch of business — where 
 sometiines a great deal of money is made — has 
 very naturally arisen in a country filled with 
 speculators. The soil of Virginia has gradually 
 become exhausted with repeated crops of tobac- 
 co and Indian corn ; and when to this is added 
 the constant subdivision of property which has 
 overtaken every family since the abolition of en- 
 tails, it follows of course that many of the small 
 proprietors, in their efforts to keep up appearan- 
 ces, have become embarrassed in their circum- 
 stances, and, when they are pinched, are com- 
 pelled to sell a negro or two. The wealthier 
 proprietors also have frequently fractious and 
 bad slaves, which, when they cannot be reclaim- 
 ed, are either put into jail, or into those depots 
 which exist in all the large towns for the recep- 
 tion of slaves who are sold, until they can be re- 
 moved. All this is very well known to the slave- 
 driver, one of whose associates goes annually 
 to the Southwestern States, to make his con- 
 tracts with those planters there who are in want 
 of slaves for the next season. These fellows 
 then scour the country to make purchases. 
 Those who are bought out of jail are always 
 put in fetters, as well as any of those whom 
 they may suspect of an intention to escape. 
 The women and grown-up girls are usually sold 
 into the cotton-growing States, the men and 
 the boys to the rice and sugar plantations. 
 Persons with large capital are actively concern- 
 ed in this trade, some of whom have amassed 
 considerable fortunes. But occasionally these 
 dealers in men are made to pay fearfully the 
 penalty of their nefarious occupation. I was 
 told that only two or three months before I 
 passed this way a "gang" had surprised their 
 conductors when off their guard, and had killed 
 some of them with axes. 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Cause of some Confusion in the Designation of the AUe- 
 ghaiy Ridges explained.— A Uuclc shooting Landlord.— 
 Arrive at Abingdon.— Account of Saltville.— Geology of 
 the Valley and surrounding Country.— Visit to King's 
 Cove, a singular Basin in Clinch Mountain, the Resi- 
 dence of an Outlaw.— His Account of the Panthers and 
 Wild Cat Accoucheurs.— Strata of the Clinch Mountain. 
 
 From New River the country rises to New- 
 burn, a village situated upon a lofty and fertile 
 table-land covered with rich grass and well wa- 
 tered ; finer pastures I have never seen, nor a 
 more promising-looking district for grazing. As 
 -we advanced to the south-west, I found a great 
 deal of confusion prevailing amongst the country 
 people respecting the designation given to the 
 principal ridges of this part of the country. That 
 chain, which is called the Blue Ridge in the 
 northeastern parts of Virginia, and which is the 
 most advanced towards the Atlantic, is by many 
 persons in this quarter called the Alleghany 
 Ridge ; and a ridge which runs behind, or to the 
 -west of this, is called the Blue Ridge. This has 
 taken place from the want of a little elementary 
 information in geology. 
 
 The Blue Ridge is the most advanced towards 
 the east of all the ridges of the great elevated 
 Alleghany Belt, except a small subordinate and 
 partial ridge, which in the central parts of Vir- 
 ginia i-s cMeit SoiUk- Wed Mnuntain. The Blue 
 Ridge, in fact, fronts the Atlantic, and may fair- 
 ly claim to be called ibe Atlantic Primanj Chain, 
 consisting, wherever it is seen, of a mixture of 
 talcose, quartzose, hornblende, green altered 
 epidotic rocks, ancient sandstones, and chlorite 
 slates, exceedingly intersected with strong quartz 
 veins; being also non-fossiliferous, it is, in the 
 strictest sense of the word, and according to the 
 received opinions of the most accredited Euro- 
 pean geologists, to be classed among the primary 
 Tocks, in the sense that these have preceded the 
 formations contaiaingfossiliferous beds. On the 
 other hand, the ridges which immediatelv suc- 
 ceed to the west of "this Atlantic Primary Chain 
 consist of fossiliferous beds and sedimentary 
 rocks without exception, and undoubtedly belong 
 to the formations which have hitherto been call- 
 ed transition, and which Mr. Murchison has now 
 included in his system of Silurian Rocks. The 
 most remarkable'of these is that great watershed, 
 which has been before noticed, called the Alle- 
 ghany Mountain, or Ridge, which, although 
 farther to the north it generally maintains a reg- 
 ular distance from the Atlantic Primary Chain, 
 Iiere seems to converE^e to the south, and towards 
 the point where the Blue Ridge divides into two 
 ridges, the westernmost taking the name of the 
 Iron Mountain, and farther to the S.W. that 
 of Unayl^ay, which is the Cherokee term for 
 " white ;'' while the eastern one, pursuing its way 
 to the S.S.W., forms the western boundary of 
 Patrick County; the space contained between 
 these two primary ridges being occupied by 
 Grayson and Floyd counties. The country peo- 
 ple, however, not adverting to the dilTerence be- 
 tween the constituents ami age of the primary 
 and sedimentary ridges, suppose the Alleghany 
 Ridge to have crossed the Blue Ridge, and that 
 the most eastern of the two primary ridges is its 
 continuation; hence they call this last the Alle- 
 ghany Ridge, and the western one the Blue 
 Ridge: and this is not incorrect as far as it re- 
 lates to its watershed character, for the eastern 
 ridge does throw down some headwaters of the 
 Kanawha to the west, and of the Roanoke to the 
 east. 
 
 Some of the limestone beds in the vicinity of 
 Newburn are nearly horizontal, and contaia 
 patches of chert of a blackish colour, of the same 
 character as that which marics Black Rock in the J 
 State of New York. Anthracite coal is found ia I 
 most of the little valleys about here, at the foot !' 
 of the ridges, conforming to the flexure of the 
 strata. To our lett, about eight miles, at Aus- 
 tinville, near to the Iron Mountain, there is a 
 vein of galena in the limestone, which is worked 
 with some success, and which runs, as I was 
 informed, nearly north-east. We stopped at 
 Wythe Court House, at the shabby, dirty tavern 
 where the stage-coach puts up, and where they 
 pretended to give us dinner; but everything was 
 so filthy, it was impossible to eat. The landlord, 
 a noisy, ill-dressed, officious fellow, was eternal- 
 ly coming into the room with his mouth full of 
 tobacco, plaguing us to eat his nasty pickles and 
 trash along with the bread and milk we were 
 contented to dine upon, and for which he charged 
 us half a dollar each. 
 
 This worthy was a perfect representative of 
 that class of lazy, frov/zy, tobacco-chewing coun- 
 try landlords who think nothing is right unless 
 there is a good deal of dirt mixed up with it. 
 Seated upon a chair, with his legs .sprawling 
 upon two others, his great delight was to bask in 
 the sun at the door of his tavern, and watch the 
 approach of the stage-coach, or any other vehicle j 
 or person that was upon the road. It was in this 
 situation we found him, dressed in a pair of pre- 
 posterously-fitting trowsers, covered with grease, 
 a roundabout jacket to correspond, and a con- 
 ceited, lantern-jawed, snuff-coloured visage, with 
 an old, ragged straw hat stuck at the top of it. 
 But he had one surprising talent. From his long 
 practice of chewing large mouthfuls of tobacco, 
 and the consequent necessity of ridding himself 
 of the strong decoctions that, like a spring-tide, 
 constantly threatened to break their bounds, he 
 had gradually acquired the art of expectorating 
 with such force and precision, that he could hit 
 anything within a reasonable distance, and with 
 a force before unknown to belong to that branch 
 of projectiles. Mr. Jefferson's doctrines had one 
 of their most able exponents in him, for, when 
 he was hard pushed at an election, he sometimes 
 gave his opponents just cause for seeing that he 
 was the wrong man to contend with, by squirt- 
 ing his opinions into their eyes — a mode'of argu- 
 ment which, as he was a justice of peace into the 
 bargain, caused him to be respected accordingly. 
 
 We had an opportunity of seeing a curious 
 specimen of this man's talents before we left the 
 house, for, as we were preparing to get into the 
 stage-coach, a flock of young ducklings, with an 
 old one or two, came v/addling along with re- 
 markably uncertain steps; the old ones advan- 
 ced, looked, and hesitated, whilst the young ones 
 hardly seemed to know which way they were , 
 going: most of them seemed to be blind, and, in 
 fact, had been partly deprived of sight ever since 
 they had been able to waddle about; for as soon 
 as they were hatched, the old duck bringing the 
 little ones to pay their compliments to the land- 
 lord on his three chairs, and to pick up what 
 crumbs they might find, he, merely to keep up 
 his practice, was in the habit of knocking the 
 little ducklings over neck and heels whenever 
 they came within shot, and so in process of time 
 the" poor things had lost the use of their eyes. 
 The old duck had perhaps been spared on ac- 
 count of her maternal character ; but from what 
 I saw of her motions, I rather think she had be- 
 
40 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 ctnne as expert at dodging as he was at knock- 
 ing her young ones over. Ttiese details of this 
 accomplishment of llie worthy landlord and jus- 
 tice, I had afterward from the driver of the stage- 
 coanj. 
 
 From this place to Mount Airy we found the 
 road very bad, and, arriving there late, stopped 
 at an indiflerent-looking house, where, to our 
 great surprise, we got a clean supper and single 
 hed-rooms. Mount Airy is on one of the lofty 
 parts of this table-land, which here throws down 
 some of the headwaters of the Tennessee River; 
 and as we advanced next day to the west, we 
 found excellent pastures in every direction, and 
 a very beautiful country; graceful knolls of 
 limestone well wooded to the top, rich grazing- 
 grounds, and a surprising fertility all around. 
 The edges of the limestone strata, however, cross 
 the road often, and make it very rough travel- 
 ling. We passed many patches of red earth that 
 bore a very luxuriant herbage: soils of this col- 
 our appear to be derived from two sources, a 
 red argillaceous rock, of which I have observed 
 some isolated patches, and a red ferruginous 
 sandstone, which last, on decomposing, makes 
 rather a barren surface, probably from the too 
 great abundance of ferruginous oxide. At the 
 ford of the north fork of the Holston River — a 
 tnain tributary of the Tennessee — there is a fine 
 bottom land which is very productive, yielding 
 eighty bushels of maize to the acre. This valu- 
 able estate belongs to General Preston, father to 
 the distinguished senator from South Carolina, 
 Colonel Preston. It was late in the night before 
 we arrived at Abingdon, a straggling village, 
 which was originally built by the Scotch and 
 Irish, who penetrated into these most distant 
 parts of Virginia from Pennsylvania at an early 
 period. These settlers had no blood connection 
 with those English families of Eastern Virginia, 
 or the Old Dominion, as the Virginians love to 
 call it, who took possession of the country by 
 the way of James River, but were a distinct 
 people, equally remarkable for their enterprise. 
 Most fortunately. General Preston and his fam- 
 ily were at home, as well as Colonel Preston, 
 the senator, and his lady, with both of whom I 
 had the pleasure of being well acquainted. I 
 was received in the most friendly manner by 
 them all, and during my stay was indebted to 
 them for the most obliging attentions. General 
 Preston is a person of the highest respectability, 
 and has always been distinguished for great en- 
 ergy of character, without which no man, under 
 the circumstances of the period when he first 
 came here, would have advanced into so unset- 
 tled a wilderness as this was. He is now a very 
 opulent landholder, and can count one hundred 
 and sixty-two descendants. 
 
 The day after our arrival. Colonel Preston 
 most obligingly sent a couple of blood mares for 
 my son and myself, for an excursion we pro- 
 posed lo make to his father's salt-works, sixteen 
 mile> distant, of which I had heard a great deal. 
 
 We crossed a ridge called Walker's Mountain 
 — which we had had upon our right a great part 
 of our journey — by a very low gap, and soon 
 reached SaUvilln, the object of our excursion. 
 This is a ragijed assemblage of wooden build- 
 ing.- where the salt is manufactured, and is situ- 
 ated in a small vale about a mile and a half 
 long, and, perhaps, six hundred yards broad: it 
 is evidently the site of an ancient lake; indeed, 
 canoes were used when the white people first 
 took possession of the place, and even now it is 
 
 a low, flat, marshy bottom, imperfectly drained. 
 After riding about and looking at the place, we 
 rode to the Plaster Banks, a deep quarry exca- 
 vation from whence they take the gypsum in 
 blocks, which is sold on the spot at four dollars 
 and a half per ton. At sunset we rode to ihe 
 superintendent's, where we found Colonel Wil- 
 iam King, one of the lessees, to whom we had 
 very friendly letters, and by whom we were kind- 
 ly received, and immediately made at home. 
 The next day we devoted to a careful examina- 
 tion of this interesting place under the guidance 
 of Colonel King. 
 
 The floor of this small vale is formed of a 
 limestone, running E.N.E., apparently of the 
 same period as that of the valley of Shenandoah, 
 and is contained between lofty hummocks or 
 hills of the same mineral, round and conical at 
 the top. These hills present the appearance of 
 having been once united by a continuous floor at 
 a level of perhaps 200 feet higher than the pres- 
 ent floor of the vale. The salt water was first 
 discovered by its exuding from the hills of the 
 eastern slope, near the old mansion-house once 
 occupied by the Preston family; but wells hav- 
 ing been subsequently sunk more towards the 
 centre of the marsh, those old springs have ceased 
 to flow. The wells have been dug 220 feet, 
 through a deposit of clay and gypsum much mix- 
 ed up with salt. In sinking their augurs through 
 the mineral matter, they drop through into the 
 water at a certain depth, and as they sometimes 
 hear fragments of gypseous clay splash into it, it 
 is evident there is a vast reservoir of salt water 
 at the depth of 220 feet. In dry weather, and 
 especially after long-continued drought, the wa- 
 ter becomes excessively salt, yielding, as I was 
 informed, one bushel of salt of 50 lbs. to 24 gal- 
 lons of water; but in the rainy seasons the at- 
 mospheric waters raise the wells, and make the 
 brine weaker. The water from the well called 
 the Preston Well is pumped up day and night, and 
 permitted to run off unused, to make the water 
 of another well, called the King Well, more pro- 
 ductive; because, if the Preston Well, which is 
 within eighty feet of the other, were not dischar- 
 ged in this way, the water of the other well would 
 be loo weak. And the necessity of doing this 
 arises from the fact that a subterranean stream 
 of fresh water runs into the Preston Well at a 
 certain depth from the surface, and from thence 
 has an oblique passage downwards into the King- 
 Well, and thus reduces its strength. They are 
 therefore obliged to pump, to keep down the lev- 
 el of the waters of the Preston Well below the 
 orifice by which they would otherwise mingle 
 with the King Well. 
 
 The pure beds of gypsum, or sulphate of lime, 
 lie at the E.N.E. end of this vale, and the plas- 
 ter is, as frequently occurs in other localities, 
 capped by an incoherent sandstone. This gyp- 
 sum may have been deposited by the same wa- 
 ter, or by a mineral spring which has ceased to 
 flow or escapes under ground ; a supposition 
 strengthened by the fact that other extensive de- 
 posits of gypsum are found to the N.E., in the 
 valley between Walker's Mountain, and the 
 ridge" called Clinch Mountain, where there are 
 no salt springs. Springs containing sulphate 
 of lime only may have been common in ancient 
 geological periods; gypsum, however, is gener- 
 ally found associated with salt, and this brine at 
 the King Well is so highly loaded with sulphate 
 of lime, that not only do immense numbers of 
 small crystals of the sulphate come up with it. 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 41 
 
 but when the kettles are examined after a week's 
 boiling, their bottoms are always found "blocked 
 up" as it is technically called, with layers of 
 gypsum from each succeeding boiling, six or 
 eight inches thick. 
 
 This vale or basin was probably— after the ele- 
 . vation of the land which shuts it in— a laks fed 
 by saline and gypseous springs. The limestone 
 is very cavernous, and it is not impossible that 
 at some period the surrounding huuimocks may 
 have been united with extensive caverns inter- 
 vening into which the mineral waters rose. 
 When the connection between these hummocks 
 was destroyed, that portion of the lake where de- 
 fjosits of gypsum were formed above the brine, 
 would, in the course of time, be filled in with 
 aluminous earth brought in by the adjacent 
 streams, as in the case of the valley at the Sweet 
 Springs, and thus a body of clay and gypsum 
 would be formed, such as they now bore through 
 into the salt water at this place. As additional 
 evidence that this vale has once been an exten- 
 sive lake, the same earthy and mineral deposits 
 are found in the borings at the S.W. end. A kvf 
 hundred yards west of the buildings at Saltville, 
 and in the road leading to the Holston River, is a 
 deposit of 150 feet of argillaceous matter, 50 feet 
 of which consists of blue vertical slate, and 100 
 feet of brown soft argillaceous schist; this last 
 contains madrepores and producta, of which I 
 procured some fine specimens, and runs a great 
 distance through the country N.E. and S.W., 
 being identical with what has hitherto been call- 
 ed gray wa eke slate. 
 
 From this vale, accompanied by one of our 
 new friends, we set off on horseback to examine 
 a place called King's Cove, of which a great deal 
 had been said to me, and which is on the lofty 
 ridge called Clinch Mountain. This ridge ap- 
 pears to be a continuation to the S.W. of the Al- 
 leghany ridge, near the White Sulphur, and holds 
 a very straight course to the N.E. as far as the 
 Kanawha River. The name of cove is given in 
 this part of the country to any crater-like basin 
 or vale of land entirely surrounded by lofty hills, 
 and there are many such in these mountains. 
 Some of them contain from 500 to 1000 acres of 
 the most fertile soil. There is one called Burke's 
 Garden farther to the north, up the Clinch ridge, 
 which was described to me as a very extraordi- 
 nary kind of amphitheatre, surrounded by a circle 
 of lofty hills, and containing from 3000 to 4000 
 acres of the most fertile land. The cove we 
 went to see was difficult of access; after travel- 
 ling about three miles up the ridge, we came 
 suddenly upon it, and got into it by a difficult 
 pass, just wide enough for one horse, where the 
 mountain side sloped at an angle of about 65° 
 among the loose sandstone rocks, which made it 
 frequently necessary for us to dismount. On our 
 right was a deep ravine which separated us from 
 some lolly mural escarpments, at the top of 
 which were strong ledges of naked sandstone 
 hanging at an angle of about 55°. The scene 
 was strikingly wild. 
 
 Our guide was a very extraordinary character, 
 quite without a rival, as I was told, in his line; 
 and truly I never saw a greater oriaTinal, or met 
 with a man that so precisely came up to my idea 
 of a Yankee outlaw. He was known by the 
 iiame of Charley Talbot, was a spare, snllow 
 fellow, with eyes that glanced incessantly from 
 one object to another, without resting more than 
 an instant upon anything. If he was quite sure 
 that the thing he was looking at was. not the 
 F 
 
 sherift"conie to arrest him, or a panther, or a rat- 
 tlesnake, he immediately turned his attention to > 
 sometiiingel^e; and although he was more thaa 
 sixty years old, he was beyond all comparisoa 
 the most active of our party. This cove was his 
 den, where he lived, and from it, when danger 
 was impending from officials, he could, in a quar- 
 ter of an hour, be in any of the four coimties of 
 Washington, Russel, Tazewell, or Wyihe, all of 
 which happen to corner here "quite slick." 
 
 As we had given Charley no noticeof our ap- 
 proach, we took him by surprise on approaching 
 his hut; and when he came to the door and saw 
 us, Colonel King observed that he faltered, be- 
 lieving us to be limbs of the law, the Sheriff of 
 Washington County having made an unsuccess- 
 ful attempt to bag him a few days before. Char- 
 ley had attracted the public attention some time: 
 as a panther-hunter, a wild-cat killer, a man that 
 would drag a bear out of his den, bring down a 
 deer, and that failing, kill the fat hogs or beeves 
 of the settlers, his character was established. 
 His merits, too, were acknowledged as a dabbler 
 in literature, being with some reason suspected 
 of keeping up an intimate connection with the 
 dealers in counterfeit bank-notes, that seem to 
 abound in every part of the United States. Be- 
 ing obliged, therefore, to come occasionally into 
 the world, Charley was provided with a grey stal- 
 lion of great fleetness and bottom to go to Abing- 
 don on a Sunday, when he was privileged from 
 arrest, and upon these occasions he used to boast 
 that his nag and himself cared nothing for Mon- 
 day, because they knew every inch of the country 
 as well by night as by day. 
 
 As soon as our real object in visiting the cove 
 was explained to him, he laid aside all appre- 
 hension, and showed great alacrity in assisting 
 us, and took us to various parts of the cove. 
 Some maize of extraordinary dimensions was 
 growing not far from his hut, on the fertile red 
 soil, resembling that which I had frequently seen 
 on my way to Abingdon, and on lifting up my 
 glass I saw that the very summit of the mount- 
 ain to the left was capped by red horizontal 
 rocks, forming an escarpment. Upon my ex- 
 pressing a desire to go there, Charley instantly 
 offered to conduct me : leaving, therefore, my 
 friends, who had been at the top of the mountain 
 before, I put myself under his direction, listen- 
 ing to the interesting stories he related about 
 " varmint," as he called panthers, wild cats, and 
 bears. 
 
 According to his experience the "painter,"^ 
 for so the country-people call the panther — is shy 
 of the "human," whom he never attacks but 
 when he is wounded or ravenously hungry. He 
 is, however, easily taken by the hunter when he 
 has dogs with him, for if the animal has not time 
 to leap on a tree before the dogs close in upon 
 him, the hunter despatches him with his rifle, 
 whilst the dogs, as Charley said, "is raanagingr 
 the varmint." But when the dogs are in full 
 pursuit, and close at his heels, he springs at the 
 first tree that suits him, generally selecting one 
 whose lower branches are about twelve feetfrom 
 the ground, knowing well that no animal he is 
 upon bad terns with can perform the feat. The 
 rifle soon puts an end to the presumptive thought 
 thatjie is in safety. 
 
 The pan ther (Fclis (liscolar) is the lion of A mer- 
 ica, and bears a strong resemblance to the Afri- 
 can lioness. Charley had killed a great many 
 of them, and they were now becoming scarce in 
 his cove: still he said there were four or five 
 
42 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 ^arge ones that haunted it, and these came from 
 the strong laurel thickets in Russel County, to 
 %ratch a gap at the lop of the mountain, which 
 ■vvas the usual place by which the deer entered 
 the cove from that direction. To this gap the 
 panthers hie belbre day, stretch themselves at 
 full length on a log to wait the approach of the 
 ■deer, and spring upon the neck of the animal as 
 soon as it is within reach; whilst the whelp pan- 
 V ..ther, if there is one, brings a fawn to the ground. 
 X^'But," said Charley, "1 hates them 'ar cursed 
 varmint, the cattermount, as some folks calls 
 'em, a plaguey sight worser than the painters, 
 and there's a pretty smart scatter of 'em in ihis 
 cove, I tell you. The cursed critters do beat all 
 ;(br sneaking along seven or eight of 'em logither 
 Avhen a sow's going to pig, and they'll git right 
 close to her when she is gitting the pigs ; and 
 •when she grunts at 'em, the blasts set up their 
 hacks jist like a naytural cat, and one of 'em 
 •will take one pig, and another of 'em will lay 
 hold of another pig, and I swar, when she is 
 done, she turns round and she ain't got ne'er a 
 pig on the face of the arth. That's the way these 
 <5«accoantable varmint has sarved my sows ever 
 so many times, for I reckon they like the woods 
 Jo pig in better than the stye." 
 
 This animal, so fond of sucking pigs, is the 
 spotted wild cat {Fclis ritfa?), and is universally 
 complained of in this part of the country as de- 
 structive to young pigs, for the sows are all per- 
 mitted to run at large in the woods. 
 
 After some exertion we scrambled up to the 
 foot of the escarpment, and found that the red 
 rocks consisted of argillaceo-calcareous beds, 
 resting upon horizontal limestone, and that they 
 were fast wearing away from the effects of the 
 %veather, being of a soft laminated structure, like 
 Ihe red rocks near Dawlish in Devonshire. 
 Great portions of the cliff fall down after wet 
 ■weather to increase the rich soil beneath, and 
 there the growth of trees, plants, and herbage is 
 surprisingly luxuriant. When 1 had examined 
 the rocks at this point, perceiving that it was 
 possible to scramble along the head of the talus, 
 which is formed by the crumbling escarpment 
 for a very great portion of the distance round the 
 cove, I expressed a desire to examine the beds 
 i^rther to the S.W., so Charley most obligingly 
 led the way, and soon got out of sight, for I was 
 loitering along looking for rare plants, fossils, 
 land-shells, or anything else in so interesting a 
 place, and could no longer hear him pushing his 
 ■way through the bushes. There was a thicket 
 to pass through which was very dense, on the 
 right of which was the mural pile of argillaceo- 
 oalcareous beds, which indeed, as Charley had 
 well observed, "looked powerful curious;" be- 
 fore I reached it, and whilst I was stopping to 
 hammer away at some fossils, it came into my 
 head that some of the " varmint" might be out 
 looking for " spiciments," as my companion call- 
 ed them, as well as myself; and I quickened 
 jny steps a little, as fast as the nature of the soil 
 would permit me to do, for it had rained that 
 j-norning and was slippery : but faithful Char- 
 ley was full of consideration for me, and I 
 found him quietly waiting at no great distance. 
 "Look here, stranger," said he, "here is the 
 track of one of thern 'ar painters, and I reckon 
 it is a considerable big bitch, for here's a whelp's 
 track along with it." The impressions had been 
 made before the rain fell, and the prints of the 
 toes were somewhat deadened, but not at all ob- 
 literated; the whelp's track was generally found 
 
 following the other, and we traced thera both dis- 
 tinctly for a great distance. It was evident they 
 had been prowling just before day, ere the rain 
 had fallen, and were going towards the deer gap. 
 
 It was now 1 p.m., and Charley said it was 
 the custom of the " painters," as no game was 
 abroad, to retire at that hour into the laurel 
 thickets on the west side of the Clinch Mount- 
 ain in Russel County. I therefore inquired if it 
 was possible to ascend the face of the rocks, get 
 to the top of the mountain, and take a peep at 
 the laurel thickets. Charley said he knew of a 
 place where he thought he could get up, and 
 that he was willing to lend me a hand too; "but 
 I calculate, stranger," he added, "you ain't a- 
 going to do no sich a Ibolish thing as to go into 
 the laurels; why there ain't ne'er a sheriff in the 
 four counties but what's got more sense than to 
 walk into sich a fix." Having satisfied Charley 
 on that score, he led the way to a part of the es- 
 carpment that was practicable, clinging with his 
 hands to points jutting from the rocks, and get- 
 ling from one ledge to another. Two or three 
 times he stopped to give me his advice and his 
 hand, but I had been accustomed to climb worse 
 passes, and got up without his assistance to the 
 summit of the loftiest pinnacle of the Clinch; 
 upon which Charley paid me the compliment ot 
 saying, " Why if you arn't a most particular 
 parson, then 1 don't know one, lor I swar you 
 don't want no help at all !" But when I took out 
 instruments to ascertain the course of the chain, 
 the temperature, &c., Charley's admiration of 
 me increased greatly; he clearly lost every ves- 
 tige of apprehension that had lurked about him 
 as to the real nature of our visit; showed Tne a 
 place where he had a desperate fight with a 
 panther, and the place where he had treed and 
 shot him: after which he most willingly took 
 me to a point on the flank of the mountain, from 
 whence we had a view of a dark-looking dell 
 thickly filled with laurels, and which appeared 
 to he a most judicious abode for "painters." 
 
 The view from the summit of this part of the 
 Clinch Mountain is very extensive, by far the 
 most ample I have yet seen from any of the Al- 
 leghany ridges: to the south it was bounded by 
 the Iron Mountain; but in every direction there 
 was scarce anything to be seen but a succession 
 of ridges covered with their eternal forests; few 
 indications of man were to be observed, and, 
 with the exception of some clearings, the scene 
 presented very much the same appearance it 
 would have done when the Indians had exclu- 
 sive possession of the country. The thermome- 
 ter was 8° of Fahr. lower at the summit than it 
 was in the cove, and Charley said he had never 
 seen any flies or other insects on the wing there 
 in the hottest weather. The elevation was judged 
 by me to be about 2400 feet above the level of 
 the sea. 
 
 In the horizontal limestone upon which the 
 red argillaceous beds rest, I found orthocera, 
 flustra, spirilers, producta, with other fossils ap- 
 parently of the carboniferous limestone. The 
 strata succeed each other as follows: — 
 
 Red Aflgillacco- Calcareous beds, ) „•,„„.,! 
 Limestone, with Fossils, i Horizontal. 
 
 Quartzij.<ie SaTidstone. 
 Limestone, inclined at an angle of 50°. 
 
 If a good stone fence were laid across the ra- 
 vine at the east end of the cove by which we en- 
 tered it, and something done at the Deer Gap, 
 the expense of which would not exceed — a.s 
 Charley thought— 200 dollars, about 1200 acres 
 
TRAVELS IN AMEEICA. 
 
 43 
 
 of extremely fertile land would be so secured 
 that nothing could get in or out of it, if the occu- 
 pant thought proper. Exceedingly gratified by 
 ihis excursion, which I believe terminated to the 
 perfect satisfaction of Charley, we returned to 
 Saltville to a late dinner by way of the north 
 branch of the Holston, in which we saw great 
 numbers of large soft-shelled turtle {Trionyz 
 fcrox) from 12 to 20 inches long. In the even- 
 ing I walked to the Holston and procured some 
 fresh-water shells, several species of unio, as 
 ••.veil as that elegant univalve the Fusus jlwvialis 
 of Say. The next morning, Sept. I2ih, we look 
 ,,leave of our hospitable friends Messrs. King 
 and Lewis, and returned to Abingdon 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A pleasant Party in a Sta^e-coach— Arrive at Blountsville 
 in ttie State of Tennessee— Fists versus Dirks and Pis- 
 j tols — Kuoxville— Meet President Jackson. 
 
 This morning, September the I2th, was occu- 
 pied in packing up and taking leave of the Pres- 
 ton family, ft)r whose kind attentions I felt under 
 great obligations; and about two p.m. the stage- 
 coach, in which I had secured and paid for our 
 places to Blountsville in the State of Tennessee, 
 ■came to take us away. Whilst I was standing 
 in the balcony of the hotel shaking hands with 
 Colonel Preston and some gentlemen who had 
 called to take leave, I observed a stout man 
 about 30 years old ordering one of my trunks to 
 be taken "off from the carriage, and to be left be- 
 him; upon which I went down to the street, and 
 believing him to be a contractor or agent for the 
 stage, began to negotiate with him to pay for its 
 weight rather than leave it; bin perceiving his 
 language was a little equivocal, I asked him by 
 what authority he interfered in the matter: upon 
 -«'hich he avowed himself to be only a passenger, 
 >but insisted that the trunk should be left, on the 
 ground that the roads were bad, the stage was 
 an old one, and that no passenger was allowed 
 more than one trunk. Desirous as I was of 
 avoiding a quarrel, I found myself obliged to 
 carry matters with a very high hand with this 
 officious person to silence him, and at last sent 
 for the agent, who told the man that, having 
 paid for two places, I had a right to have two 
 trunks conveyed: the matter being thus decided 
 in my favour, the trunk was replaced. Inside 
 of the stage were two passengers from South 
 Carolina, to which state they were going from 
 Elountsville. One of these persons, a Dr. 
 "W*****, grumbled a good deal about the trunk 
 and the roads, but I told him as the agent had 
 decided that my trunk was to go, I should con- 
 sider it as a piece of personal impertinence ad- 
 dressed to myself if anything more was said 
 about it; upon which he had the good sense to 
 make no more remarks. The other Carolinian 
 said nothing. Beside-s these two and the puppy 
 ■who had ordered my trunk to be taken off, there 
 was an exceedingly strange-looking white man, 
 and a negro seated opposite to him ; but as the 
 stage-coach only held six passengers, and there 
 were already five in it on its arrival, it was evi- 
 dent that either my son or myself would have to 
 xide outside unless the negro was sent there. 
 
 This man I ascertained was the servant of the 
 ■white man opposite to him, a queer tall animal 
 about forty years old^ with dark black hair cut 
 jround as if he were a Methodist preacher, im- 
 
 mense black whiskers, a physiognomy not ?:-ith- 
 out one or two tolerable features, but singularly 
 sharp, and not a little piratical and repulsive; 
 all this was set off with a huge broad-brimmed 
 white hat, adorned with a black crape that 
 covered it almost to the top of the crown. Hi«s 
 clothes also were black, so that it was evident 
 he intended people should see he was in mourn- 
 ing. I civilly asked this sorrowful figure if he 
 would let his servant ride on the top of the 
 coach and permit my son to come inside, and 
 his answer was, "I reckon my waiter is very 
 well where he is." I told my son therefore to 
 go to the top — where there was another black J 
 fellow— and took care to say very deliberately ] 
 and audibly, whilst I was holding the door of 
 the stage-coach, that he would meet with some 
 better company there than in the inside. I now 
 took the sixth seat in this pleasant company, 
 and there we were, all of us apparently as dis- 
 trustful of what was to happen next, as if there 
 had been a rattle-snake under one of the seats. 
 
 It was my fortune to be seated opposite to the 
 fellow who had given me so much trouble, so 
 that our knees would necessarily interfere with 
 each other if we were not mutually accommo- 
 dating, as travellers usually are. This man 
 would neither do one thing nor another; he 
 seemed to put his legs in the way as much as he 
 could, kept spitting out of the window, and then 
 thrusting his head out of it; so that, being made ' 
 exceedingly uncomfortable, I was compelled to 
 ask him, though I did it in a civil way, to keep 
 himself quiet; but I might as well have remain- 
 ed silent, for, drawing himself up into a some- 
 what fierce and sullen attitude, he growled out 
 "that he had as good a right to be in the stage 
 as me." Upon this the broken-hearted gentle- 
 man under the black and white sombrero, who 
 had drawn forth some voluminous sighs of a 
 strong CipoUine character, affectionately put his 
 hand upon this fellow's thigh, as though they 
 were exceedingly intimate, which encouraged 
 him to add "I reckon I ain't a-going to be pul 
 upon by no man : if any man thinks he's a-going 
 to put upon me, he will get no good by it — that 
 I know." Having cheered himself on with this 
 encouraging speech, he proceeded to take a dirk 
 from beneath his waistcoat, which having ap- 
 provingly looked at, he replaced; next he took 
 a small pistol from his pocket and showed it to 
 his melancholy friend, who observed that " leetel 
 pitchers would carry water as well as big ones." 
 The other passengers said nothing. In the 
 Northern States such an occurrence as this, of 
 five inside passengers combining against one 
 who had offended none of them, could not have 
 taken place. The very sight of the dirk and 
 pistol would have incensed every one to kick 
 the fellow out, but we were approaching coun- 
 tries under the jurisdiction of the bowie-knife, 
 and having learnt at Abingdon that while we 
 were wrangling about the trunk they had ascer- 
 tained from the waiter at the tavern that I was 
 an Englishman— a circumstance not much in a 
 traveller's favour when mixed up with low fel- 
 lows of the uneducated classes in America— 1 
 saw that my policy was not to get into disputes 
 with them, "but to watch their proceedings. 
 
 In this sort of humour we continued the re- 
 mainder of the journey, and at nine p.m. reach- 
 ed Blountsville, a small frontier town of the 
 State of Tennessee. The night was damp, and 
 we all went into the bar-room of the tavern, 
 where a great many persons were standing 
 
44 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 round the fire. Here, after securing seats for 
 the next day, I took my stand, happy to be re- 
 leased from the disagreeable persons 1 had been 
 shut up with, who, I was informed, were go- 
 ing in another stage-coach to South Carolina. 
 Whilst standing with my back to the fire look- 
 ing at some young children who were a-musing 
 themselves with blowing a horn, my old torment- 
 or came up, and in an insolent manner tried to 
 provoke me into a quarrel with him: for a long 
 time I refused to speak to him, but perceiving at 
 length that he was exciting a great prejudice 
 against me, and becoming rather irritated, I told 
 him that he might, for aught I knew, know a 
 great deal, as he said he did; but that he didn't 
 know the difference betwixt a gentleman and 
 such a low, impudent jackanapes as himself; 
 and that though I was his senior by a great many 
 years, I thought it would be quite advisable for 
 him not to provoke me any further. Upon this, 
 without further circumlocution, and boiling over 
 with inarticulate rage, he said "I allow you are 
 a * — * old rascal, and that's just what you are." 
 
 During all my journeys in North America I 
 had never carried pistols, or dirk, or hidden weap- 
 ons with me, or any arms but a rifle to procure 
 myself game, and hitherto I had not found it ne- 
 cessary to do so. I now saw that I had to do 
 with a bully armed with a knife, and who was 
 prepared to use it ; and who, seeing the advan- 
 tage he had over me, and believing that he could 
 say what he pleased with impunity in a crowd 
 of fellows who were delighted to see an English- 
 man insulted, felt quite sure that he might in- 
 dulge in every sort of insolence with impunity. 
 Great was the surprise therefore of the beholders 
 when they saw me draw out a couple of instru- 
 ments, the noble use of which was altogether un- 
 known in the enlightened State of Tennessee. 
 Near forty years before this memorable evening, 
 I had in my young days been an eager pupil of 
 the then celebrated pugilist Jackson ; and no 
 sooner did the word rascal come strangely to my 
 ears, than all the practice I had acquired under 
 my great master suddenly and intuitively came 
 to my ilnger's ends. It was literally Scarborough 
 warning he got — a word and a blow; in an in- 
 stant I served him upon his astonished optics 
 with two " straightforwarders," right and left, 
 and down he went on the floor into an ocean of 
 tobacco spit, quite puzzled to imagine how he 
 had got there. Perceiving, however, that he 
 began to fumble for his dirk and pistols, I in- 
 stantly jumped upon him, whereupon the land- 
 lord jumped upon me, and my son upon the land- 
 lord. We had a few moments of very interest- 
 ing scuffle and coni'usion, but being' at length 
 separated, the fallen bully was lifted up with his 
 eyes and cheeks puffed up like a muffle, crest- 
 fallen, and an object of pity even to myself 
 Nothing more was said now about pistols or 
 dirks, and I had the satisfaction of seeing this 
 foolish fellow, who thought I should be content 
 with telling him back again, according to the 
 manners of his equals, that he was a rascal too, 
 led off", almost frightened out of his senses lest 
 he had lost his eyes, vapouring, however, as he 
 went what he would do; for which I had only 
 one answer, that I would give him ten times as 
 much if he did anything at all. 
 
 From this moment 1 was treated with great det 
 erence as far as coming into contact with me 
 went, for when I approached the fire every body 
 retired a little to make room for me. To give 
 them an idea that I attached no sort of impor- 
 
 tance to what had taken piace, I began to eon- 
 verse quietly with some of the bystanders about 
 the country, and whilst doing this, the poor devil 
 was brought in from the kitchen, by his whisk- 
 ered friend and some otheis, with his head 
 bound up, and accompanied by them went out 
 of the door, but whether to the doctor's or the 
 magistrate's remained to be seen. I now told my 
 son in French to be upon the watch and to bring 
 me information of what was going on. In the 
 mean time the Dr. W*****, of South Carolina, 
 whose conduct had not prejudiced me in his fa- 
 vour, having found out who I was, came in a 
 very friendly manner to my son and myself, ex- 
 plained his behaviour, and secretly told us that 
 I ought to be on my guard, as it was very proba- 
 ble an attempt would be made to injure me. I 
 was not particularly afraid of this : what I was 
 really afraid of was that they would attempt to 
 hold me to bail in a large sum. I was quite 
 sure of my man. He would not neglect such a 
 favourable opportunity of turning his eyes to ac- 
 count, and I should have been too happy to have 
 compromised the affair by immediately paying 
 one hundred dollars for each of my offending 
 fists. But the parties returned to the tavern evi- 
 dently disappointed: they had, it seems, been to 
 consult some limbs of the law who resided in the 
 place, but, most fortunately for me, every crea- 
 ture that could assist them in the legal way was 
 gone to a court at some distance. Supper now 
 was announced, and we went to it grave enough ; 
 not a word was said. The landlord, the land- 
 lady, the travellers, the drivers, and the negroes, 
 first stared at the wounded hero, who was affec- 
 tionately fed by his black-haired, piratical-*ok- 
 ing friend, and then at me. I have not the reest 
 doubt that all agreed in considering me as the 
 greatest monster that had yet penetrated into 
 Tennessee.* 
 
 I was the first that retired from the supper- 
 room, and iuimediately proceeded to my old 
 place at the fireside of the bar-room. As soo^|^-< 
 as they had all re-assembled there, I addressed*^ 
 the landlord and the company, stating that it was 
 the practice of gentlemen always to apologize 
 when they were provoked to use violence; that 
 I therelbre apologized to him and to them all; 
 but that as I had been called a rascal for the 
 first time in my life, and that by a man much 
 younger than myself, who had taken great pains 
 to quarrel with me, it was very natural in me to 
 chastise him on the spot, as t dared to say any- 
 one of them would have been manly enough to 
 have done upon a lilfe occasion: that I really 
 was sorry for what I had done, but that I was 
 quite sure I should do the same thing over again 
 if I was insulted in the same way. 1 next went 
 up to the man himself, and told him, in a friendly 
 tone, that I was exceedingly distressed to see 
 that he was so very much bruised, that I wished 
 it had not been done, and would most willingly 
 undo it if it were in my power; but that he must 
 be sensible that he had made me very angry, and 
 that most men when angry took some revenge or 
 other, and my wav of revenging myself was 
 much better than using dirks or pistols, which 
 either killed or injured people for life: that he 
 would soon get well, and would then be no worse 
 
 * T If-iriit ;iltri-\v:iri1? llnl thfi affair had reached the ears 
 ofmv liicii'i^ III AIiiii'mIwii, \vi!li a sli^'ht chanije in some of 
 the ii;irlirnl;iis : rlic Imil- lisliman was represpnted as having- 
 struck at a pean-ablo American i^entleman with a dirl<, then 
 knocked him down with the bntc end of a pistol, concluding 
 the assault by lumping u on him to gouge him. 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 45 
 
 for the blows I had ?iven him, and ihat I hoped 
 he would do as Englishmen did, forgel and for- 
 give, especi.illy as 1 was very sorry lo see hini 
 so much hurt, and was ready to compensate him. 
 
 This fellow was not so bad but that he had 
 some good feeling in him; perhaps, too, there 
 M'as a little unction in the word "compensation," 
 for he no sooner heard it than he blubbered out, 
 *'{ didn't mean to say that you ain't a gentle- 
 jnan, and I am quite willing to be friendly:" 
 adding that his name was G*****, and that he 
 ■was from Tuscaloosa, in the State of Alabama. 
 Whereupon we shook hands and retired to our 
 rooms. Being relieved from my apprehensions 
 of having to deal with Tennessee lawyers, I went 
 to bed and got a capital night's rest. This man 
 Avas a singular compound of pomposity and ig- 
 norance, boiling over with conceit of himself 
 until this incident occurred, which I have no 
 doubt was an excellent lesson for him. 
 
 On coming down at one a.m. into the bar- 
 room, I was surprised to learn, contrary to my 
 expectation, that he, with his whiskered friend, 
 ■was to proceed on in the stage-coach with us, 
 having been before given to understand that he 
 was to leave us here, which the two South Caro- 
 linians did. When he made his apperance, I 
 was not a little shocked to see how horribly his 
 face was disfigured, and felt great remorse for 
 the blows 1 had given him. On getting into the 
 stage-coach — there being now room for my son 
 — matters after daylight took a surprising change. 
 I was treated with the greatest respect, especially 
 by my black-eyed friend; and whenever I lifted 
 up Ay mauleys, even for the most innocent pur- 
 poses, the gentleman in mourning used to ob- 
 serve them very curiously, as though he was not 
 quite satisfied as to the part they were going to 
 perform. We, however, contrived to be on 
 friendly terms ; and all danger of quarrelling, at 
 any rate, seemed to be at an end. It was day- 
 light when we arrived at a place called King's 
 Port, on the Holston, which is here a pretty 
 stream, navigable for boats. I obtained some 
 fine unios during the short tirlie we stopped; and 
 observed a great many concamerated shells in 
 the limestone beds on the road-side, especially 
 orthocera of a large size, but too firmly imbedded 
 to he taken out without much preparation. We 
 had the Iron Mountains on our left, extending 
 S.W. to Georgia; and passed through an undu- 
 lating country, not very fertile, with limestone 
 hummocks, poor log-hutsy inhabited by a rude 
 people, and all the signs of an unproductive 
 country. 
 
 Rogersville, twenty-five .miles farther west, 
 has a few brick houses ; and the land about there 
 is generally formed of hummocks of limestone, 
 dipping S^S.E. about 45°. The ridges at this 
 place behind the settlement are constituted of 
 slate, apparently contemporaneous with that 
 which underlies the Sweet Springs Valley. I 
 took aiteep at the dinner-table here, where there 
 was ai™id woman smoking a bad pipe, my trav- 
 elling companions, and the driver; before them 
 was a nasty-looking dish, with quantities of 
 coarse onions; but everything looked so disgust- 
 ing and filthy, that I could not make up my mind 
 to sit down, and preferred to go without any din- 
 ner. Here a great many sympathising inquiries 
 T/ere made respecting the reasons which had 
 compelled the Tuscaloosan to wrap up his head 
 so curiously, and he gave the old tobacco-pipe 
 lady a piteous account of the stage being run 
 away with, and how he had been thrown against 
 
 a tree. Unfortunately the driver, who knew the 
 truth, took this as a reflection upon the stage- 
 driving fraternity, and not only related the true 
 story before he came away, but gave it as his 
 opinion that "he was a poor etarnal scamp, and 
 that that 'ar Englishman had given him a most 
 almighty hiding that he hoped would last him 
 till the lost kayws (cows) would come hum." 
 The truth is that the poor devil was a pretty bad 
 fellow at bottom, had a wonderful fertility of in- 
 vention, which enabled him to tell the most ex- 
 traordinary lies to inquirers about his accident, 
 and was so totally insensible to his disgrace, that 
 when he was in the stage he soon got up his 
 spirits, and conducted himself as if nothing had 
 happened to him. 
 
 We took various passengers in whilst on the 
 road for short distances, and for each of them he 
 had almost a different story: hut it was of no 
 avail ; the first driver from Blountsville had spoil- 
 ed all his inventions by telling the truth, and 
 speaking of him with the greatest contempt. 
 When we had made seventy miles from Blounts- 
 ville, we stopped to get a little rest at a place 
 called Williams's, two miles from Bean's Sta- 
 tion. Here the Tuscaloosan and his whiskered 
 friend got into the same bed together. The next 
 morning we drove twenty miles to a house kept 
 by a Mr. and Mrs. Shields, two well-behaved 
 people, who gave us a clean comfortable break- 
 fast, during which a musical-box, enclosed in a 
 large case with a sounding-board, was playing 
 most delightfully. In an adjoining room was 
 laid his brother, who had got a concussion of the 
 brain a week before, in escaping from the stage- 
 coach whilst the horses were running away with 
 it in a narrow road in the woods. He was get- 
 ting a little better, after remaining three days in- 
 sensible, but was still delirious at times. 
 
 About noon we reached Knoxville, a poor 
 neglected-looking place, which notwithstanding 
 makes a great figure on the map. I saw some 
 tolerable dwelling-houses, and called upon a 
 gentleman of the name of Campbell, to whom I 
 had a letter, and who was very polite to me ; but 
 we only stayed an hour, just long enough to let 
 the passengers dine at the tavern. I also called 
 upon a very worthy and well-known gentleman 
 with whom I had the pleasure of beins; acquaint- 
 ed. Judge Hugh White, a senator of the United 
 States, who resides here ; but he was from home. 
 There is steam-boat navigation from Knoxville 
 down the Holston and Tennessee into the Mis- 
 sissippi when the water is high enough ; but, to 
 judge from the inactivity of the place, there is 
 very little commerce going on. Fourteen miles 
 farther we came to Campbell's Station, a place 
 where the white settlers used to assemble, after 
 they had first penetrated into these remote parts, 
 to chastise the Indians. As we drove up to the 
 door of the tavern, I saw General Jackson, the 
 venerable President of the United States, seated 
 at a window smoking his long pipe, and went 
 to pay my respects to him, apologising for my 
 dirty appearance, which I told him I had very 
 honestly come by in hammering the rocks of his 
 own State. He laughed and shook hands cor- 
 dially with me; and learning that my son was 
 with me, requested me to bring him in and pre- 
 sent him. My son, who had been scampering 
 about the country all the time we were in Knox- 
 ville, was in a worse pickle than myself, and 
 felt quite ashamed to be presented to so eminent 
 a person; but the old General very kindly took 
 him by the hand, and said, " My young friend, 
 
46 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA, 
 
 don't be ashamed of this : if you were a politi- 
 cian, you would have dirty work upon your 
 hands you could not so easily get rid of." We 
 had a very agreeable chat with the old gentle- 
 man ; he was in fine spirits ; and we left his cheer- 
 ful conversation with great reluctance, amidst 
 the kindest expression of his wishes for our wel- 
 fare, and an injunction to call upon him at Wash- 
 ington as soon as we returned. The President 
 was then on his way to the seat of government. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A Negro-Driver in mourning for a great Patriot— Irrever- 
 ence of a Negro to a White Man's Ghost— Bivouac of a 
 Gang of chained Slaves— An agreeable and lively fellow- 
 passenger— Cross the Cumberland Mountains — Arrive at 
 Sparta— A Driver killed— Hickory Valley— Mounds and 
 Graves of the Indians that formerly dv»elt here — Imagin- 
 ary pigmy race. 
 
 On resuming our places in the stage-coach, our 
 companion in black pronounced a most decided 
 eulogium upon Gineral Jackson, but in such lan- 
 guage as was quite inimitable. With a strange 
 solemnity of tone and manner, he said, "The old 
 Gineral is the most greatest and most completest 
 idear of a man what had ever lived. I don't 
 mean to say nothing agin Washington— he was 
 a man too ; but Jackson is a man, I tell you : and 
 when I see'd him in his old white hat, with the 
 mourning crape on it, it made me feel a kind of 
 particular curious." This mysterious sympa- 
 thy betwixt the two white hats in mourning 
 opened a vein of sentiment in our companion 
 that presently took a very sublimated form, and 
 he commenced thinking aloud as it were, keep- 
 ing his right hand pressed on the thigh of the 
 Tuscaloosan. He now attempted to cover a far- 
 rago of bad grammar with an affected pronunci- 
 ation of his words: and at last got into such a 
 strain of talking fine, that my son and myself had 
 great diflicuity in suppressing our laughter. He 
 spoke of a niece that he had. and said, in quite 
 a staccato style, "She — is — a — rnost — complete 
 — " and there he rather equivocally left the mat- 
 ter, adcling, however, that he had given her "a 
 most beautiful barouche," and that he expected 
 to overtake her that night. By and by, he said 
 he expected to overtake another barouche which 
 belonged to him ; and then told us what the two 
 barouches had cost him. In short, he so thor- 
 oughlv mystified us, that we could not make out 
 what stratum in society he belonged to. If it 
 had not been for these barouches, we might have 
 conjectured, but they threw us out. We knew 
 we had no barouches on the road, and were dis- 
 posed to respect any one who had, for a barouche 
 is a barouche always; and what must a man be 
 who has two on the road, and " a complete" in 
 one of them 1 
 
 A vay:ue idea had once or twice crossed my 
 mind that I had seen this man before, but where 
 I could not imagine. On coming, however, to 
 a long hill, where I got out to walk, I took occa- 
 sion to ask the driver if he knew who the pas- 
 sencer was who had two barouches on belbre. 
 "Why," said the 7nan, "don't you know it's 
 Armfield, the negur-driver'?" "Negur-driver!" 
 thought I, and immediately the mystery was 
 cleared up. 1 remembered the white hat, the 
 crape, the black, short-cut, round hair, and the 
 barouches. It was one of the identical slave- 
 dealers I had seen on the Gth of September, cross- 
 ing his gang of chained slaves over New River. 
 On re-entering the vehicle I looked steadily at 
 
 the fellow, and recollecting him, found no longer 
 any difficulty in accounting for such a compound 
 of everything vulgar and revolting, and totally 
 without education. I had now a key both to his 
 manners and the expression of his countenance, 
 both of thetn formed in those dens of oppression 
 and despair, the negro prisons, and both of them 
 indicating his abominable vocation. 
 
 As he had endeavoured to impose himself upon 
 us lor a respectable man, I was determined to let 
 him know before we parted that I had found him 
 out; but being desirous first of discovering what 
 was the source of that sympathy which united his 
 hat with that of General Jackson, I asked him 
 plump who he was in mourning for. Upon this, 
 drawing his physiognoniy down to the length ot 
 a moderate horse's face, "Marcus Layfeeyate" 
 (Marquis Lafayette) was his answer. " Do you 
 mean General Lafayette 1"* 1 inquired. " I 
 reckon that's what I mean," said he. " Why, 
 General Lafayette," I replied, "gloried in ma- 
 king all men free, without respect of colour; and 
 what are you, who I understand are a negro-dri- 
 ver, in mourning for him for! Such men a.s 
 you ought to go into mourning only when the 
 price of black men falls. 1 remember seeing you 
 cross your gang in chains at New River ; and I 
 shouldn't be at all surprised if Lafayette's ghost 
 was to set every one of your negroes free one of 
 these nights." 
 
 The fellow did not expect this, and was silent, 
 but my son burst into a violent fit of laughter; 
 and, to add to our amusement, the negur-driver's 
 black man — who had been vastly tickled with, 
 the idea of the ghost coming to help the neajirs 
 — boiled over into a moststentorious horse-laugh, 
 of the African kind. His enraged master now 
 broke out, " What onder arth is the matter with, 
 you, I reckon"? If you think I'll stand my wait- 
 er's sniggering at me arter that fashion,'! reck- 
 on you'll coine to a nonplush to-ni^ht." These 
 awful words, which Pompey knew imported very 
 serious consequences, brought him immediately 
 into a graver mood, and he very contritely said, 
 " Master, I warn't ^ laifing at you, by no man- 
 ner of means; I was just a larfing at what dat ar 
 gemmelman said about de ghose." Soon after 
 this the fellow pretended he was taken ill, and 
 determined to stop at a tavern on the road, a few 
 miles from Bean's Station. He accordingly told 
 Pompey to go on with the stage-coach until he 
 overtook the gang, and then to return for him 
 with one of the barouches. 
 
 Here we left him tO digest our contempt as 
 well as be could. Pompey now told us a great 
 many things that served to confiim my abhor- 
 rence of this brutal land-trafllic in slaves. As to 
 his master, he said he really thought he was ill: 
 "Master's mighty fond of ingeons," said he, 
 "and de doctors in Alexandria tells him not to 
 eat sich lots of ingeons ; but when he sees 'em 
 he can't stand it, and den he eats 'em, and dey 
 makes him sick, and den he carries on i^t like 
 a house a fire; and den he drinks branofftipon 
 'em, and dat makes him better; and den he eats 
 ingeons agin, and so he keeps a carrying on." 
 From which it would appear that the sum total 
 of enjoyment of a negro-driver, purchased at 
 such a profligate expense of humanity, is an un- 
 limited indulgence in onions and brandy. 
 
 Before we stopped for the night, but long after 
 sunset, we came to a place where numerous 
 
 * He died in the enrly part of the summer, and many of 
 his friends in the United States were in mourning on the 
 occasion. 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 17 
 
 fires were gleaming through the forest: it was 
 the bivouac of the gang. Having prevailed upon 
 the driver to wait lialf an hour, I went wiih Pom- 
 pey — who was to take leave of us here — into the 
 woods, where they were all encamped. There 
 were a great many blazingfires around, at wliich 
 the female slaves were warming themselves; the 
 children were asleep in some tenis: and the 
 males, in chains, were lying on the ground, in 
 groups of about a dozen each. The white men, 
 who were the partners of Pompey's master, were 
 standing about with whips in their hands; and 
 "the co'mplete" was, I suppose, in her tent; for 
 'I judged, from the attendants being busy in pack 
 ing the utensils away, that ihey had taken iheir 
 evening's repast. It was a fearful and irritating 
 spectacle, and I could not bear long to look at it. 
 
 Our company, on my return to the stage-coach, 
 was reduced to ourselves and the now humble 
 Tuscaloosan. We were kind to him, lest the 
 poor devil should feel unnecessarily uncomfort- 
 able. After a rough ride in the dark over an 
 execrable road, we came to a poor miserable 
 house where the sheriff lived, and where we 
 were told we might lie down until four a.m. 
 But such beds ! We were charged 12^ cents, or 
 6d. each, for the privilege of lying down upon 
 them, whilst we should have been most happy 
 to have given ten limes as much for clean ones. 
 But as the great study here appears to be to spare 
 themselves trouble and exertion, they content 
 themselves with putting a pack of dirty rags to- 
 gether, calling it a bed, and then leave it in the 
 same state throughout the year. A better spe- 
 cimen of "cheap and nasty" could not easily be 
 found. In the morning we started again at day- 
 light, and reached the junction of the Clinch and 
 Holston where tliey form the Tennessee, at a 
 poor place called Kingston. The country now 
 began to teem with graves and mounds of the 
 Indians who once possessed the country, and to 
 become very interesting. 
 
 Early in the morning a passenger joined us, 
 who turned out to be a very agreeable and di- 
 verting person. I saw at once he was not an 
 American; for, although he had a sallow lace, 
 it was round, and his nose and a certain expres- 
 sion of his countenance, added to the native po- 
 liteness of his manners, marked him fora French- 
 man. We conversed some time in English, 
 which he spoke tolerably well; he had been on 
 the Mississippi River, 'and knew most of the 
 towns there familiarly. In the course of our 
 conversation I happened to mention the village 
 of St. Genevieve, and giving it the French pro- 
 nunciation, he broke out, "Ah, Monsieur, je 
 vois bien que voiis jiarlez Frangais — je parle 
 Ang:lais moi comme un animal, je le sais bien — 
 parlous Fran(,ais s'il vous plait." From this 
 moment we talked nothing but French, except 
 when our lively companion addressed the Tus- 
 caloosan, who, having removed the handkerchief 
 from his head, exhibited his black eyes in full 
 relief His odd appearance greatly attracted tlie 
 Frenchman's attention, who, in a very sympa- 
 thetic tone, inquired as to the cause of it. We 
 had now the old story of the stage being upset. 
 and Monsieur fully believing he had been in- 
 jured in that way, could scarce contain himself, 
 exclaiming, "DeAmericain drivaire in de South- 
 ern State is an infamious animal!" and then 
 proceeded in the most voluble manner to tell us 
 of some narrow escapes he had had with drunk- 
 en drivers. It appeared to me that there was 
 not a place in the Southern and Western States 
 
 where this Frenchman had not been; 1 had only 
 to look at the map and mention a place, whea^ 
 he would say, "Monsieur, je eonnais cet endroil;' 
 la parlaitement ; il y a un tel qui demeure la el;' 
 un tel." And to my inquiries he woukl answer, 
 " Oui, Monsieur, il y a bien de montagnes, mais 
 pas comme celle du Cumberland, que vous allez. 
 traverser." Or else it would be, " Non, ce pays, 
 la est plat comme ma main." 
 
 After a few hours of this sort of conversation, 
 I perhaps felt as curious to know what his pur- 
 suits could be that had led him to so many pla- 
 ces where he knew so many people, as he was 
 to know mine who made so many mquiries about 
 the surface of the country. Apparently his cu- 
 riosity was more lively than mine, for he made 
 many attempts, though always with politeness, 
 to penetrate my secret, and once or twice went 
 rather far on the road towards finding out who I 
 was. At last, without telling him my name, I 
 informed him that I was an Englishman, and 
 that my pursuits were purely confined to geology 
 and natural history. He was delighted with this 
 mark of confidence, and said, "Monsieui', je ne 
 connois pas les sciences, mais je les honore ; et 
 je suisbien aise de rencontrer un brave Anglais, 
 car je les estime tous de tout mon coeur." He 
 now proceeded to tell me who he was and what 
 he was, and what sort of a person his wife was, 
 how long he had been married to her, and what 
 age she was when she became his wife. "Oui, 
 Monsieur," said he, "c'etoit une jeune personne 
 charmante, pleine de bonte, et je puis dire que 
 je I'aime de tout mon coeur." His name was 
 Nidelet, he was a silk merchant of Philadelphia, 
 had married a daughter of a respectable French 
 negociant, a Monsieur Pratte,of the town of St. 
 Louis, on the Mississippi, and was at this time 
 engaged, as he had often before been, in collect- 
 ing debts due to his house, which accounted for 
 his accurate knowledge of the country. In the' 
 course of the day the driver, it appeared, told 
 him how the Tuscaloosan had got his black eyes, 
 which had exceedingly sharpened his curiosity 
 to know who I was; and on coming to a hill he 
 joined my son, who was walking up it, and con- 
 trived very ingeniously to get it^out of him. Oa 
 re-entering the stage-coach, therefore, he trium- 
 phantly exclaimed, "Ah, ah, Monsieur! vous 
 etes done Monsieur F. : j'ai bien entendu parler 
 de vous k Philadelphie, et je suis enchante de 
 I'honneur de voire connaissance. C'est vous 
 done qui avez flanque a ce coquin ces gros yeur 
 — il les a bien merite. Diable, c'est un art su- 
 perbe que celui de boxer! J'ai pris quelques 
 lecons moi-meme, mais n'importe — je vovage 
 toujours avec des pistolets et un dirk— tenezt 
 regardez! Vraiment vous lui avez arrange sou 
 sacre museau joliment. Peste, comme il est 
 beau. 11 parait 6tre votre ami a present — ne 
 vous fiez pas; il est capable de trouver son mo- 
 ment et vous planter son dirk. Le coquin, j'art- 
 rai un ceil sur lui — si jamais il fait le moindre 
 mouvement, je lui regale un coup de pistolet an 
 museau." The poor devil who was the object, 
 of this rhapsody saw, by the excited looks and, 
 gestures of the Frenchman, that he was blown, 
 and at the next hill took his seat with the driver, 
 and never came into the stage again, so that we 
 had nothing more to do with hira. 
 
 We commenced the ascent of Walden's Ridge 
 to-dav, which is on the east flank of Cumber- 
 land Mountain, and is separated from the west- 
 ern flank by a depression or valley. Proceedings 
 along a disintegrating sandstone, we came to a. 
 
48 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 place called the Crab Orchard, from ihe first 
 \\'hiie pioneers finding crab apple-trees {MUi'S 
 __coronaria) here. A few miles hence tiie niuiint- 
 ain descends again rapidly to a beautiful cir- 
 cular cove, containing', perhaps, one tlmusnnd 
 acres. This is a singularly romantic and ple;is- 
 ing vale, perfectly round, and surrounded by a 
 moLintainous country, the hills, as well as the 
 vale, being in every part covered with graceful 
 and stately trees. The Cumberland Mountain, 
 taken altogether, is, where we passed it on the 
 Avay to Sparta, a sort of table-land about forty 
 miles broad, with occasional depressions in it. 
 Indications present themselves here of rocks of 
 a later period than those of the Alleghany Ridge ; 
 ihe limestone in the valleys is all horizontal, and 
 on each flank of the hills the same strata of 
 sandstone crop out as we ascend and descend 
 them. The fossils on the flat tabular limestone, 
 which consist principally of producta, spirifers, 
 and flustra, increase greatly in numbers, but do 
 not vary much, apparently, in genera, from those 
 in the inclined rocks we have so long been trav- 
 ersing. The descent to Sparta is rugged for one 
 mile and a half over the mineral beds, and on 
 reaching the foot of the mountain I observed a 
 change in the botany of the country, as well as 
 in the rocks. The flint in the limestone beds 
 here takes an agatized form, and often assumes 
 a beautiful boytroidal chalcedonic appearance. 
 
 Soon after we had got upon the level land, we 
 met a stage-coach from the west with a passen- 
 ger severely cut in the face. He informed us 
 that in the morning the driver had fallen asleep 
 on his seat, and dropping from it upon the ground, 
 the wheels had gone over his head and killed 
 him on the spot, upon which the horses galloped 
 off", and at a turn of the road ran the vehicle 
 against a stump, and broke the stage to pieces : 
 he was thrown against some trees, and narrowly 
 escaped with his life. These accidents fre- 
 quently happen, for, with few exceptions, the 
 drivers are a reckless, unmanageable race of 
 fellows, that drink hard, and care nothing even 
 what happens to themselves. All the particu- 
 lars of this sad story were eagerly listened to by 
 the Tuscaloosan, whom we discovered after- 
 wards to have represented himself as one of the 
 injured passengers upon that occasion. It was 
 late at night before we reached Sparta. 
 
 Sparta is a very small place, not exactly upon 
 a Lacedsemonian plan, perhaps, but at any rate 
 it has a small square and a court-house. As to 
 the rest, the houses were miserably shabby, as 
 well as the stores. Here I determined to remain 
 a short time, as the country was very interesting, 
 and I found obliging and nice people at the tav- 
 ern. The next morning after breakfast I re- 
 turned to the Cumberland Mountain to secure 
 some fossils I had seen, and to get a vievv of the 
 country from the summit. From the west brow 
 of the mountain a bold ledge of horizontal sand- 
 stone rocks projects from a great distance, form- 
 ing a natural stone terrace, from whence there 
 is a most extensive view of the country; which, 
 with the exception of a few patches of cleared 
 ground, is an unreclaimed wilderness. There 
 is a small vein of bituminous coal not very far 
 off", with two strong chalybeate spiings. 
 
 On the 17th we sallied out on foot to a place 
 called Hickory Valley, where there were said to 
 be a great many coves and little vales. I had 
 heard of Indian graves of a peculiar kind that 
 were found here, and was desirous of inspecting 
 them. After an agreeable walk we reached the 
 
 viilley, an' 
 
 1 ii a Very pleasing place, with 
 line spiings, game in .■ibiuiilancc, Hint ui the 
 limestone stiaia occuirini,' as the chalk-flints do 
 in Europe, and everyilimi^ appropriate lijr the 
 permanent residence of a irihe of Indians. Mr. 
 Turner Lane, an old resilient here, to whose 
 plantation we went, informed us that when the 
 stumps of trees in his clearings became suffi- 
 ciently decayed to permit them lo plough their 
 fields thoroughly, the coulters frequently lore up 
 square blocks of limestone and human bones. 
 This took place so often, that ai last their curi- 
 osity was excited, and they perceived that these 
 blocks were parts of stone coffins, consisting of 
 a bottom-piece laid flat on the ground, two side 
 pieces, a foot and head-piece, and a lid laid on 
 the top. 
 
 The extreme length of these graves was 24 
 inches, some of them were only 15 inches long, 
 and others even less, and the coflins were sunk 
 not more than a foot in the ground. It had 
 struck him and other persons as a curious fact, 
 that amidst so great a number of graves there 
 should not be one longer than 24 inches, and he 
 determined, therefore, in concert with a Mr. 
 Doyle — a neighbour of his who inhabited an- 
 other cove about four miles from his residence 
 — to examine into the matter with great care. 
 They accordingly opened some graves, and first 
 removed the stones before they disturbed the 
 contents of the coffins, v/hich were filled appa- 
 rently with nothing but the common soil of the 
 country. Having removed this carefully with 
 their knives, they found that each grave con- 
 tained a skeleton^ supported by a sufficient quan- 
 tity of earth to prevent the bones falling into a 
 heap. The skeletons were uniformly laid on the 
 right side, and drawn up somewhat as people 
 sleep, the right side reposing on the right arm. 
 Under the neck they uniformly found an earthen 
 Indian pot, formed (as I afterwards found) of 
 clay and fragments of the unio, which, being 
 saturated with moisture, generally fell to pieces, 
 but when carefully taken out and dried, would 
 become hard again. Mr. Lane and his friends 
 werp i. , A' convinced — as they still are — that they 
 h iscovered an ancient race of pigmies that 
 had oeen buried in this valley before the exist- 
 ing forest had grown up; and the story setting 
 out, some country doctors and curious people 
 came to the place, and finding the dentification 
 of the jaws perfect, and the sutures of tlie cra- 
 nia complete, they pronounced the skulls and 
 bones to have belonged, not to children of the 
 ordinary Indian race, but to adults of a pigmy 
 race. A book was next written about it, and 
 it became one of the wonders of the western 
 coimtry. 
 
 Having heard Mr. Lane's account of the af- 
 fair, we walked over to see Mr. Doyle, and hear 
 what he had to say. 
 
 On our way we stopped to examine some an- 
 cient mounds almost obliterated by time, with 
 very old forest trees growing upon them. V^^e 
 fbimd Mr. Doyle at home, living very comfort- 
 ably in his beaulil'ul cove, where he had cleared 
 about one hundred and fifty acres of land. He 
 gave us precise! V the same information we had 
 received from Mr. Lane, only observing that the 
 graves were much more numerous on his farm, 
 and that he had been the first person to suppose 
 them filled by a pigmy race. He said he had 
 opened at least one hundred of them, and that 
 they resembled each other in everything, save 
 that in the shortest of them the bones were ex- 
 
TRAVELS IN AMEEICA. 
 
 49 
 
 tremel}' decayed, and the skulls contained no 
 teeth ; whence he inferred that these were the 
 graves of pigmy children. I now examined sev- 
 eral of the coffins he had opened, and measured 
 them, and found that there was not one of them 
 longer than 24 inches, or deeper than 9. Hav- 
 ing seen these 1 proceeded, with his permission, 
 to open one of the graves myself that had been 
 untouched. The skeleton was there, with an ex- 
 tremely thin cranium without teeth : the bones 
 were suprisingly small, and it was evident the 
 body had been laid on its right side, and packed 
 in earth. A small pot was under the neck which 
 , crumbled to pieces on being touched, and I found 
 a rib of a deer with a snail shell, that had also 
 been put into the grave. In most of these coffins 
 Mr. Doyle had found some shells, and some 
 small perforated stones, which had probably been 
 used for a collar to put round the child's neck. 
 On going to Mr. Doyle's house he presented me 
 •with some of the shells found in them, which 
 were Fusus fiuvialis, a univalve, found in the 
 neighbouring Holston. Whilst rambling about 
 we came to a very strong ledge of sandstone 
 rocks which had a sort of cavern beneath them: 
 on looking into it we saw the bones of another 
 skeleton, and contrived to get the cranium out ; 
 it was full of teeth, and had a hole in it which it 
 was evident enough had been made by a toma- 
 hawk. 
 
 Before we parted with Mr. Doyle I essayed to 
 tindeceive him about the pigmy race, and told 
 him it was the custom with a great many tribes 
 of Western Indians to expose their adult dead 
 upon scaffolds, and when all the soft parts had 
 wasted away, the bones of the skeleton were put 
 into very short graves ; that if he would consider 
 the size of the oldest skulls he had found, he 
 would see that they had belonged to individuals 
 with as large heads as our own, which would 
 have been both inconvenient and unnecessary to 
 a pigmy race. But Mr. Doyle was not at all 
 pleased to have his wonder taken to pieces in 
 this way, and fought lor his pigmies with all the 
 pertinacity of an inventor of genera and species 
 for shells, who has never seen them in their 
 habitats, and has acquired his informaffi/ii -^'•om 
 dead valves. On coming away, his last''- ds 
 were, "You've jist got the wrong notion', and 
 when you git to Nashville you'd better talk about 
 .something else." 1 regretted my indiscretion, 
 and was determined henceforward to be as care- 
 ful about interfering betwixt a man and his pig- 
 mies as I would be betwixt a man and his wife. 
 
 We returned to Sparta by a different road, and 
 had a charming walk over a calcareous spur from 
 the Cumberland Mountain, passing by Simpson's 
 Bridge on the Calf-killer's Creek (so'called from 
 an Indian chief), near to which I found a seam 
 or parting in the limestone of argillaceo-calcare- 
 ous earth, with some large specimens of Apio 
 crinoUea. We reached the village an hour after 
 night. 
 
 The next morning I prepared to go to a place 
 called the Wihl Cat's Cove, where I was inform- 
 ed there were ?reat numbers of Indian graves 
 and mounds ; but it began to rain, and continued 
 wet the whole day. I therefore devoted the time 
 to writing and arranging my fossils, which had 
 accumulated upon my hands. In the evening 
 ray kind French friend gave me a letter to his 
 father-in-law at St. Louis, and made me promise 
 to deliver it in person. Here I took leave of him. 
 
 During the few days I had passed at Sparta, 
 our friend Nidelet always used to come and visit 
 G 
 
 us in the evening. Every body in the place knew 
 him, and he knew every body; and I believe it 
 was in part owing to his good offices, and the 
 manner in which he always spoke of us, that so 
 much attention was paid us, in having horses 
 placed at our disposition to go upon our excur- 
 sions. He was not pleased, however, with the 
 conduct of the greater part of his debtors. His 
 house at Philadelphia had permitted their coun- 
 try customers about here to take silk goods to 
 the amount of 70,000 dollars— a very large sum, 
 certainly, for one house to trust them with in 
 only one branch of trade; and many of them not 
 only told him they could not pay, but would give 
 him no security. Upon such occasions he was 
 very prodigal of the terms ='voleurs, coquins, 
 chicaneurs;" and used to say, "Ces gaillards 
 sont tons de meme ; ils ne payeroient jamais s'ils 
 ne craignoient pas les avocats, qui sont voleurs 
 de m6me calibre." But, generally speaking, he 
 was a person of the happiest disposition, had a 
 great deal of drollery, and was by no means 
 wanting in good sense and observation. I never 
 met with anyone better fitted to get along in such 
 a country ; he could sleep any where or any how, 
 and could eat, drink, and smoke any thing and 
 every thing that came in his way. Once, upon 
 observing that I was rather fastidious about the 
 use of a towel, he said, " Monsieur, quant a moi, 
 je trouve que tout est bon, quand il n'y a pas de 
 choix!" — a happy expression, that merits the at- 
 tention of all persons travelling in frontier coun- 
 tries. He was a person of unbounded curiosity, 
 and, observing that I attached importance to the 
 fossils I collected, would not let me rest until I 
 had given him an idea of the general scope of 
 geological inquiry. Often would he interrupt 
 me by exclaiming, "Magnifique! magnifique!" 
 As soon as we had emptied our pockets in the 
 evening, he would examine every thing, and ask, 
 " Est-ce que ceci 6toit avant le deluge 1" And 
 when answered in the affirmative, would say, 
 " Misericorde !" Then, lifting up some unios, 
 he would add, "Et cecil" To which I would 
 answer, "No, these are recent shells that I took 
 from the river." That was sufficient for them ; 
 he would instantly put them down, saying, "Ah, 
 ce n'est rien done !" When we parted, he had 
 just made such felicitous progress in the science 
 of geology as to entertain the most sovereign con- 
 tempt for every thing that had happened since 
 the deluge. " Je m'etonne que vous ayez de la 
 patience avec de pareilles bfitises, mon cher," he 
 would say; a dreadful satire upon the labours 
 of (hose philosophers who have forced all exist- 
 ing things that are scarcely dissimilar to each 
 other into different genera and species, and have 
 excluded nothing but chimneys and haystacks 
 from nomenclatorial classification. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Indian practice of burning- the TJncierwood to enaole the 
 Natives to pursue the Game— The Ahorig-inal Races to he 
 traced by their Mounds — General Jackson's Plantation, 
 the Hermitage — His character by a Neighbour — Arrival 
 at Nashville. 
 
 On the 19th of September, at the dawn of day, 
 we resumed our places in the stage-coach for 
 Nashville, passing through a country with very 
 much the same character as that about Sparta, 
 the surface being occasionally cut up into ravines, 
 and the road made rough by hummocks of lime- 
 stone : the trees also, as we have seen them in 
 
50 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 other places, were more open in the forests, and 
 had abundance of wild grass growing up amongst 
 them. This is particularly the case on the pla- 
 teau of the Cumberland Mountain, wheie an im- 
 mense pasturage is afforded to the cattle. This 
 openness of the woods gives a park-like appear- 
 ance to the country, and enables you to see 
 through the forest for a great distance, which is 
 very pleasing. The white men, however, having 
 now driven the ancient race out of their countr}-, 
 the underwood is beginning to spring up quite 
 thick, as the old settlers say, in comparison to its 
 ancient slate. The soil was always prone to 
 produce a lofty wild grass; and as this prevent- 
 ed the Indians from seeing and pursuing their 
 game, they were in the habit of annually setting 
 fire to it, and thus kept the underwood down. 
 
 During the morning we crossed Caneyfork, a 
 fine branch of Cumberland River, where I saw 
 immense quantities of large valves of the unio 
 laid on the bottom of the stream. Our road was 
 now up and down steep limestone slopes to a 
 place called Liberty, where, as well as we could 
 judge from the exterior, there was a decent tav- 
 ern ; and as we had ridden thirty-three miles 
 without breaking our fast, we told the people we 
 hoped to get a good breakfast. But it turned out 
 they had no bread even of Indian corn, and in 
 its place the landlady placed before us a filthy- 
 looking mess of what she called boiled pie-crv.st, 
 and added some sort of meat, but so filthy and 
 black that we had to give the whole matter up 
 and go without anything. I remembered Mens. 
 Nidelet's maxim,' but I could not act up to it 
 upon this occasion. I therefore went out to col- 
 lect some fossils, and placing them on the seal 
 of the stage-coach, where I thought, as we were 
 the only passengers, they would not be disturbed, 
 I entered the house again to see if I could not 
 prevail upon them to get us some milk. The 
 landlord of this house was a weazen-faced, dried- 
 up Methodist, and was going a short distance on 
 the stage-coach with his daughter to attend a 
 camp-meeting. When I returned to the vehicle 
 I found him there, and he asked me " if it was 
 me what had left that 'ar dirt on the seat," and 
 said that he had flung it all into the road. I was 
 angry enough to call him a senseless jackass, a 
 matter which he did not pretend to dispute with 
 me. Being a religious man, however, and hav- 
 ing meant no harm. I was sorrow for having said 
 it, and told him so after 1 had explained what 
 fossils were. This set all right when we got into 
 the stage-coach, and I got some information 
 from him about the country. He said there were 
 immense quantities of Indian graves in the 
 neighbourhood; and that about five miles from 
 his house there was a mound, situated near a 
 stream that flows into the Cumberland, with a 
 circumvallation going round it that would meas- 
 ure three quarters of a mile, wiih a great pro- 
 fusion of graves near to it. I regretted I could 
 not see this to make a sketch of it; for where 
 mounds of a similar character are found upon a 
 long line of country, they generally point to the 
 origin of the Indians who have made them. 
 Some fragments of idols which T have seen in 
 these valleys, whose waters flow into the Gulf of 
 Mexico, are almost identical with some of the 
 Mexican idols; and obsidian has been found in 
 the mounds near Lake Ontairo, which is a strong 
 indication of Mexican orisin, as there is no ob- 
 sidian in the United States * 
 
 * It is always useful to give the forms and dimensions of 
 Indian mounds and graves when seen at isolated points, for 
 
 At night we arrived at Lebanon, a place which 
 is tolerably well laid out, and contains somegood 
 buildings : where there is any soil upon the rocks, 
 it is very fertile, but the horizontal limestone- 
 comes so near to the surface, that the ground is 
 often unfit for agricultural purposes. 
 
 By daylight on the 20th we were again in the 
 stage-coach, proceeding through a country of flat 
 limestone covered with a deposit of fine soil. 
 Cotton now becomes the staple of the country. 
 We stopped at a poor tavern and got a wi etched 
 breakfast, a not uncommon occurrence in these 
 districts. Travellers always fare much better in 
 farming than in cotton-planting countries, where 
 butter, milk, eggs, flour, &c., receive very little 
 attention from the small settlers. 
 
 We now drove on to the Hermitage, the plan- 
 tation of General Jackson, the President. I had 
 seen at a tavern in Virginia a box directed to 
 him, and learnt accidentally that it had been 
 waiting there several weeks, the contractor of 
 the stage having refused to forward it because 
 the carriage was not paid, and because he was 
 opposed to the General in politics. I therefore 
 took it under my care, and mentioning the cir- 
 cumstance to him when I met him at Campbell's 
 station, the old gentleman told me that the box 
 contained his favourite saddle, and that he had 
 been inconvenienced for the want of it dunng^ 
 the short holiday he had been indulging in from 
 the seat of government. The mansion-house at 
 the Hermitage — where 1 stopped to deliver this 
 box — is built of brick, and is tolernbly large; 
 everything was neat and clean around it, the 
 fences were well kept up, and it looked like the 
 substantial residence of an opulent planter. The 
 estate is said to be a very fine one, to consist of 
 from seven to eight hundred acies of cleared 
 land, tw^o hundred acres of which are in cotton 
 at this time, and to extend to the Cumberland 
 river. The quantity of cotton which the land 
 yields in this part of Tennessee is small com- 
 pared with the great productiveness of the rich 
 bottom lands in the 33rd and 32nd degrees of 
 latitude farther south, where the plant comes 
 much nearer to perfection. 
 
 A plain farmer of the neighbourhood who got 
 into the stage wiih us, not far from the Hermit- 
 age, to go to Nashville, and who had lived near 
 General Jackson betwixt twenty and thirty years, 
 gave us a very intrresting account of this distin- 
 guished man ; which, making allowances for the 
 partiality of a neighbour who shared his politi- 
 cal opinions, I have no doubt is founded in tnuh. 
 He said the General was an industrious, mana- 
 ging man, always up to all his undertakings, 
 and most punctual in the performance of his 
 business engagements: that his private conduc- 
 was remarkable for uniformly inclining to jus- 
 tice, generositv, and humanity: that he was an 
 excellent master to his slaves, and never permit- 
 ted his overseers to ill-treat them. As to his 
 house, he said it was constantly full of people, 
 being in fact open to every body ; iho^^e whom he 
 had never heard of before being asked to dine 
 when thev called, and those they had room for 
 being always furnished with beds. For these 
 reasons, he said, every body respected him, and 
 most people loved him. As to his public con- 
 
 the purpose of connecting: long lines of such objects where 
 thev exist. One traveller sees one part of the line, and 
 I another traveller sees another. The Americans have not 
 I hitherto done much to make Europe acquainted with the in- 
 1 terior of this part of their country ; they are as yet too much 
 occupied in establishing themselves, and in making money. 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 51 
 
 duct, he observed that he was rather an uncom- 
 promising man, and liked to have his own way, 
 but that his own way was always a very good 
 one, and a very sensible one, if he was lel't to 
 himsell'. He was man of strong passions, and 
 had once been very much addicted to cock-fight- 
 ing, horse-racing, and "cywsiderable cursing and 
 swearing," but that he had "quit all these," and 
 was in earnest about doing good to the country. 
 And he added, that if the General was not al- 
 ways right, it was to be laid to the score of some 
 of his political friends, who imposed upon him 
 for their own private ends, a thing not very diffi- 
 cult to do, because when he thought a man his 
 friend he was too apt to go great lengths with 
 him. These remarks, which fell from our fel- 
 low-traveller in a quiet, sensible manner, are so 
 much in accordance with what I have observed 
 and seen of one of the most remarkable men the 
 United States have yet produced, that I listened 
 willingly to a very curious account he gave me 
 of some incidents of the General's early life, 
 which, I believe, have been greatly misrepre- 
 sented. 
 
 About 1 o'clock P.M. we fell in with an excel- 
 lent macadamised road, leading to Shelbyville, 
 and soon after came in sight of Nashville, the 
 centre of civilization of the western country. Its 
 appearance was prepossessing. We soon reach- 
 ed the public square, and alighted at a good- 
 looking inn, called the City Hotel, where at last 
 we found some comforts, after getting over 900 
 miles in one way or another since the 1st of Au- 
 gust. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Description of Nashville^The Colleg-e — Professor Troost 
 — The Baptist Preacher and the Rattlesnalies— Affinity 
 betwixt certain Mexican Idols and others found in Se- 
 quatchee Valley in Tennessee — Public Spirit of the lead- 
 ing men of Tennessee— Mr. Ridley, one of the earliest 
 Settlers — His adventures— Indian attack upon a stocka- 
 ded Fort — Heroic conduct of Mr. Ridley's Daughter- 
 Murder of White Children by the Savages, and unmiti- 
 gable hatred of the Whiles to them. 
 Ix the afternoon, after reading the numerous 
 letters I found waiting for me at the post-office, 
 and taking a hasty look at the town, [ walked 
 out to a villa in the neighbourhood where my 
 friend Monsieur Pageot, of the French legation, 
 was passing some of the summer months with 
 his lady, who i-s a native of the State of Tennes- 
 see. We were delighted to meet in this distant 
 part of the world, and I remained chatting with 
 them until sunset. On reaching my quHrters I 
 began the serious work of answering my letters, 
 for I find it one of the very best habits of a man 
 who has a great deal to do, to leave, if possible, 
 nothing undone that belongs to the day, and at 
 any rate to make a clear week of it. 
 
 Nashville contains about 6000 inhabitants, 
 has a public square, churches, meetmg- ho uses' 
 markets, &c. (fee, and is built upon a loftv knoll 
 of limestone, the fossiliferous flat rocks of which 
 come to the surface : there is also a commodious 
 briilire which connee-ts the town with the nor- 
 iherji hank of the Cumberland River, on the road 
 to Kentucky. Some of the streets are steep, and 
 enciiinhered with sharp pieces of limestone, that 
 punish the feet severely in walking. There is 
 an excellent spacious building in the vicinity 
 called the Penitentiarv, and another is erecting I 
 for a hospital. Coming from the wiMerness" 
 where we have been leading rather a rude life I 
 
 1 for some time, Nashville, with its airy salubri- 
 \ ous position, and its active bustling populalion, 
 j is quite what an oasis in the desert would be; 
 i and when improvements are made in the naviga- 
 I tion of the Cumberland River, and in the public 
 I roads, it cannot fail to become a populous town. 
 [ One of my first movements was a walk to the 
 college to see Professor Troost, who is a great 
 enthusiast in geology. It is to be mentioned to 
 the honour of "the State of Tennessee, that it has 
 been one of the first of the American States to 
 patronise science, by allowing hiin five hundred 
 dollars a year as geologist to the State, in addi- 
 tion to his appointment at the college as profes- 
 sor of chemistry and natural history, to which a 
 salary of one thousand dollars a year is attached ; 
 so that the worthy professor is thus enabled to 
 enjoy all the comlbrts of life, and to make him- 
 self perfectly happy as the distribtitor of these 
 sums ; for, like all philo.sophic enthusiasts, he 
 places no value on money, and willingly gives 
 any of the country people "twenty dollars to bring 
 him a live rattlesnake, or anything new or curi- 
 ous in natural history. Everything of the ser- 
 pent kind he has a particular fancy for, and has 
 always a number of them — that he has tamed — 
 in his pockets or under his waistcoat. To loll 
 back in his rocking-chair, to talk about geology, 
 and pat the head of a large snake, when twining 
 itself about his neck, is to him supreme felicity. 
 Every year in the vacation he makes an excur- 
 sion to the hills, and I was told that, upon one 
 of these occasions, being taken up by the stage- 
 coach, which had several members of Congress 
 in it going to Washington, the learned Doctor 
 took his seat on the top with a large basket, the 
 lid of which was not over and above well secu- 
 red. Near to this basket sat a Baptist preacher 
 on his way to a great public immersion. His 
 reverence, awakening from a reverie he had fall- 
 en into, beheld to his unutterable horror two rat- 
 tlesnakes raise their fearful heads out of the bas- 
 ket, and immediately precipitated himself upon 
 the driver, who, almost knocked off his seat, no 
 sooner became apprised of the character of his 
 ophidian outside passengers than he jumped 
 upon the ground with the reins in his hands, 
 and was followed instanter by the preacher. 
 The "insides," as soon as they learned what 
 was going on, immediately became outsides, 
 and nobody was left but the Doctor and his rat- 
 tlesnakes on the top. But the Doctor, not en- 
 tering into the general alarin, quietly placed his 
 greatcoat over the basket, and tied it down with 
 his haiiiikerchief, which, when he had done, he 
 said, " Gendleinen, only don't let dese poor dings 
 pite von, und dey won't hoort you." 
 
 Dr. Troost is a native of Bois le Due, in Hol- 
 land, and is a short thick man, with a physiog- 
 no!nv entirely Gerinan, but pleasing and henew 
 oient; his hair is white, and his dress not re- 
 ma rkably neat. He was'a sUigeon in the lllllCt 
 army, and when he landed at New York, was 
 on his way to Java with a commission 'from 
 Louis Bonaparte, then his sovereign, to examine 
 the natural history of that island : learnin?, how- 
 ever, that Java had been taken by the English 
 he proceeded to Philadeldhia with an intentfoa 
 to settle there. Dissatisfied with the neglect he 
 experienced, he went to New Harmony^ in Illi- 
 nois, with Le Sueur, another naturalLst ; and 
 becoming diso-nsted with the quackerv of the So- 
 cialist philosophers who had assembled there to 
 practice their insane theories, he, in a happy 
 hour, came to Nashville, where his merit is ac- 
 
S3 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 inowledged. His private room at his house is 
 full of snakes, fossils, turtles, birds, fishes, Indi- 
 an relics, &c., &c., all thrown together in the 
 greatest confusion. It makes no matter what it 
 is, the Doctor is such a confirmed virtuoso, that 
 everything is fish thai comes to his net. The 
 museum of the college, of which I had heard a 
 great deal, contains numerous objects collected 
 and placed there by him, chemical apparatus, 
 dead animals, stuffed birds, turtles, fossils, min- 
 erals, books, all stowed away without the least 
 legard to order, and where none but the master- 
 hand of all this confusion can possibly ferret 
 out anything that may be wanted. Although a 
 man gitted with a strong intellect, yet the organ 
 of order seems to be rather deficient with the 
 •worthy Professor. I found him a most friendly 
 and obliging person, and during my stay in Nash- 
 ville went to see him as often as the public ex- 
 aminations, now going on at the college, would 
 admit of. Amongst his Indian relics I observed 
 some (I had seen fragments of a like kind found 
 in the valleys near Sparta) bearing a close re- 
 semblance to the Mexican idols or Teutes. One 
 of them was very interesting. Some portions 
 of a large Cassis cormda — a shell found near 
 Tampico, in the Gulf of Mexico— had been bro- 
 ken away, and one of these images or idols was 
 placed upon a point of the Columella as a kind 
 of altar. This was found in Sequalchee Valley, 
 in Bledsoe County, through which runs a tribu- 
 tary of the Tennessee, whose waters flow into 
 the Mississippi. This Sequatchee Valley seems 
 to have been a fovourite resort of the Indians in 
 old times, tor it contains great numbers of their 
 graves and monuments. When the language of 
 the Cherokee Indians comes to be analytically 
 examined, some affinities to the Aztec dialects 
 may possibly be discovered; and it certainly is 
 a fact of some importance to the inquirer after 
 ihe origin of the Indians, that there are some 
 points of resemblance between the Cherokees 
 and Mexicans, and that the first had been seat- 
 ed, long before America was discovered, in warm 
 sheltered valleys that debouched into rivers emp- 
 tying into the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 I received a great deal of pleasure during my 
 stay here in attending the examinations at the 
 college. One of the days was appropriated to 
 Dr. Troost, and a great number of ladies and 
 gentlemen assembled in his laboratory. The 
 students read essays on geology and natural his- 
 tory that deserved much commendation, and af- 
 fcrded me, for the first time, such a gratifying 
 spectacle as I had never before witnessed in any 
 of the colleges of this cotmtry. The Doctor 
 says, that although he has had some sensible, 
 Glever youths under his care, he has not yet met 
 ■with one enthusiast — therefore I do not appre- 
 liEad the science will make a very rapid prog- 
 ress here. '^^^ other branches of learning ap- 
 peared to me to receive great aiie.ntion ; Mr. 
 Hamilton, the professor of mathematics, is an 
 able man, and Dr. Lindsay, the principal, seems 
 •worthy of his situation. The students, in sev- 
 eral instances, had made very good progress in 
 the languages, and what struck and surprised 
 me was the purity of their elocution, which was 
 divested of evervthing like provincialism. I 
 could not help complimenting Dr. Lindsay upon 
 this point, for it is not to be concealed that the 
 vulgar corruptions which are silently taking 
 place in the English tongue in the Southern 
 States threaten to establish a sort of Creole dia- 
 lect, that, in concert with the eifects of their 
 
 popular institutions of government, may rapidly 
 etfect the total corruption of our language there. 
 The dialects of Lancashire and Yorkshirr 
 are unintelligible enough to strangers, but tlie 
 respectability of antiquity attaches to iheni , 
 they are the ancient language of the people of 
 those districts, have been honestly transmitted 
 down to them, and are slowly yielding to the 
 progress of improvement. Here the people have 
 been furnished with one of the finest languages 
 spoken in Christendom, yet they seem to be ta- 
 king such pains to make it indecently vulgar 
 and obscure, that, although accustomed to it, I 
 frequently am left almost ignorant of what they 
 really mean to say. A liberal institution, like 
 this college, conducted in the manner it is, is an 
 inestimable blessing to the state, and will enlarge 
 and purify the minds of hundreds whose shining 
 examples will assist to keep down the vulgari- 
 ties that must overrun every country where ed- 
 ucation is not worthily attended to. The gen- 
 tlemen of Tennessee who patronise this college, 
 deserve therefore to be mentioned with all hon- 
 our as the benefactors of the coming generation. 
 No traveller who comes into the country as I 
 have done, can feel anything but respect for 
 what he sees around him in this place. When 
 I first visited North America, in 1806, the word 
 Tennessee was mentioned as a kind of Ultima 
 Thule. Now it is a Sovereign State, with a 
 population of upwards of 700,000 inhabitants, 
 has given a President to the United States, and 
 has established a geological chair in the wilder- 
 ness. The first log-hut ever erected in Nash- 
 ville was in 1780; now there is a handsome 
 town, good substantial brick houses, with pub- 
 lic edifices that would embellish any city in 
 America, and certainly, as far as architecture is 
 concerned, one of the most chaste episcopal 
 churches in the United States. Besides these 
 there are numerous extensive warehouses, evi- 
 dences of a brisk commerce, and an exceeding- 
 ly well constructed bridge thrown across the 
 Cumberland Puver. It adds greatly too to the 
 interest of the place, that a few of the hardy in- 
 dividuals who, with their rifles on their shoul- 
 ders, penetrated here, and became the first set- 
 tlers, still live to see the extraordinary changes 
 which have taken place. 
 
 In one of my geological walks I called at the 
 residence of one of these venerable men, a Mr. 
 Ridley, who possesses a plantation about four 
 milesfroin Nashville. Going along the road, a 
 group of wooden buildings of a rude and com- 
 paratively antique structure could not but attract 
 my attention, especially one of them which stood 
 alone, and differed from all the others. On en- 
 tering a room of the dwelling-house I found a 
 tall strapping young negro wench reeling cotton, 
 with a machine that made such a detestible 
 creaking, that I could scarce hear my own voice 
 when I ask«d her if there was a spring of water 
 near. As soon as she pointed it out, my son 
 took a gourd shell, kept for the purpose, and 
 went for water: in the mean lime I passed into 
 the court-yard, where I found an elderly woman, 
 rather masculine in her manner, very stout in 
 her person, and strong in her movements. Upon 
 my asking her if she was the mistress of the 
 house, she very civilly replied that she was not, 
 " but that her mainmy was," who was coming. 
 I now perceived a much older woman, extreme- 
 ly emaciated and sallow, but erect in her per- 
 son, and verv lively in her manner of speaking, 
 coming froni a log-hut which served'as a kitch- 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 51 
 
 en. This aged person naving obligingly asked 
 me if I would not go into the house and take a 
 chair, I went towards it, and near the door found 
 an aged man with a hoary head, eyes that would 
 scarcely bear the light, and every mark of ex- 
 treme old age about him. He shook hands 
 kindly with me, and asked ine various questions, 
 who i was, where I came from, where I was go- 
 ing to, and was particularly anxious to know 
 how old I was, seeing that my hair was grey. 
 1 spent the morning with this patriarchal family, 
 and ingratiated myself so much with them, that 
 they imparted their history to me. 
 
 The old man, Daniel Ridley, was ninety-five 
 years old, or would be so the 1st of January, 
 1835, being born on the first day of the year 1740, 
 in the reign of George 1 1. The emaciated wom- 
 an was his second wite ; she was eighty years 
 old, and during the fifiy-four years they had been 
 man and wife, she had borne him eight children. 
 Miss Betsy, the stout woman — for so she was 
 called by the slaves — was a daughter by his first 
 marriage, and was now sixty-two years old: she 
 had been married twice, and already had great 
 grand -children. The patriarch himself, of 
 course, had great great grand-children, one of 
 whom, a descendant of his oldest son, now in 
 his seventy-second year, was to be married next 
 year, so he may yet live to bless his fifth genera- 
 tion. He told me he had a short time ago been 
 counting his descendants, but after getting as far 
 as three hundred, he found it very troublesome, 
 and had given it up. These had sprung from 
 sixteen children, the produce of both his mar- 
 riages. A curious little trait disclosed itself in 
 the old man when he first began to converse, 
 which is often observed in very old people. We 
 were talking in the room where the cotton-ma- 
 chine was screaking, and he articulated so fee- 
 bly that it sometimes prevented my hearing what 
 he said ; I therefore mentioned it to the old lady, 
 who bade the girl to stop, but the wench flatly 
 refused, and upon my telling her that she must 
 stop, she said, " The old man won't let me stop." 
 I now turned to him to explain the necessity of 
 her stopping whilst we were conversing; but I 
 found it unnecessary — he was shrewd enough, 
 and knew what we were talking about. " If she 
 stops," said he, "she won't get her task done." 
 At ninety-five years of age, on the brink of the 
 grave, he could not bear to lose the value of a 
 halfpenny — for the delay would not have cost 
 him more — of the labour of one of his slaves. 
 Miss Betsy told me before I went away, that 
 when he was occasionally indisposed, and they 
 had to lay him on his bed in the same room, he 
 insisted upon the machine going from morn to 
 night, and always scolded the girl if she stopped 
 an instant. 
 
 Old Mr. Ridley informed me that he was a 
 native of Williamsburgh, in Virginia, that he 
 emigrated from thence on marrying his second 
 wife in 1780, and established himself on the 
 north fork of the Holslon, where they lived be- 
 twixt ten and eleven years, continually engaged 
 in troublesome contests with the Indians; but 
 this he did not mind, he was naturally industri- 
 ous, and having eight children by his first wile, 
 to whom he was married before he was twenty, 
 it was necessary for him to work hard. He had 
 also been a soldier in General Braddock's armj'^, 
 and wns thoroughly inured to fatigue and dan- 
 ger. Hearing of a settlement that was making 
 on the Cumberland River, he joined a large par- 
 ty, who, having built boats, came down the 
 
 Holston the Tennessee, and the Cumberland 
 rivers, anout eight hundred miles, to Nashville, 
 where they landed in 1790. The families com 
 posing this expedition proceeding to settle them- 
 selves, he selected the site he now lived on fo; 
 his plantation. His first care was to clear an 
 acre of ground for his fort, and construct a strong 
 stockade around it, with a gate, as the Choctaw. 
 Chickasaw, and Cherokee Indians were fiercely 
 contending against this intrusion into their hunt- 
 ing-grounds. Within the stockade he built a. 
 double log-house, consisting, in accordance with, 
 the general custom, of two rooms, with a spa- 
 cious passage between them, putting the who!'.- 
 under one roof One of the rooms served tli j 
 family to sleep in, the other for a kitchen, ana 
 the passage was a convenient place to eat and 
 sit in. A few yards from this he erected a well- 
 constructed block-house, for the family to fly to 
 if the stockade was forced. This block-house 
 yet stands on the N.E. corner of the fort, and was 
 the building which we had observed was so dif- 
 ferent from the others. On the S.E. corner oi 
 the fort he placed another block-house, and or. 
 the S.W. corner another. On the N.W. corner 
 he had not built one, because it was protected 
 by the others. Within the area were a few oth- 
 er buildings for the convenience of their horses 
 and cattle. 
 
 This was the general plan adopted by the 
 whites for the protection of their families against 
 the Indians;. and certainly the block-house ap- 
 pears to be a very convenient and eflicacious 
 building for the purpose it is intended to serve. 
 The one we saw was about twenty feet square, 
 and was built thus: — next to the ground were 
 six round logs about twenty-one feet long, laid 
 upon each other, and well mortised: next came 
 a log about twenty-four feet long, on the west 
 side, and a similar one on the other sides, all 
 well mortised. In this way a projection — even 
 with the floor that divides the upper chamber of 
 the block-house from the lower one — is formed 
 beyond the ground-tier of logs, upon which an 
 upper wall of round logs is built, after which the 
 building is roofed in. Upon the roof pieces of 
 wood are fixed for the garrison to step upon and 
 extinguish any fire the Indians might succeed in 
 setting to it with their arrows. Loop-holes also 
 are made in the logs of the upper chamber to en- 
 able them to fire at any of the Indians who ven- 
 tured to show themselves; as well as others ia 
 the projecting part of the floor, from whence they 
 could fire perpendicularly down upon their be- 
 siegers, if they should attempt to run up to the 
 block-house to set fire to it. 
 
 Mr. Ridley never was attacked in his fort; but 
 a neighbouring one, on the plantation of his son- 
 in-law, Mr. Buchanan, became the scene of an 
 affair still talked of by many of the inhabitants 
 of Nashville with great interest, and of which I 
 had the details from the Ridley family. Mr. Bu- 
 chanan resided about two miles from the Rid- 
 leys: they had removed into Tennessee togeth- 
 er, had settled near each other, and Mr. Buchan- 
 an's son had married Mr. Ridley's daughter, 
 Sally, a woman of very large dimensions, weigh- 
 ing 260 lbs. She had a courageous spirit corre- 
 sponding to her size, and having been trained 
 from her early youih amidst dangers, had al- 
 ways — asherfaiher informed me— been remark- 
 able for her personal resolution, and her patieni 
 endurance of hardships. The fort of old Mr 
 Buchanan had once been surprised by the Chero- 
 kees and Choctaws, when the Indians, rushini 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 into the room where the old pair had taken ref- 
 uge, butchered the old man in the presence of his 
 "wife, who, kneeling with her back to the wall, 
 and imploring their mercy, had the muzzles of 
 their guns pushed close to her face to frighten 
 her. She was, howev^er, spared. "I once ask- 
 ed her," said old Mrs. Ridley to me, " how she 
 felt when she saw her old man she had lived 
 "with so long tomahawked in that way; but she 
 gave me no answer, and putting her hands be- 
 fore her face cried so, I thought she would have 
 broken her heart." In 1792, when the attack 
 upon the fort which is going to be narrated took 
 place, Mr. Ridley's son-in-law, Buchanan, had 
 possession of it. 
 
 The Indians had been gathering for some 
 time, and the white settlers had been informed 
 through their spies that it was their intention first 
 to attack and subdue Buchanan's fort, then Rid- 
 ley's, and afterwards another on the Cumber- 
 land. Four hundred settlers had assembled, and 
 had waited from day to day at Buchanan's, but 
 it being rumoured that the Indians had given up 
 their intention, almost the whole of them return- 
 ed to their own homes, the insecurity of their 
 families keeping them in continued anxiety, so 
 that only nineteen of the whole muster remain- 
 ed, all of whom belonged to the immediate vi- 
 cinity. One Saturday evening, a Frenchman, 
 and a half-blooded Indian, arrived in great haste 
 at the fort, to say that the Indians were on their 
 "way, and would soon be there. They were not 
 believed, even when the half-blood told them 
 they might cut his head off if the savages did not 
 reach the place in a few hours. Two men, how- 
 ever, were dispatched to reconnoitre, and pro- 
 ceeding heedlessly, they fell into an ambush, and 
 "were both of them killed and scalped. These 
 messengers not returning, it was concluded that 
 they had extended their reconnaissance, and that 
 therefore the Indians could not be near: the eon- 
 sequence was that the Frenchman and the half- 
 blood, who had professed to have come amongst 
 them to take white wives, were now looked upon 
 ■with great suspicion. 
 
 In this state of things all the men of the fort 
 retired to rest, leaving Sally Buchanan to sit up 
 in the kitchen. Whilst she was listening in the 
 dead of the night to a noise at a distance, which 
 she at first supposed indicated the approach of 
 the messengers, suddenly she heard the horses 
 and cows struggling and running about in the 
 enclosure in great agitation — for, as Mrs. Rid- 
 ley said, " Cows is mortal feared, as well as hor- 
 ses, of them parfict devils the Indians ;" — and un- 
 derstanding the signs, she immediately roused 
 the men with the cry of " Indians, boys ! In- 
 dians!" Instantly arming themselves, the men 
 flew to the gate, which 900 warriors of the Chero- 
 kees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws were attempt- 
 ing to force. The gate was thoroughly well se- 
 cured, or it must have given way totheir efforts ; 
 but the Indians fortunately making no diversion 
 at any other point, the brave men inside had but 
 this to direct their attention to; and animated by 
 a noble determination to defend the place to the 
 last extremity, they made an active and vigor- 
 ous defence, answering to the deafening yells of 
 the savages by a shot at them whenever a chance 
 occurred of its taking effect. In the mean time, 
 it being discovered that the absentees had td^-en 
 almost all the bullets with them, the heroic Sally 
 Buchanan, thinking the men would be more ef- 
 fectually employed at the stockade, undertook 
 the task of supplying them, and at the kitchen- 
 
 fire actually cast almost all the bullets that were 
 fired, whilst a female relative who was staying 
 witii her clipped the necks off. A.s fast as they 
 were ready, Sally would run out with them, and 
 cry aloud, " Here, boys, here's bullets for you ; 
 but mind you don't sarve'em out till you're sure 
 of knocking some of them screaming devils 
 over." 
 
 This incident is equal to any thing we read of 
 in history; and so much were the men encour- 
 aged by the indomitable spirit of Sally, that the 
 Indians, after a fruitless attempt to force their way 
 in, which lasted several hours, becoming appre- 
 hensive that the report of the rifles and the up- 
 roar — which Mrs. Ridley heard very distinctly 
 two miles ofl' — would bring succours to the gar- 
 rison, drew off before daylight, after losing sev- 
 eral of their number. And thus the garrison, by 
 its prompt and gallant resistance, not only saved 
 itself, but all the other forts which the Indians 
 had laid their account in capturing. 
 
 At this period the most unquenchable hatred 
 existed betwixt the Indians and the white set- 
 tlers, the first strugglingfortheirhuntinggrounds, 
 the last for their lives. The Indians never spared 
 the male whites when they could destroy them, 
 and very seldom the females. As they were not 
 always in sufficient force to attack the settle- 
 ments openly, they proweled about in small par- 
 ties, and placed themselves in ambush where the 
 whites were accustomed to pass. Mr. Buchan- 
 an had a grist-mill near his fort, to which the 
 neighbours used to resort to have their flour 
 made. Upon an occasion when Indians were 
 not supposed to be near, one of their female ac- 
 quaintances who lived in the vicinity sent her 
 four young boys to the mill for grist for the fam- 
 ily, thinking they would not only be able to as- 
 sist each other, but would be a mutual protec- 
 tion. These little fellows were unsuspectingly 
 surprised by some savages not far from the house, 
 and the wretched mother had the unspeakable 
 misery of seeing them all dragged into the woods 
 to be scalped. Two of these boys survived and 
 got renewed scalps, but they were always bald. 
 Upon another occasion, a young girl was going 
 on horseback to a friend's not more than two 
 miles distant, and persuaded another young fe- 
 male, her friend, to get up behind and accompa- 
 ny her. Before they had got halfway, however, 
 the girl who rode behind was shot down by some 
 Indians, and the other escaped by the fleetness of 
 her horse, which she urged with desperation, and 
 with which she took such a desperate leap as to 
 be the wonder of the generation she belonged to. 
 
 Still influenced by a feeling of unmitigable 
 and unsatiable revenge against the Indians for 
 practising such inhuman warfare, it is not sur- 
 prising that when GeneralJackson went against 
 the Creeks in 1813, the enthusiasm of the Ten- 
 nesseans to serve under the bravest and most 
 warm-hearted of their citizens should have been 
 general. Four of old Mr. Ridley's sons accom- 
 panied him. "The boys would go," said the old 
 man to me: "I couldn't have stopped them if I 
 had wished ; but I did not wish to do it." " Ay," 
 added his old wife, " I told my boys they were 
 as welcome to go with Jackson as they were to 
 sit down to dinner." " Yes," said Miss Betsy, 
 the sister of the Amazonian Sally, and the great- 
 sfi-andmother of several children, "I'd fight for 
 .Jackson myself, any day." And when I took 
 leave of this fine honest family, the old man 
 grasped my hand in his, and said, " When you 
 get to Washington, tell Jackson I was sorry hs 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 55 
 
 did not call on me; it is the first time he went 
 away without calling; but I know he couldn't 
 come; he sent me word he couldn't. Tell him," 
 said he, and the old man, to the great admira- 
 tion of my son and myself, absolutely sobbed, 
 whilct his aged eyes were suifused with tears, 
 "tell him 1 love him — I love him better than I 
 love any body: he nas always been kind to me; 
 there was always a good understanding betwixt 
 us " As I was g':^ing out at the door, he added, 
 " Tell Jackson to send me a pair of specs : if I 
 could only see to read the Testament, it would 
 not be so hard to live ; but I can scarce see at 
 all."* I am rather afraid this was a piece of 
 stinginess in the old patriarch, who could have 
 found plenty of spectacles in Nashville. But he 
 is a great economist; for a carpenter, who was 
 doing a job to his house, having got it done a 
 couple of hours before night,fthe old man, seeing 
 a plank or two to spare, obliged him to stay the 
 two hours out and make up the planks into a 
 cotlin for himself, which he actually keeps un- 
 der his bed; and there being still some stuff to 
 spare, he told the carpenter it was a great pity 
 there was not enough to make another for Mrs. 
 Ridley. 
 
 I learned afterwards that some partial .settle- 
 ments had been made about here before Mr. Rid- 
 ley came to Tennessee, and, indeed, as early as 
 1779. General Jackson settled on a plantation 
 near to that where he now resides in 1778, but 
 happened to be from home when the Indians 
 gathered in 1792. Dr. Robinson told me that his 
 father was the first settler in 1779, and that he 
 built his log-hut at French Lick, a mineral 
 springt in the surburbs of Nashville. This lick 
 -was resorted to by wild animals; and a Mons. 
 Monbrun, a French trader and hunter from Kas- 
 Icaskias, in the stats of Illinois, who came here 
 to trade with the Indians, used to say that he has 
 often sat on the bank of a ravine near the spring, 
 and picked the finest buffaloes ofl^ with his rifle. 
 Mr. Robinson, finding the country fertile and in- 
 viting, left his party to plant corn, and returned 
 to the east to conduct a larger number of his 
 friends back, who were anxious to join his set- 
 dement at French Lick. These he brought, with 
 their live stock, by a circuitous route to avoid 
 some Cherokee towns; and, on reaching their 
 destination, proceeded to occupy the country un- 
 der grants of land from the State of North Car- 
 olina, and to erect stockaded forts. No Indians 
 had settled in these parts ; and the whites, finding 
 the country vacant, took possession without cer- 
 emony. But although the Indians did not live 
 here, they considered the country as their hunt- 
 ing ground. Game was very abundant where 
 they resided, and this was the reason why they 
 did not even visit French Lick annually. Find- 
 ing, however, that the whites were increasing in 
 numbers, they commenced hostilities about a 
 year and a half after the arrival of the whites, 
 and waged war incessantly against them with 
 more or less vigour for fifteen years, harassing 
 them so much, that at one time, disheartened by 
 great losses of their children and friends, and 
 seeing no end to the conflict, they were on the 
 point of coming to a determination to abandon 
 
 * General Jackson, to whom I related this interview on 
 my return to Washington, confirmed all the incidents here 
 mentioned, and said he certainly would send the old patri- 
 arch a pair of spectacles. 
 
 t This is a spring of sulphuretted hydroeen, and the tem- 
 perature is 52'^ Fahr. Persons from New Orleans and other 
 rarts of Louisiana come here during the summer mouths. 
 
 the country. Of seven males in the family of 
 Mr. Robinson, who was the principal leader of 
 the whites, only two were left, himself and a son. 
 Dr. Robinson told me that, when a boy, he re- 
 membered his elder brother being broug'ht home 
 dead from a camp where he was making m'aple 
 sugar. The Indians had killed him and cut his 
 head ofl". 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The religious sect of the Campbellites — Order of Priest- 
 hood confined to handsome young fellows — Geology of this 
 part of Tennessee — Section of the Country made by the 
 Cumberland River for 300 miles— Remarkable ancient bed 
 of broken Shells— Harpeth Ridge— Unios of the Western 
 waters. 
 
 On returning from my daily excursions to the 
 hotel, I had always two or three agreeable fam- 
 ilies to resort to, where I could pass an hour or 
 two pleasantly. One evening I went to a soiree 
 at a Mrs. M'C* * *'s, where the most select of 
 the Nashviilian ladies were supposed to be pres- 
 ent. Some of them were I'ashionably dressed 
 and were pretty, rather provincial and hearty in 
 their manners perhaps, but the evening went off" 
 quite en regie, and I was very much entertained. 
 I was told afterwards that the party was given 
 to a lady on her marriage to a preacher of the 
 CampbeUite persuasion, and that the greater por- 
 tion of the company belonged to that sect, one of 
 the most curious of the innumerable variety of 
 religious persuasions in America. 
 
 The Episcopal, or English Church as it is often 
 called, appears, although it has no connexion 
 with the government, to be the only steady church 
 in the United States, keeping up an impregnable 
 respectability by adhering to the Liturgy and to 
 written sermons; a salutary practice that has 
 hitherto rendered it the hope and asylum of all 
 educated people in that country: but the dissent- 
 ing churches, on the other hand, seem to be rath- 
 er at sixes and sevens, and although many of 
 them are temporarily popular, and filled to re- 
 pletion by occasional favourite preachers, yet 
 they are as prone to empty themselves again, 
 upon the manifestation of any innovation indieir 
 doctrine or manners. The slightest deviation ol 
 opinion or sanctity on the part of a favourite 
 preacher is sure to raise up a party of pious cen- 
 sors, and thus cliques are formed in a congrega- 
 tion, upon the principle that it is quite wrong not 
 to hate people with a perfect hatred that will not 
 be of your opinion, and quite right to take sides 
 against them who permit themselves to be found 
 out. Then comes the natural operation of the 
 voluntary principle, the breaking up of a con- 
 gregation, and the formation of a new sect. 
 
 I have heard this very common fermentatory 
 process much commended, as one which, by cre- 
 ating numerous sects, secures the United States 
 from the preponderance of any one: a kind of 
 logic which perhaps will not convince every- 
 body, since it is not yet quite so clear that the 
 possession of a great many things of doubtful 
 and fluctuating importance is better than that of 
 one whose excellence and integrity has for so 
 long a period protected it from .serious schisms. 
 Experience seems to teach, that to become rea- 
 sonable in this life, man is as much in want of a 
 little steady spiritual influence to guide his mor- 
 al way, as"of legal aiuhority to restrain his phys- 
 ical actions; and time will show whether this is 
 not as applicable to the United States as to the 
 mother country, which owes so much of its mor- 
 
56 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 al position to the union of Church and State. 
 As to the Campbellites, whom I saw upon this 
 occasion, there certainly was nothing vulgar 
 amongst them ; as I'ar as appearances went, ttiey 
 might — for aught I could discover— have been 
 Episcopalians; and I was curious to learn what 
 were the opinions or doctrines which had — tor 
 the moment — united so many polite people. A 
 lady, to whom I spoke on the subject, and who 
 was a Campbellite herself, was kind enough to 
 ask me to drink tea with her, and meet one of 
 their popular preachers, a Mr. F* * * * * *. I 
 willingly accepted the invitation, and passed a 
 very pleasant evening. The amount of informa- 
 tion 1 collected was, that Mr. Campbell, the found- 
 er of the sect, was an Irishman, and that they 
 agreed perfectly with most other religious com- 
 munities on one point, to wit, that they were quite 
 right, and all other persuasions quite wrong. 
 They deny all priesthood, and their preachers are 
 consequently not ordained, but are elected by 
 their congregations, and are men not above the 
 middle age. All the members of this sect call 
 each other brother and sister, and marriage is a 
 mere civil ceremony amongst them, wanting 
 even the formality observed in the union of Glua- 
 kers. They are Baptists too, and have public 
 immersions. Mr. F* * * * * * entered into a 
 conversation with me respecting their religious 
 opinions, which I would willingly have declined 
 at that time, there being three or four very pret- 
 ty women present ; but he pressed me rather hard, 
 and being a line-looking man of about 34, natu- 
 rally felt interested in vindicating the sect before 
 so many handsome sisters. After some explana- 
 tions, he repeatedly told me they could not be 
 wrong, because the New Testament was the true 
 guide for the universal church of Christ, and that 
 they had constituted it theirs. I asked him if he 
 understood Hebrew and Greek, to which he re- 
 plied that he understood nothing but English, and 
 did not want any other kind of learning to under- 
 stand the Testament. Upon this I con tented my- 
 self with saying, that those who faithfully ob- 
 served the precepts contained in it would no 
 doubt lead innocent and happy lives, but that I 
 believed even his translation did not authorise 
 him to say that other Christians were wrong: 
 that the Testament, nevertheless, was but a trans- 
 lation from another language, and that all trans- 
 lations were so far liable to error as to be sub- 
 ject to different constructions: if translations, 
 then, were liable to misconstruction, who was 
 likely to be right— the learned men who had deep- 
 ly studied the Testament and the history of the 
 church of Christ in the ancient languages, or 
 those who, knowing no language but English, had 
 no light but conjecture and party-feeling to guide 
 them in their doubts'? That it appeared to me 
 as a matter of course, if men were divided into 
 two sects, one believing in the validity of an or- 
 der of priesthood, and another disbelieving it, 
 that the sect founded and kept up by men with- 
 out human learning was more likely to have de- 
 parted from the truth, and was more likely to 
 disappear, than the Episcopal Church, which 
 was but a copy of that of the mother country, 
 the divine authority of which had been so well 
 illustrated by the learning and holiness of the 
 great scholars and divines that had adorned so 
 many generations. 
 
 He made no reply to thi.s, merely saying that 
 he did not know the ancient languages, but 
 that he wished he did, as he knew what an 
 advantage learning gave to men. One of the 
 
 ladies, who did not seem pleased at the turn rhe 
 conversation had taken, asked me if I seriously 
 thought that " Campbellism" ever would " fal). 
 through;" 10 which I replied, that I could not 
 venture to suppose so, as long as all the pretty 
 women and handsome preachers combined to 
 keep it up ; upon which she good-naturedly said, 
 she believed I " was making fun of them all " 
 and then I took my leave. ' 
 
 The geology of'this part of the country is ex- 
 tremely interesting. We had now left behind 
 us the highly inclined strata of the Silurian sys- 
 tem, and had got upon horizontal beds, evident- 
 ly the equivalents of those of the mountain-lime- 
 stone of England ; many of which, in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Nashville, have been, with their 
 fossils, accurately made out by Dr. Troost. The 
 rocks of the Cumberland mountains constitute a 
 lofty chain, which forms the boundary betwixt the 
 Slates of Kentucky and Virginia, and runs ihence 
 to the north-east. The great bituminous coal- 
 field of the western country appears to lie prin- 
 cipally vvest of this chain, at the summit of which 
 indications of coal are found ; and the geological 
 position of the Nashville beds may be deduced 
 independent of their fossils, from the section 
 which the course of the Cumberland river has 
 opened, from its source in the state of Kentucky 
 10 Nashville in Tennessee, a distance of about 
 300 miles. 
 
 At the falls of this river, in Whitely County. 
 Kentucky, the river, leaving the sandstone oi" 
 the coal measures, has worn its way through a 
 quartzose conglomerate grit, united by silicious 
 and argillaceous cement, to the depth of about 
 500 feet, and continues to flow over it for some 
 distance beyond the falls. Pursuing its way, it 
 next cuts through a bed, consisting principal!)'- 
 of shale, about 200 feet thick, in which are three 
 horizontal veins of good bituminous coal, each 
 from three and a half to four and a half feet 
 thick. The river runs on the bottom of this bed. 
 about three miles below the mouth of Laurel 
 river, and the banks continue to expose the coal 
 veins for a distance of seven miles below Rock 
 Castle River : here the Cumberland has cut into 
 a bed of compact limestone with an oolitic struc- 
 ture—similar to the oolitic bed of the mountain 
 limestone of England— about 300 feet thick. 
 To this succeeds a series of horizontal calcare- 
 ous beds, about 200 feet thick, which, at the 
 mouth of Big Indian Creek, show them.selves in 
 the banks, together with a seam of bituminous 
 shale, which is 20 feet thick at Big Indian Creek, 
 and is continued at Harpeth Ridge near Nash- 
 ville. Near to the creek the river has worn its 
 channel into the flat beds of limestone which are 
 found at Nashville, and which may be estimated 
 at 300 feet thick, down to the junction of the 
 Cumberland with the Ohio. The section of 
 these beds would appear thus : 
 
 Cong-lomerate grit 
 
 Shale with coal 
 
 Compact limestone .... 
 Horizontal calcareous beds . . 
 
 Bituminous shale , 
 
 Lower series of beJs to the Ohio 
 
 300 
 1S20 
 
 Many of these beds, all of which are horizon- 
 tal, contain fossils. In the compact limestone a 
 trilobite is found, which appears not to difl^er 
 from the Calymene Blumenbachii, but it is so 
 incorporated wiih the rock, that I have never 
 procured a specimen that was not much mutila- 
 ted ; and, as has been mentioned before, ih» 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 57 
 
 chert in the seams is often beautifully agatized 
 with a chalcedonic botryoidal appearance. 
 
 The lowest point at which 1 had an opportu- 
 nity (I did not pursue the Cumberland to the 
 Ohio) of examining the series was on the shore 
 of the Cumberland at Nashville, the river being 
 then very low. The various beds through which 
 the river has cut its channel, and which also 
 appear in parts of the neighbouring country, 
 vary a good deal in their crystalline structure 
 and in their organic remains. The lowest on 
 the shore of the Cumberland were of a dark blu- 
 ish grey colour, with a structure between that of 
 old granular and compact secondary limestone : 
 they occasionally abounded with nodules of sili- 
 ceous matter resembling chert, black outside, 
 but greyish within, their mineral substance ap- 
 pearing to have been infiltrated into cavities that 
 perhaps once contained organic matter. The 
 rocks were -frequently covered with fucoidal 
 strings and zoophytes, that had become quite 
 black by exposure to the sun when the river was 
 low ; and of these the characteristic marks were 
 obliterated, and their surfaces rounded off by 
 aqueous attrition and exposure ; they stood, how- 
 ever, in singular relief, the calcareous matter 
 having been rubbed away and the siliceous mat- 
 ter lef't. Favosites, quite black, were in abun- 
 dance, in large irregular round masses, with sharp 
 crisped circles ; these, as well as the Stromato- 
 pora, with concentric lamina and tubercules, 
 are called by the country people " petrified buf- 
 falo dung." Here also is found a long concam- 
 erated shell, which Dr. Troost has called " Co- 
 notubularia" which I have seen before on the 
 limestone beds, near the Saguenay River, in 
 Lower Canada. The other zoophytes belonging 
 to this bed, which I saw, such as calamopora, 
 coluinnaria, &c., were all siliceous. 
 
 In a superior bed, the cavities were filled with 
 interesting accidental minerals, their walls being 
 lined with carbonate of lime, upon which beau- 
 tiful crystals of strontian, of a fine sky blue col- 
 our, sulphate of barytes, fluate of lime, fibrous 
 gypsum, and crystals of sulphuret of zinc upon 
 brown spar, often appeared, as they sometimes 
 occur in a galeniferous district. This lime- 
 stone, when rubbed, has a faint smell of bitu- 
 men. Dr. Troost pointed out to me, in the 
 banks of the Cumberlahd, a conglomerated bed 
 of dead shells, fractured, and much comminu- 
 ted, where all the valves appeared to be single, 
 at least I could find no bivalves that adhered to 
 each other. This must have been a bed of dead 
 shells before the rock became indurated. It lies 
 between two beds of compact limestone, and is 
 in some places 15 feet thick, whilst in others it 
 thins off to one or two feet, and then disappears, 
 as though it had been an ancient drift of broken 
 shells. Lying, as it does, betwixt beds filled 
 with perfect bivalves and other unmutilated fos- 
 sils, it is a remarkable deposit, which speaks 
 volumes about the ancient state of the submarine 
 surface of the earth. Above these beds is a stra- 
 tum of coarse granular limestone, covered al- 
 most with that beautiful fossil called Strophomc- 
 na rugosa. 
 
 But there is a ridge near Nashville, called 
 Harpeth Ridge, where a good section of some of 
 the beds of the vicinity can be obtained, and Dr. 
 Troost was kind enough to accompany me there. 
 This ridge seems to be an outline of the ancient 
 surface of the country before it was lowered by 
 the removal of so many strata, and rises con- 
 spicuously above the level of Nashville, with a 
 H 
 
 strong bed of argillaceous sandstone at the top. 
 The three principal beds of which it consists, 
 superadded to the subjacent strata, including the 
 lowest calcareous bed on the Cumberland Riv- 
 er, near to Nashville, give the following section 
 of this part of the country, consisting of nine dis- 
 tinct beds of limestone and sandstone, someiimes 
 separated from each other by dull slaty lime- 
 stones and other seams of mineral matter. 
 
 Feet 
 
 No. 1. 75 
 
 o 
 
 <! 
 
 A7i argillaceous sandstone, sometimes cher- 
 ty, sometimes granular. No organic bod- 
 ies in the granular part, but contains en- 
 cremites in the calcareous seams towards 
 the bottom. This bed reappears in various 
 other parts of Tennessee, but has general- 
 ly been caried away with many of the 
 subordinate beds. Nashville, and a great 
 part of the adjacent country, are on tho 
 the bare limestone. The ridges towards 
 the N.E. are sharp, have abrupt projec- 
 tions, and steep declivities ; whilst on tho 
 opposite side the slopes are gentle, and 
 the crowns of the hills rounded, as though 
 a current had retired that way. 
 
 No. 2. 10 
 
 Compact limestone, abounding in fossils 
 where it is cherty. Encrinites, trilobites, 
 gorgonia antiqua. 
 
 No. 3. 15 
 
 Encrinital limestone. Echinodermata. Tur- 
 binolia. Flustra. Spirifers. Alternates 
 occasionally with sandstone. The fossil 
 bodies sometimes siliceous. 
 
 No. 4. 10 
 
 Slaty clay or shale, often bituminous. This 
 bed reappears in other parts of the dis- 
 trict : contains reniform masses of sulphu- 
 ret of iron. 
 
 No. 5. 8 
 
 
 Granular sandstone. 
 
 No. 6. 12 
 
 Coarse granular limestone, with a slight 
 green chloritic stain. Asterias. Stropho- 
 mena rugosa. Calymene Bluraenbachii, 
 asapbus platycephalus, pentanierus, cate- 
 nipora, ceriopora, <fcc. 
 
 NO. 7. 6 
 
 Argillaceous limestone, with Ixilobites and 
 calaniapora, <fcc., separated from No. 6 by 
 a partial bed of broken dead shells. 
 
 No. 8. 12 
 
 A tough compact grey limestone. Ortho- 
 cera. Conotubularia. Favosites. Tur- 
 bo liicarinatus covering whole plates of 
 the limestone. 
 
 No. 9. 15 
 
 
 Granular limestone of a bluish black grey 
 colour, when fractured shows reddish 
 points. Cherty bodies in cavities. Co- 
 notubularia. Favosites. Stroraotopora. 
 Accidental minerals, strontian, brown 
 spar, zinc, &c., &c. 
 
 A little south from Nashville there is a vein 
 of crystalline sulphate of barytes, 10 or 12 feet 
 wide, of a yellowish grey colour, in the cavities 
 of which well-defined crystals are found. I also 
 observed in the vicinity another vein of compact 
 sulphate of barytes, traversing Brown's Creek, 
 with galena disseminated in it; it is far, there- 
 fore, from being improbable that these are indi- 
 cations of productive deposits of sulphuret of 
 lead. 
 
 Of all these fossils and minerals I made a very 
 good collection, besides adding greatly to my 
 collection of unios, of the most beautiful varie- 
 ties of which the Cumberland River contains a 
 surprising abundance. This molluscous animal 
 delights in the rivers that flow through a calca- 
 reous country, and certainly flourishes more in 
 the streams that empty into the Gulf of Mexico 
 than in those that flovv into the Atlantic. This 
 predilection of theirs is a fact worth inquiring 
 into. Whether it be the effect of the abundance 
 of calcareous matter, the softness of the climate, 
 or to their being direct congeners to the unios 
 which inhabit the Mexican and South American 
 rivers, the fact is now well ascertained that very 
 few of the beautiful varieties which live in the 
 Western waters are found in the Atlantic streams 
 
58 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA 
 
 and it appears that where they are mixed to- 
 gether, it is generally at the heads of great riv- 
 ers flowing in contrary directions, which, at 
 periods of high water, occasionally flow into 
 each other. But where were all these fresh- 
 water bivalves when the whole country was un- 
 der the salt ocean 1 If they are a creation since 
 the establishment of the existing rivers, may not 
 each race of them have been produced where 
 they now live, and their various appearance be 
 the consequence of an adaptation to the circum- 
 rstances which influence their structure 1 
 
 On the 4th of October, having despatched all 
 my collections in casks to New Orleans, to be 
 (brwarded to New York, and taken places in the 
 stage-coach for Louisville in Kentucky, I called 
 upon my various friends at Nashville lo thank 
 them for the very kind attentions we had receiv- 
 ed, and to bid them adieu. I had received very 
 pleasing impressions both of the inhabitants and 
 the place, and was glad that I had visited it. At 
 the inn where we staid we led a very quiet life ; 
 they soon ceased to stare at our bringing rocks 
 and shells home, and let us do just as we pleas- 
 ed. Having become a little accustomed to dirt, 
 too, the sight of it was not so distressing as it 
 xised to be. The table was pretty good: I sel- 
 dom dined at it, but the people very obligingly 
 gave me something (o eat at my own hours, and 
 I expressed my satisfaction to them on paying 
 Illy bill. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Leave Nashville— The Barrens of Kentucky — The Mam- 
 moth Cave — First View of the Oliio River— Arrival at 
 Louisville — Falls of the Ohio— Henry Clay, his great 
 popularity— Captain JacX of the Citizen Steamer, a most 
 catawampous Navigator— Public indifference to the loss 
 of Life in new Countries — Explanation of "a Sin to 
 Crockett." 
 
 At one o'clock a.m., October 5th, we bade 
 adieu to Nashville, and after proceeding about 
 fifteen miles north of the Cumberlandrthe coim- 
 try began to rise rapidly. At the dawn of day 
 the stage-coach going very slowly up hill, I glad- 
 ly got out and walked, and when we had reached 
 t'he""summit of the plateau, found we were upon 
 beds of limestone bearing small fan-shaped sul- 
 cated impressions resembling others I had seen 
 near Sparta, and which appeared to have been 
 made by marine fuci. For some distance the 
 road passed through a valley formed by chains of 
 Kiwbs, as they are called here, which are calca- 
 reous hummocks somewhat resembling those in 
 the country betwixt Kingston and the Cumber- 
 land mountains. The districts here are of a 
 secondary quality, and the Kentucky people call 
 them Barrens, because they are not as fertile as 
 the rich low lands which are occupied by the 
 first .settlers. In this they imitate the Dutch peo- 
 ple who settled the fertile bottoms of the Mohawk 
 river in the State of New York in the middle of 
 the seventeenth century. A Dutchman would 
 say he had so many morgens of land, and a mile 
 of berg ; but he never would dignify the hills with 
 the name of land. These barrens, however, have 
 tolerably good timber upon them, and when the 
 population of the State renders it necessary to 
 occupy them, they will be found to be good sec- 
 ondary soils, forinmany parts of them I saw good 
 tobacco and corn growing. At present it is an 
 uninteresting country, not broken up enough lor 
 a geologist, and the settlers are so poor and slov- 
 enly that, with very few exceptions, there is no- 
 thing but dirt to be seen in the taverns; so that, 
 
 of course, there is nothing like comfort to be ob- 
 tained in theiTi. There was always some dinner 
 provided for the stage-coach, but it was impossi- 
 ble to sit down to such miserable stuff, and I 
 found it a betier plan to wander and look about, 
 and use my increased appetite as a sauce to the 
 bad suppers we got. We found the people, how- 
 ever, civil and obliging; they are cut off' from 
 every source of improvement, and seem content- 
 ed with the comfortless condition they exist in, 
 because they know no better. We arrived at the 
 Bowling Green at night, where there is a tavern 
 of some pretensions, and here I got a wretched 
 bed to lie down upon for a few hours. In the 
 morning we started again, and crossed the Big 
 Barren, an extensive and important tributary of 
 Green River, which traverses the western part of 
 Kentucky and empties itself inio the Ohio. We 
 breakfasted at a Mr. Bell's, the nearest inn, I be- 
 lieve, lo the Mammoth Cave, about the great ex- 
 tent of which much has been said. Its mouth is 
 in a valley of horizontal limestone, not far from 
 Green River, and, like most caves of great magni- 
 tude, such as that of Carinthia near Laybach, St. 
 Michael's at Gibraltar, and the Helderberg in the 
 State of New York, all of which I have visited, 
 is composed of numerous galleries and branches, 
 presenting occasionally vaulted domes, pools of 
 water, deep pits, with depending stalactites and 
 other calcareous minerals. One of the domes of 
 this cave is said to be 120 feet high, and from 
 the great extent of the place where it rises, it has 
 been appropriately enough called the Temple. I 
 was told that the cave extends two miles from 
 its mouth, and that the length of all the galleries 
 taken together exceeds seven miles; so that it 
 must be a severe day's work to any one who 
 would undertake to visit every known part of it. 
 Nitrous earth is found here in great quantities, 
 and the cave must be a surprising curiosity to 
 those who have never visited such places. We 
 had no time to go there, and very little inclina- 
 tion to delay the progressof our journey, time be- 
 ginning to be precious. We were informed, how- 
 ever, that the mouth of the cave was the source 
 of some revenue to the proprietor who owned 
 the land, and that he was extremely averse to any 
 one taking a plan of it, lest a shaft should be sunk 
 into it in another part and an opposition portal 
 set up. These caves appear to be very numer- 
 ous in this part of Kentucky. What are called 
 sink-holes are constantly to be seen on the surface 
 of the land. These are circular depressions in 
 the form of reversed cones, sometimes 25 feet 
 deep; they appear to be sections of cavities in 
 the limesl;one, and ^frequently lead to a cave. I 
 observed a very ingenious use which sotne of the 
 farmers had made of them. If there is an orifice 
 at the bottom they cover it well over, and then 
 plastering the whole with clay the sink-hole be- 
 comes an excellent pond of water for their cattle 
 and for domestic uses. The soil in this part of 
 the country is sometimes very red, and I hav^ 
 frequently had water, after rain, brought to m& 
 to wash with so muddy and red that I could not 
 use it. The country-people, however, are so ac- 
 customed to the water in this state that they do 
 not object to it. 
 
 We crossed Green River, a pretty stream re- 
 semblins Caney Fork in Tennessee, at Mum- 
 ford's Ville, a singularly shabby looking place, 
 notwitdstanding its fine name. Towards even- 
 ing we met the Tennessee race-horses on theii 
 return from the Louisville races, where they had 
 triumphed over the Kentucky horses, to the great 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 59 
 
 mortification of the Kentuckians. At Elizabeth 
 Town, a pretty thriving place, where we arrived 
 alter sunset, we got a comfortable supper at a 
 tolerabl}' good house, and resumed our journey 
 at midnight amidst torrents of rain. At length, 
 towards morning, we began to descend the great 
 table-land we had so long been crossing, and 
 we're evidently approaching some valley where 
 the general drainage of the country was carried 
 on ; thQ land became flatter and more fertile, the 
 forests exceedingly thick, and the trees of such 
 great magnitude in comparison with those we had 
 left behind that without seeing the famous Ohio 
 River we were quite sure we were upon the al- 
 luvial deposit adjacent to it. When we were 
 least thinking of it we came to a clearing, and 
 an immense river appeared before us. " That 
 must be the Ohio !" was our mutual exclama- 
 tion, and so it was, just where Salt River emp- 
 ties into it. I was perfectly delighted with this 
 magnificent stream, and ample as was its volume, 
 could not but think of what it was in ancient 
 times when it covered all the rich flat land we 
 iiad passed over on its south side for the last two 
 miles. Nothing can be more lertile and beauti- 
 ful than this land, which, in every part, is cov- 
 ered wiih noble trees. 
 
 We entered Louisville at one p. m., by way of 
 the race-course, which .seems to be well laid out, 
 •and is kept up wiih much care. At the City 
 Hotel we found excellent accommodations, equal 
 in manyparticular.-^to those in the Atlantic cities. 
 Certainly it is a very great luxury to repose a 
 day or two in one of these good inns after so 
 much suffering for want of food and rest; and 
 here, besides other comforts, we not only found 
 a table abundantly supplied, but things to cor- 
 respond in a manner that would keep any criti- 
 cal epicure in good humour. 
 
 Louisville is a well laid-out town, advanta- 
 geously placed on ihe south bank of the Ohio, 
 and accessible to the portly steamers that con- 
 stantly resort to it. It has three wide streets par- 
 allel to the river, each of them -80 feet broad. 
 The principal of these is Main Street, which is 
 quite a busy place, and nearly as much built up, 
 as I remember Broadway, the principal street of 
 the now populous city of New York, to have 
 been in 1806. These streets are crossed at right 
 angles by other streets leading into the country. 
 The town fronts what are called the "Falls of 
 the Ohio," an extensive rapid about two miles 
 long, with a fall in the bed of the river of about 
 twelve feet to the mile. To avoid these falls and 
 make the navigation continuous, a canal has 
 been constructed on the south side near to the 
 city from the western termination at Portland to 
 deep water near the town. This is a costly 
 work, and the lock at the west end for admitting 
 steamers is very capacious. The bed of the 
 Ohio, comprehending the widest part of the falls, 
 is about one mile and a half across, and, most 
 fortimately for me, the river was unusually low 
 at this time, so that about three quarters of a 
 mile of the bed of the river was quite bare and 
 dry, and I could walk about in every direction on 
 the flat limestone beds, which abounded with fos- 
 sils. The channel of the river when the water 
 is so low is near the north bank, on the shore of 
 the State of Indiana, and at such times you can 
 walk with great security to a few islands which 
 are between it and the city. One half of one of 
 these islands was carried away in the spring of 
 this year to the base, and a beautiful bed of en- 
 crinites became thus uncovered. Near to an- 
 
 other of these islands some men were engaged in 
 a limestone quarry for the use of the city, and as 
 the rock peeled off in seams of from eight to 
 twelve inches, it disclosed a surprising abun- 
 dance of rare fossils, many of which 1 had never 
 seen before, and of which I made a rich collec- 
 tion. Most of the beds of limestqne are bitumi- 
 nous, and the smell in some of them amounts to 
 fetor. Petroleum is found in many cavities, and 
 I was informed that when they were engaged in 
 blasting the beds for constructing the canal, they 
 came to places where a gallon of the mineral oil 
 could be collected during the twenty-four hours. 
 The frequency of this phenomenon has led some 
 persons to suppose that all the deposits of bitu- 
 minous coal are not of vegetable origin. 
 
 Upon the whole Louisville is a prosperous and 
 agreeable place, and appears to be under the 
 government of judicious magistrates. The man- 
 ner of paving the streets pleased me very much; 
 after being well graduated, seams of limestone 
 from the Ohio are set upon their edges close to 
 each other, and are then covered with the mac- 
 adamised metal. The place, however, is not at 
 all times equally active, its business being much 
 influenced by the state of the water: when it has 
 rained in the upper country and the river rises, 
 everything is life and bustle, and the people are 
 as active as the Egyptians when the Nile is on. 
 the increa.se; steamers are immediately put in 
 motion, and travellers are moving in every di- 
 rection. Large steamers of 500 tons burthen are 
 constantly arriving and departing. I visited one of 
 this class called 'The Mediterranean,' which was 
 fitted out in a very convenient and handsome man- 
 ner. Families in these boats can have good state 
 cabins to themselves, and are furnished with an 
 abundant and well-dressed table. Wine, spirits, 
 bottled porter, ale, &c., are sold by the steward ; 
 so that nothing is wanting to mitigate the tediuin 
 of a long voyage to New Orleans or any other 
 place. Besides the first class of passengers the 
 steamers receive a great quantity of merchan- 
 dise, and many passengers of the lower classes, 
 who are entirely separated from the others and 
 who find their own provisions. When the wa- 
 ter is low, few of the large steamers venture 
 above the falls, as they are apt to run aground 
 on the shoals, and remain there a long time. 
 
 The Kentuckians are an enteprising, indus- 
 trious, and united people; they inhabit a beau- 
 tiful country, and cultivate a generous soil. 
 With a magnificent river upon their frontier, 
 that can convey their tobacco, pork, corn, and 
 their other various productions, to every part of 
 the earth, they seem to have all the elements 
 within themselves of permanent prosperity. The 
 people, too, do not appear to have been demor;- 
 alised by low demagogues to the extent that they 
 have been in someof the other States, and hence 
 are not so much under their influence, but rather 
 listen to the precepts and imitate the examples of 
 their superiors. Of these the acknowledged 
 leader is Henry Clay: his name, which is so 
 well known through the United States, operates 
 like a talisman whenever it is mentioned in Ken- 
 tucky. There is not a man in the State but is 
 proud that Mr. Clay is a Kentuckian. Indeed, 
 identified as all his interests are with the State ; 
 being the most extensive farmer, the most spir- 
 ited improver of all the breeds of cattle, horses, 
 and mules, the most affable of men to all classes, 
 having an established reputation for utidaunted 
 personal courage, and never having been known 
 to do a mean action either in his public or pri- 
 
TRAVELS IN AEERICA. 
 
 vate capacity, whilst during his long political 
 career he has been conspicuous above almost all 
 his lellow-cilizens for active and shining talents; 
 it is not surprising that his character should 
 have made an impression upon the people, and 
 that they should by their conduct acknowledge 
 the advantages they derive from their relation 
 to so eminent a person. What a blessing would 
 it be to this great republic if its people, turning 
 a deaf ear to selfish demagogues, would but con- 
 sent to receive, even if it were but for one pres- 
 idential term, so much permanent benefit as 
 they would derive from his great experience, his 
 manly virtues, and honourable consistency ! 
 
 The weather having set in very rainy, and 
 being fatigued and disgusted with stage-coach 
 journeys in these unsettled countries, I turned 
 my attention to a trip by water to St. Louis, in 
 the State of Missouri. There was a very small 
 steamer called the Citizen, which was lying at 
 the western end of the canal, commanded by 
 Captain Isaac Jack, a native of the State of Mis- 
 sissippi. When the water in the river is low, 
 these small steamers come into play, and of 
 course exact a much higher price than when all 
 the boats are running. Caprain Jack's boat had 
 a board up by way of advertisement, signifying 
 that he was to sail " to-day ;" and as the rain 
 made me rather dread the horrid roads which I 
 should have lo travel over in a land journey 
 across the States of Indiana and Illinois to St. 
 Louis, I walked early in the morning to the place 
 where the Citizen lay, and went on board of her. 
 I found a great many passengers there who had 
 slept in the boat ; and knowing what monstrous 
 lies the captains of these vessels tell to induce 
 passengers to embark with them, I thought I 
 would speak with Captain Jack before I engaged 
 our berths. Captain Jack, who was breakfast- 
 ing in his cabin, had " considerable" of that buc- 
 caneering look about him which is common to 
 his class on the Mississippi. He seemed in a 
 very great hurry, and was surrounded by a num- 
 ber of impatient passengers, some of whom had 
 embarked merchandise with him with a view of 
 being the first to get to St. Louis with their goods. 
 The truth was that the captain had always been 
 going " to-day" for several days past, but had 
 not got off yet. His custom every morning and 
 evening was to set " that bl — d bijkr" as he call- 
 ed the boiler, a-going to make decoy steam, and 
 in this way he had managed to entice various 
 passengers to send their luggage on board. They 
 soon found out the trick after they had got there, 
 but as the wharf was three miles from Louisville, 
 and Captain Jack's blandishments had still some 
 influence with them, they continued with him ; 
 and there he kept them dc die in dier/i by all sorts 
 of ingenious expedients and mendacious prom- 
 ises, not one of which had he the slightest idea 
 of keeping. 
 
 Inquiring of him when he intended to start, he 
 answered "At four in the afternoon precisely." 
 " How many best berths have you to spare 1" 
 "There's jist two, and no more." "Will you 
 show me the bookT' On looking at it I saw 
 that not one-half of the berths were taken, and 
 observed, " I did not suppose he would start with 
 so many empty berths, but would wait for the 
 Eastern slages'to-morrow, and that I should like 
 it as well." Now the captain and I should have 
 agreed very well on this point if we had been 
 alone, but, with the fear of his passengers before 
 his eyes, he answered, " No, if you ain't aboard 
 at four, you'll not find me here; all won't 
 
 stop me ; I ain't a-going to stop not a minute fhr 
 no stages." The passengers, who were attend- 
 ing to our conversation, now seemed to take 
 courage, and assured me that the boat would 
 start punctually at four, for all the cargo was 
 taken in. " Why," said Captain Jack, drawing 
 up in an attitude of oflended honour, "do you 
 think I would tell you a lie about it for double 
 the passage-money 1 If I would, I w-ish I may 
 be etarnally blown I know whare." I was now 
 quite sure he did dot intend to go ; but hoping to 
 out-general him, I said, in a quiet way, " I am 
 not a man of business ; I am travelling for pleas- 
 ure; two or three days are of no great conse- 
 quence. They say the water is rising at Piits- 
 burg, and it will be as comfortable for me to 
 wait a day or two, as to go now and run upon 
 the shoals. If you had been going a couple of 
 days hence, it might have suited some of us, for 
 yours is a nice-looking boat ;" which, indeed, it; 
 was. This rather "stumped" Captain Jack, 
 and he left off" swearing by four o'clock, know- 
 ing that another steamer was advertised to sail 
 immediately after him, and fearing lest he should 
 drive me to go to that. He looked piteously at 
 me, as much as to say that if we were alone we 
 could come to an understanding. But the pas- 
 sengers, alarmed at my proposition, now told him 
 to a man they would all go ashore if he did not 
 go at four. Uttering, therefore, the most astound- 
 ing imprecations,* and invoking the most absurd 
 horrors upon himself and his steamer, which, if 
 he did not keep his word, he first wished at the 
 bottomof the Ohio, and then at the bottom of the 
 Mississippi, not forgetting to wish himself at the 
 bottom ol a much worse place, he turned front 
 his passengers, and in a low, winning sort of a 
 way, said, " Stranger, if I don't go at four, you 
 
 caii go back to Louisville, I'll be if you 
 
 can't, and that's fair, at any rate." I thought it 
 was tolerably so, and we therefore embarked oui^ 
 luggage. 
 
 A few minutes before four the " byler" took 
 up its part and produced a little steam, and for a 
 few minutes there was an appearance of bustle 
 on board. Amidst all this,_nobody had seen the 
 captain for several hours, and he was now miss- 
 ing at the most critical moment. All the an- 
 swer we could get from the steward was, that 
 " the captain had gone for the pilot." In the 
 mean time carts kept coming with goods, which 
 were laid on the beach, evidently intended to be 
 shipped: amongst these were several small 
 casks filled with gunpowder. The hours slipped 
 away, and at eight o'clock the passengers were 
 furious, for it was too clear that Captain Jack 
 had " done" them out of one day more. At half- 
 past eight he came on board, with the appear- 
 ance of a man overcome with fatigue and anxi- 
 ety, swearing lustily that he had not been able 
 to find the pilot, but had left word with his wife 
 to send him on ; that he was a first-rate pilot, " a 
 leetle slow or so at moving abaywt;" but "sar- 
 tin it was the most OT^accountablest thing that he 
 had disapyrded him so ; howsumdever, he'd be 
 here directly." I now became spokesman, and 
 ventured to tell Captain Jack that his four o'clock 
 had become almost nine, that all his oaths were 
 broken, and that it was evident he had never in- 
 
 * An apology would be due to the reader if any specimen 
 were detailed, however slight, of the tremendous l)lasphe- 
 mies with which men of this class m the Southent States 
 interlard their speech. Oaths, which are only explelively 
 used by others, with them form the staple commodity of 
 language ; and the few innocent words they utter seem al- 
 most to La afraid of coming in betwixt the claps of thunder 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 61 
 
 "ended to go, because the beach was covered 
 Willi merchandise and gunpowder not yet em- 
 li.iiked. To which he promptly answered, that 
 ■ he warn't a-going to take one single curse's 
 vorth of it; and that as to the gunpowder, if we 
 thought he was sich a owaccountable fool as to 
 like that and ruin his insurance, we didn't know 
 liiin ; that it might lie there till all etarnity was 
 over for what he cared, for he had ordered his 
 people not to touch it." 
 
 The passengers now broke out into a strain of 
 general dissatisfaction, which he parried by cur.s- 
 ing and swearing against the pilot for "disa^^y^it- 
 ing" him, and invoking, with the most unheard- 
 of blasphemies, all sorts of evil to befal him if he 
 did not go punctually at nine the next morning. 
 "And," said I, '= what security have you to offer 
 us that you will go in the morning, alter lying in 
 the way you have done ] Nobody believes you 
 about the pilot; and do you think we are such 
 fools as to believe a word you say about any 
 thing T' Upon which the fellow said, "Stran- 
 ger, if that ain't catamount to saying I'm a liar, 
 then I reckon I don't know nothing ;" and, turn- 
 ing to the passengers with an impudent leer, add- 
 ed, " Gentlemen, it's my interest to give you 
 parfict satisfaction, and if I don't go to-morrow 
 morning at nine to a minute, I'll treat you all to 
 as much wine as you can drink, and that's fair, 
 
 by !" Thus caught, we remained all night 
 
 on board. I rose with the dawn of day, and, go- 
 ing to the beach, saw that all the goods were 
 gone ; and not doubting but that they had been 
 taken on board whilst we were all asleep, I in- 
 quired of one of the hands, and he not only con- 
 firmed it to me, but showed me where the gun- 
 powder was stowed away. 
 
 About six the captain turned out, and said he 
 was going to town for the pilot; but the passen- 
 gers who had been longest on board, perceiving 
 they had no hold upon him at all, were now be- 
 come very much incensed, and gathered round 
 him. I asked him where the gunpowder was; 
 and he immediately answered that he had sent 
 it back to Louisville in a waggon, and even na- 
 med the merchants he had sent it to. This I 
 told him I did not believe one word of; that I 
 knew the gunpowder was on board, and it was 
 not at all unlikely but that the steamer would be 
 blown up. Upon which, in the most deliberate 
 snanner, he invoked every sort of perdition upon 
 his soul if there was a grain of gunpowder in 
 the steamer, and offered to go with any of us and 
 examine the whole cargo. Some of the passen- 
 gers now said I was carrying the matter too far, 
 as he did not dare to carry gunpowder on freight, 
 for it was contrary to law, and would make the 
 insurance void; and Captain Jack, stepping for- 
 wards after the manner of "Ancient Pistol," 
 boldly offered to give me a thousand dollars in 
 specie for every grain of gunpowder I could find 
 on board of her. As this insolent, yet ridiculous 
 proposition was a figure not easily matched in 
 the great art of browbeating, I determined to 
 join issue with the captain here, and to blow him 
 up, in the hopes of saving the steamer. I there- 
 fore coolly told him that he was an ingenious 
 fellow, but that he had made a false move for 
 once; i-or I knew that the gunpowder had been 
 taken on board by his directions, that it was now 
 in the forecastle not far frotn the furnace, that I 
 had seen it there within half an hour, and that if 
 he and the passengers would go forward with me 
 I would show it to them. Captain Jack now 
 •was checkmated, and, without denying the fact, 
 
 said, " Stranger, I niver did see sicn a man as 
 you are; I swar you beat all creation for contra- 
 riness. But, gentlemen, if I don't goat nine to a 
 minute, I'll give you leave to set fire to the bl — d 
 gunpowder and blow the steamer to ****." 
 
 Leaving his passengers with this extraordina- 
 ry alternativ^e, he went ashore to look for more 
 freight and passengers; and, following his ex- 
 ample, I returned to Louisville to breakfast, sent 
 a carriage for our luggage, and the rain abating, 
 and the Ohio not rising, determined to be satis- 
 fied with the experience I had acquired in rela- 
 tion to small steamers and their captains. The 
 lies these fellows tell are like custom-house 
 oaths with many persons, told in the way of 
 business only. Great a liar as Captain Jack 
 was, he was said to be an obliging, good fellow. 
 As to explosion from gunpowder, or destruction 
 from any other cause, they occur with so much 
 frequency as to have created a general indiffer- 
 ence to accidents of this kind. An explosion 
 of the boiler of a steamer called the Banner took 
 place about this time on the Mississippi: iive 
 persons were killed, and sixteen frightfully scald- 
 ed. It was the occasion of a paragraph in the 
 newspapers headed " Melancholy Disaster," but 
 I never heard it alluded to afterwards. Perhaps 
 the accidents are few compared with the great 
 number of bad steamers, and worse engineers 
 and commanders, on the Mississippi. Any fel- 
 low with the slightest knowledge of machin- 
 ery sets up for an engineer; no certificate is re- 
 quired of his ability, and if he will serve for a 
 low price, the lives of the parties on board are 
 at once entrusted to him. The steamers go by 
 high pressure ; and when the engineer and cap- 
 tain are two-thirds drunk — which often happens 
 in the small steamers — they drive the steamer 
 as fast as she will go, and sometimes load the 
 safety-valve to terrify the passengers. All these 
 accidents happen from rashness or carelessness. 
 Those who go in the small steamers are gener- 
 ally poor people emigrating to the western coun- 
 try, speculators, gamblers, and people little 
 known ; all fatalists to a certain extent; at any 
 rate, believing that their chance is as good as 
 that of any body else; and when they have mada 
 a mistake, it is a matter which concerns very 
 few people, and makes little or no impression 
 upon others, for human life is not esteemed 
 as precious in these wild countries as in com- 
 munities where existence is cherished and pam- 
 pered. As men advance in civilisation, every 
 individual is a link in society, and his life is 
 valuable to the rest, who know how to feel and 
 compassionate the loss of one of their number. 
 Here it does not strike any one as being partic- 
 ularly surprising that such people should per- 
 ish ; indeed, if the world thought about it at all, 
 it would be surprised that they had not perished 
 before. Men, too, are rapidly reproduced in this 
 country of easy subsistence. Property is risked 
 in the same manner, because it is easily acqui- 
 red again. Food and clothing are obtained by 
 very small exertions, the active men of these 
 frontier countries not having, like the individu- 
 als of denser communities, any apprehensions 
 on that score. They know they have an unoc- 
 cupied wilderness before them, with land and 
 game to fly to: and as to the wealth which many 
 of them are eager to obtain, it is not desired for 
 the purpose of placing the happiness of them- 
 selves or their families upon a solid foundation, 
 but is a prize of which, when drawn, the amount 
 is laid out in lottery tickets again, all of which 
 
62 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 frequently come up blanks. Such men meet re- 
 verses in a quieter way than others do who be- 
 long to an older stage of society. 
 
 An intelligent person whom I saw at Louis- 
 ville told me that he knew a man who had em- 
 barked all he had in the world on a flat-bottomed 
 boat, and then undertook to conduct the boat, 
 ■with the aid of three or four men, over the falls 
 of the Ohio without a pilot. He could have pro- 
 vided a sufficient pilot for si.x; dollars, but he re- 
 fused to have one ; and pushing his boat boldly 
 into the rapids, it soon got beyond his control, 
 was knocked and stove to pieces, every thing 
 was lost, and his men and himself saved with 
 difficulty. When the people who ran to the 
 shore to assist him came up with him, they found 
 him looking at the fragments of his boat which 
 were dashing about amongst the rapids. All 
 was gone, to the last barrel of flour, and to the 
 last nail in his boat. It was an incident to have 
 made Momus serious for the time; but this fel- 
 low, turning to the people, said — 
 " Hail Columbia, happy land ! 
 If I ain't ruined, I'll be " 
 
 The same gentleman assured me that he was 
 once a witness to a similar scene, when the vio- 
 lence of the rapids overpowered the persons con- 
 ducting another flat boat, tossed it about in a 
 frightful manner, and finally driving it into a 
 chute of great power, the boat was liierally turn- 
 ed a somerset by the eddy. Everything was 
 lost, and the owner was extricated from the rap- 
 ids with difficuhy. On reaching the shore, and 
 seeing the disjecta membra going down stream, 
 the first thing he said was, "She's gone to be 
 
 any how; but she made a most almighty 
 
 rear of it, didn't shel" This is the usual way 
 in which they use iheir expletives, conceiving it 
 gives energy to what they have to say. 
 
 But this kind of brutality, which makes the 
 conversation of the lower classes near the Mis- 
 sissippi so disgusting, is not always a proof of 
 badness of heart, tor I have seen many of them 
 very obligingly disposed to be useful'to others. 
 The halfhorse, half-alligator race, that was 
 brought up from infancy in the arks and flat-bot- 
 tomed boats that navigated these western rivers 
 before steamers were introduced, are off the 
 stage now; but the language of the people is 
 .still sufficiently figurative, and sometimes unin- 
 telligible. Any magnificent steamer, built upon 
 a larger plan than usual, is called "A sin to 
 Crockett;" an expression of which I received a 
 very roundabout explanation. A well-known 
 Tehnessean named Crockett, remarkable for 
 marvellous feats and marvellous stories, is sup- 
 posed to be so "beat" by this monster, "larger 
 than the largest size," that, instead of regarding 
 it as a virtue, he regards it as a sin, and, ergo, it 
 is " A sm to Crockett." 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Leave Louisville, and take to the Stage-Coach again— Dif- 
 ference l)etwixt the Manners of Slave and Free States — 
 Vint-eunes in the State of Illinois— Old Race of French 
 Canaihaiis there — Beauty of the Prairies — Horizontal 
 Coal Se;niis in the banks of the rivers— Grouse— Ancient 
 I)ecl of ihp Mississippi seven miles broad— The Town of 
 St I.nms iTi the State of Missouri— Col. Smith of the 
 British Army—" Running a Negro" explained— Jefferson 
 Baraclis, admirable management of a regimental fund— 
 "Vuide Poche and Pain Court— A group of thirty Barrows. 
 
 Wb left Louisville, Oct. 13, in the stage-coach, 
 inteniiing to pass through the States of Indiana 
 and Illinois, on our way to St. Louis, and cross- 
 
 ed the Ohio soon after daylight to New Albany, 
 a thriving village on the Indiana shore, five 
 miles from the Falls. The country hence rises 
 rapidly several hundred feet, and leaves the val- 
 ley of the Ohio for elevated barrens, with lime- 
 stone knobs, as for as Greenville, where there is 
 a pretty level country, resembling the barrens of 
 Kentucky, and geologically the same, the valley 
 of the Ohio merely intervening. From Louis- 
 ville to Paoli, fifty-one miles, is a succession of 
 knobs and levels. We crossed the Blue River 
 at a desolate place called Fredericsburgh, where 
 there is a compact lead-coloured limestone con- 
 taining producta. The road was tolerably good, 
 the land frequently of the very first quality, and 
 the people very civil and obliging. The change 
 from a state where slavery exists, which it does 
 in Kentucky, though in somewhat a mitigated 
 form, to a State with a free population, is obvi- 
 ous here. In Indiana you see neat white wom- 
 en and their children, with here and there a free 
 negro ; and every thing is cleaner and tidier 
 than in Tennessee and Kentucky. The mis- 
 tress of the house and her daughters wait upoa 
 you at table, instead of the huge, fat, frowsy ne- 
 gresses that, in the slave States, poison you with 
 the effluvium from their skins, when they reach 
 over to set any thing on the table. Paoli is a 
 poor sort of a place, built on a broad ledge of 
 limestone; but the situation is beautiful. They 
 have a novaculite, or whetstone, here, which ap- 
 pears to be of an excellent quality, and is pro- 
 cured at the French Lick Hills, about ten miles 
 off. From hence the country is over a rough 
 limestone road to the east fork of White River,. 
 where the land drops down to a perfect level bot- 
 tom, consisting of a deep fertile alluvial soil, a 
 great part of which is annually under water. 
 
 This is the eastern tAgQ of the great basin of 
 the Mississippi; and along this swampy bottom,, 
 loaded with timber, we continued to While Riv- 
 er, which we crossed in the ferryboat, and where 
 I obtained some unios. From hence we travel- 
 led fifteen miles to Vincennes, on a dead but 
 well-wooded flat; and on approaching the town 
 came to a prairie country. The change was a 
 pleasing one: a ridge of sandstone hills skirted 
 the plains, and we could perceive a chain of 
 lofty mounds upon them, thrown up by the In- 
 dians in ancient times, which strongly remind- 
 ed me of the tumuli and beacons on the wolds 
 of Yorkshire. These mounds seem to have serv- 
 ed the double purpose of sepulchres and of look- 
 outs, as they command both ihe hills and plains. 
 Vincennes is an old French setilement, built upon 
 the Wabash River, a fine, slow, pellucid stream, 
 which rolls over a sandstone covering strong beds 
 of coal, that arefrequently exposed to view in the 
 banks. This place, when the French possessed 
 it, was called Poste St. Vincent, a name which 
 the Americans have corrupted into Vincennes. 
 The French familiarly called it Au Poste; and 
 the quarter of the town inhabited at present by 
 that race is separated from that inhabited by the 
 Americans, whose village stores, bad taverns, 
 and brick houses, form a singular contrast with 
 the humble cabins of the descendants of the an- 
 cient French Canadians, who seem to mix very 
 little with their intruding neighbours. 
 
 After the conquest of Canada and the peace of 
 1763, Colonel Croghan was sent by the British 
 government to explore the country adjacent to 
 ihe Ohio River, and to conciliate the Indian na- 
 tions who had hitherto acted with the French. 
 He left Pittsburg with some Indian chiefs, and 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 63 
 
 party of white men, in two bateaux, on the 15th | French Canadians to abbreviate all their names. 
 
 If they were going fn the Arkansan Mountains, 
 they would say they were going "Aux Arcs;" 
 and thus these highlands have got the modern 
 name of "Ozarks" from American travellers. 
 "Aux Kaskaskias" the Canadians abbreviated, 
 into " Aux Kau ;" and in passing through Illinois 
 now you hear of the Okau River — a name, in- 
 deed, which has got into the maps. The whole 
 country from Vincennes to the Mississippi is a 
 dead flat, resembling some of the moors and 
 wolds of England, occasionally interrupted with, 
 belts of trees, and swamps with swamp timber 
 growing in them. These belts of trees at partic- 
 ular distances seem to subdivide the general 
 prairie; and you hear of the Six-mile Prairie, 
 the Twelve-mile Prairie, and one near a small 
 settlement called Carlisle is called the Twenty- 
 mile Prairie. In other parts of the country you 
 see no termination to the prairie on the horizon. 
 Frequently the grouse {Tctnw cupido) start up' 
 almost under your feet, fine strong birds, but too 
 heavy to fly far: of these a good sportsman could 
 kill more than he could carry in a couple of 
 hours. Deer also frequent these plains. I saw 
 none myself; but a passenger on the top of the 
 stage-coach saw several whilst I was looking at 
 some land-shells. 
 
 After going over 140 miles of this kind of 
 country we suddenly came to the edge of this 
 prairie land, which was a sort of continuous 
 bluff (rontaining flat horizontal seams of coal, 
 and descended from it to a lower level of rich 
 black alluvial soil. We saw at once that we 
 were now upon the ancient bottom of the Mis- 
 sissippi River, and that w-e were approaching 
 the great stream which drains the immense dis- 
 trict of upper country. Across this ancient bot- 
 tom* of that once mighty stream we had now 
 only six miles to travel before we should reach 
 the present channel of the Mississippi, and push- 
 ing on after a tedious swampy drive at length 
 got a glimpse of the river, which is here not 
 quite a mile wide, , nd soon after reached the- 
 sleam-boat ferry. Although the weather had 
 been sultry all day, with scarce a breath of air 
 stirring, we found a breeze approaching to a gale 
 on the Mississippi, and in crossmg found the 
 water rather rough. Opposite lo us was the city 
 of St. Louis, with its churches and their steeples, 
 the broad quays coming down to the water at a 
 great inclination, the massive warehouses in 
 frontof them, and a prodigious numberofsteam- 
 ers alongside the quay. Rejoicing that we had 
 got to the ext-eme terminus of stage-coaching- 
 in safety, we now crossed this nohfe river, ex- 
 ceedingly gra'ified with the magnificent sight 
 before us; indeed, the spectacle wanted but little 
 aid from the i nagmation to make it one of the 
 most pleasing we had ever met with. 
 
 On reaching the main street my fancy filled, 
 with the history of the peregrinations and adven- 
 tures of Father Hennepin, La Sale, ;md other 
 early travellers in these regions; and anxious to 
 see the descendants of the enierprising Canadians 
 who first discovered and settled these shores of 
 the Mississippi, I was gnevoi>slv afflicted at the 
 common-place appearance of the shops, and the 
 want of Fjench names over them. To have 
 followed the enterprising Pere Hennepin so far 
 merely to find a street full of Reuben Duoliitles 
 
 of May, 1765; and on the 8th of June, when b 
 vouacking a few miles below the mouth of the 
 Wabash, \vas attacked by a party of eighty 
 Kickapoosand Musquattimay Indians, who kill- 
 ed five of his party, wounded himself and all the 
 others except three, took them prisoners, and 
 plundered them. The Indians by forced march- 
 es conducted them to this place, where there were 
 then about ninety French Canadian families, 
 described by Colonel Croghan as an idle, lazy 
 people, worse than the Indians. No doubt was 
 entertained that these people had instigated the 
 Indians to commit this outrage in time of peace, 
 for they shared the plunder with the savages, and 
 refused to lend any assistance to the unfortunate 
 party of Colonel Croghan. I called at the huts 
 of several of the Canadians, and as soon as I 
 began to speak French was very politely receiv- 
 ed, one family ofl^ering me coffee. They seem- 
 ed to have no desire to keep up any intercourse 
 with the American settlers; and one woman told 
 me that they were "si betes ils ne savoient pas 
 faire le cale." It was at her cabin I found an 
 elderly man, who told me that his father was here 
 when Colonel Croghan was brought in a pris- 
 oner. I was much interested with the place and 
 with these simple people, who seem broken- 
 hearted by the presence of the intruders that have 
 destroyed both theirgaiety and their importance. 
 The diflference betwixt the two races is, that the 
 Canadian, not loving work, is always ready for 
 play, whilst the American is so industrious that 
 he has no time to play. After visiting several 
 of them, I went to a tavern in the American pan 
 of the town, kept by one Clarke; but this man, 
 by his rude manner and his extortions, made us 
 glad to get away from the place, so easy is it for 
 any disagreeable person to turn the whole cur- 
 rent of that kindfeelingone is so happy to enter- 
 tain. 
 
 Words cannot do justice to the beauty of the 
 prairie we entered upon on crossing the Wa- 
 bash into the State of Illinois: it was a sort of 
 ocean of land, a few trees only being visible in 
 some points of the horizon, as palms are seen in 
 the distance on the de.sert plains of Egypt. We 
 had now a fine smooth road over ari uniform 
 level, were moving through an interesting Indian 
 country on a bright sunny day, and were in high 
 spirits. On crossing the Embarras, a stream 
 which intersects the prairie and flows into the 
 Wabash, I saw a superb bed of bituminous coal 
 in the bank, on a horizontal level, the extreme 
 depth of which was not visible. The whole of 
 the oolitic series of beds beins: wanting in the 
 United States, the coal-fields of this country are 
 generally found on the surface, a circumstance 
 which will give the greatest facility for mining 
 when coal comes into general use, which it must 
 do when fire-wood becomes scarce and dear. In 
 many places the coal will only require the sim- 
 ple operation of quarrying, a.s" now practised in 
 the anthracite beds of the Alleghany Mountains, 
 which have been upheaved under circumstances 
 almost justifying the opinion, that the coals in 
 the western country, those in the mountains, and 
 those on the Atlantic, were contemporaneous in 
 their origin, and were at one time united in one 
 field. 
 
 It is amusing to observe how the American 
 settlers are doing their very best to corrupt all 
 the French names of places : among.st the rest, 
 they have poetically converted the Embarras 
 into the Ambrosia. It was the custom of the , 
 
 * The country people call this alluvial strip on the east 
 side of the river the Amencnn holtom, from ifshavin? Iieeu, 
 before the annexation of Louisiana, the limit of the United 
 States. 
 
61 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 and Jeremiah Cushings painted over the doors 
 gave me a sensible chill; but the momeni the 
 avaricious looks of the numerous Yankee store- 
 keepers, and their stores well fiiletl with Euro- 
 pean goods from the Atlantic States, met my 
 eyes, all the romance of Canadian cottages, old 
 I'rench physiognomies, and crowds of Indians 
 walking about, that had been flourishing in my 
 imagination, was completely dispelled. I saw 
 at once that the everlasting Jonathan had struck 
 liis roots deep into the ground, and that the La 
 Sales had given way toDoolittle & Co. If any- 
 thing was wantmg to bring me to the complete 
 practical slate of mind I was approaching, no- 
 thing could have been more serviceable than the 
 tavern I was directed to, which was in every 
 sense inlerior to that at Louisville. 
 
 On arriving there I entered the bar-room, 
 which was filled with vagabond idle-looking fel- 
 lows, drinking, smoking, and swearing in Amer- 
 ican: everything looked as if we had reached 
 the terminus of civilisation ; it seemed to be next 
 door to the Rocky Mountains, and only one stage 
 from where we should find Nature in a perfect 
 undress, and in the habit of eating her dinner 
 without a knife and fork. I had scarcely ascer- 
 tained of the landlord that we could have separ- 
 ate bed-rooms when an exceedingly fine gentle- 
 jnan, superbly dressed, his jowls covered with 
 hair, and a gold watch-guard magnificently 
 streaming across his chest, came out from the 
 knot of smoking fashionables in the bar-room, 
 and with his face beaming with satisfaction, ex- 
 tended his right hand most lovingly to me. It 
 was " Colonel Smith, of the British army" who 
 had formerly served at Waterloo, and whom I 
 liad seen at the White Sulphur Springs in Vir- 
 ginia. Since 1 had lost sight of this gallant of- 
 ficer I had received some interesting information 
 respecting him. which left little doulit what regi- 
 ment he had served in, a fact that seemed to have 
 escaped the Colonel's recollection at the White 
 Sulphur. I had met with a Kentuckian at Louis- 
 ville whom I had also seen at those springs, and 
 he informed me that a few days after I went 
 away a disclosure had been made which seemed 
 to have had an unfavourable effect upon the 
 Colonel's health, for he had suddenly departed to 
 try the waters* at the Red Sulphur. 
 
 It seems that amongst other modes of getting 
 a livelihood in the Southern States, that of " run- 
 ning negroes" is practised by a class of fellows 
 who are united in a fraternity for the purpose of 
 carrying on the business, and for protecting each 
 other in time of dans;er. If one of them falls 
 under the notice of the law and is committed to 
 take his trial, some of the fraternity benevolent- 
 ly contrive, "somehow or other," to get upon the 
 jury, or kindly become his bail. To "run a 
 negro" it is necessary to have a good understand- 
 ing with an intelligent male slave on some plan- 
 tation, and if he is a mechanic he is always the 
 more valuable. At the time agreed upon the 
 slave runs away from his master's premises and 
 joins the man who has instigated him to do it; 
 they then proceed to some quarter where they are 
 not known, and the negro is sold for seven or 
 eight hundred dollars, or more, to a new master. 
 A few days after the money has been paid, he 
 runs away again, and is sold a second time, and 
 as oft as the trick can be played with any hope 
 
 * This is a slang expression. These swells generally re- 
 main in New Orleans during the winter, and " try the wa- 
 ters" during the summer, that is, they go to the watering 
 places. 
 
 I of .safety. The negro who does the harlequinade 
 part of the mancEuvre has an agreement with his 
 friend, in virtue of which he supposes he is to 
 receive part of the money ; but the poor devil in 
 the end is sure to be cheated, and when he be-, 
 comes dangerous to the fraternity is, as I have 
 been well assured, first cajoled and put off his 
 guard, and then, on crossing some river or reach- 
 ing a secret place, shot before he suspects their 
 intention, or otherwise made away with. 
 
 A small planter who happened to be at the 
 White Sulphur this season, and who had the 
 year before purchased a valuable slave that had 
 escaped a few days afterwards, advertised him 
 very minutely in the newspapers; and it happen- 
 ed very oddly that another planter had at the 
 same time advertised a slave with the same de- 
 scription, but with a different name. This led 
 to an interview betwixt the two planters, and 
 upon comparing notes they found they had each 
 been defrauded by the same identical white man 
 and his pretended slave. All their efforts, how- 
 ever, to discover this person had hitherto been in 
 vain, when one evening the planter who was at 
 the White Sulphur going with a friend to the 
 gambling-house, suddenly asked a person there 
 who that man was 2vilh the gold chain on his 
 breast ; he was told it was " Colonel Smith, of the 
 British army, who had served at Waterloo." 
 Now the planter, although he had not served at 
 Waterloo, thought he had a pretty distinct rec- 
 ollection of the Colonel's having sold him the 
 "runaway negur," and kept his eye constantly 
 fixed upon him, a circumstance which sooner or 
 later could not fail to attract the attention of the 
 Colonel, whose eyes were in the habit of keep- 
 ing a pretty sharp look-out; and not liking to be 
 stared at, he walked out and was followed by 
 the planter and his friend. The night was dark, 
 the Colonel had friends on the spot, who, like 
 himself, were always prepared to " hop the twig," 
 and in half an hour was seated in a gig and 
 wending his way through the woods to Lewis- 
 burgh. In the morning the story was abroad, 
 the Colonel was said to be gone to the Red 
 Sulphur, and thither the planter followed him, 
 swearing he never would return home until he 
 caught him. 
 
 " How de do V said the Colonel — in a drawl 
 that was quite affettuoso, — extending his hand 
 
 to me ; " I'm happy to see you, if I ain't I'm ." 
 
 I showed the Colonel how I did without a mo- 
 ment's delay by instantly turning my back upon 
 him and asking the landlord to step into the pass- 
 age with me, where, in a very few minutes, I 
 told him all I knew, all I had heard, and all I 
 thought of the Colonel. The landlord was a 
 prudent man : he saw it would be of no advan- 
 tage to him to keep such a fellow in his house, 
 and when he went back to the bar-room, merely 
 said that the gentleman had told him that two 
 Virginia planters were coming on in the stage- 
 coach after a man who had " run a negur" upon 
 them. Half an hour afterwards the Colonel 
 transferred himself to a steamer that he reached 
 just as she was casting off from the wharf on her 
 way to New Orleans. 
 
 St. Louis is admirably situated on the right 
 bank of the Mississippi, which is at least one 
 hundred feet higher than the shore on the oppo- 
 site side, so that the present channel is on the 
 western edge of the ancient bed. The town is 
 built on beds of horizontal limestone correspond- 
 ing with those of the opposite bluffs of Illinois, 
 about seven miles to the east, which distance 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 65 
 
 may be assumed as the breadth of the ancient 
 stream. From the edge ot'lhe plateau the ground 
 slopes at an angle of 45° to the river, and the 
 town is principally built on this slope. The 
 street Ironting the river where the lotty ware- 
 houses are is called Water Street, and the steam- 
 ers and other craft lie at the loot of the quay, 
 which Is very steep at low water. The next 
 street running parallel to this, and where the 
 shops are, is called Main Street. The others 
 lead to the country and intersect these at right 
 angles; and although the houses and shops are 
 small and rather shabby, yet the place is the seat 
 of a very active trade, comprehending the Amer- 
 ican fur-trade of the far western country. But 
 the suburbs of the town contain a great many 
 neatly-built and pleasant-looking residences, the 
 most conspicuous amongst which is that of Gen- 
 eral Ashley, the celebrated fur-irader to the 
 Rocky Mountains. Flis residence is a very in- 
 teresting one, the ibundalion being laid upon one 
 of those ancient Indian mounds which are so nu- 
 merous in this, country, and of which there is a 
 cluster around him. 
 
 The population of the place is oddly mi.xed up. 
 When Louisiana belonged to Spain many Span- 
 ish families settled here ; to these the French suc- 
 ceeded ; now the Americans have taken root in 
 the place, and at this moment it is halt-filled 
 "with German emigrants. The Roman Catholic 
 religion, as yet, preponderates; but this will not 
 last long, lor the Presbyterians are running up 
 their Ebenezers very rapidly. Amidst this mot- 
 ley population — a part of which on Sunday even- 
 ings is singing and praying at the meeting-hou- 
 ses, a part dancing, a part playing the guitar, and 
 the German part swizzling new-brewed beer, — 
 some very respectable and excellent people are 
 to be found, tuU of intelligence and kindness. 
 General Clarke, the enterprising companion of 
 Lewis in the well-known journey of discovery 
 to the Rocky Mountains, is a most agreeable 
 old gentleman, who lives in a very pleasant man- 
 ner, and has got an interesting cabinet of natural 
 curiosities which he has picked up in his various 
 travels. The French families of Pratte, Chou- 
 teau, and others are actively engaged in the com- 
 merce of the country, and are people of merit and 
 influence. The Chouteaus conduct the atfairs 
 of the American Fur Company, and their ware- 
 house contains immense quantities of furs trans- 
 mitted from the far west, of which I saw and pur- 
 chased some interesting specimens. 
 
 The young people of the old French families 
 still continue their reunions on a Sunday even- 
 ing after the custom of their lively ancestors, and 
 have music and a family dance'; but I was in- 
 formed by some French ladies that they had 
 been cautioned lately to discontinue them, as this 
 practice gave offence to the Presbyterian con- 
 gregation, and it was not unlikely some mob- 
 bing would take place. The Christian example 
 of the Presbyterian people of Charlestown, in the 
 State of Massachusetts, who lately burnt a Ro- 
 man Catholic female seminary and valiantly 
 drove the female instructresses into the streets at 
 midnight, will, no doubt, produce a salutary ef- 
 fect upon many Roman Catholic persons here, 
 and dispose them to be serious on a Sunday even- 
 ing. 
 
 ^During my stay here I drove out to JeflFerson 
 Barracks, ten miles from St. Louis, to pay my 
 respects to General Atkinson, the commanding- 
 officer of the district, with whom I had formerly 
 been acquainted. The road oassed throueh the 
 I 
 
 French village of Carondelet, which is beauti- 
 fully situated on the limestone beds, and com- 
 mands a fine view down the Mississippi ; it is a 
 poor, poverty-stricken place, containing some in- 
 convenient wooden houses, whose inhabitants are 
 precisely what they were one hundred years ago, 
 not having made the least progress in the useful 
 arts. They still use a small badly made cart 
 with a meagre horse, or " marche done," as ev- 
 erybody calls them in ridicule, and appear not to 
 have one earthly comfort in their houses. In old 
 times this place and ihe village of St. Louis 
 were rivals, although the last always held its 
 head a little above the other. Whether it was 
 that the bakers of St. Louis sold shorter loaves 
 than usual, or would not give credit to their 
 neighbours for what they wanted to buy, the peo- 
 ple of Carondelet nicknamed the ^lace "Pain- 
 Court." In return the people of St. Louis nick- 
 named Carondelet " Vuide Poche." What was 
 a joke then is not one now, for the two places are 
 called Pain Court and Vide Poche by the lower 
 classes upon all occasions. You never hear of 
 "un habitant de Carondelet," the term employed 
 is " un Vuide Pocheur." So true is this that 
 upon one occasion when I was collecting some 
 fossils on the shore at this place, I got into con- 
 versation with a French boy about twelve years 
 old, and asked him purposely the name of his 
 village, when he answered," En Anglais on 
 I'appelle Carondelet, mais en Francjais on I'ap- 
 pelle Vuide Poche." 
 
 Jefferson Barracks are well built and charm- 
 ingly situated upon a bold bluff on the right bank 
 of the Mississippi, with a gentle slope, occasion- 
 ally studded with trees, going down to the river. 
 The Gth regiment of U. S. infantry, now in gar- 
 rison here, has excellent quarters, and the oflicers 
 and their families find this a pleasant residence, 
 being in a salubrious country adorned with fine 
 woodlands and abounding in game at no great 
 distance. The post fund of this regiment appears 
 to be well managed; the library belonging to it 
 contains about 3000 volumes, besides numerous 
 public papers and periodicals ; they have excel- 
 lent schools for the soldiers' children, and other 
 useful and benevolent plans for the general ad- 
 vantage of the regiment are supported by this 
 fund, which depends solely upon contributions 
 made within it. At this time the finances are in 
 so flourishing a state that I was told they had 
 between four and five thousand dollars in cash 
 on hand. These facts do great honour to the 
 gentlemen who so ably have managed the fund, 
 and through whose care such precious advan- 
 tages are secured to a regiment often destined to 
 pass many years on the distant frontiers far re- 
 moved from all society. General Atkinson's 
 long residence in the western country has made 
 him a perfect master of the economy necessary 
 for a military post of this kind, and I certainly 
 have never seen a frontier garrison which ex- 
 celled .Tefferson Barracks for beauty and salu- 
 brity of situation, neatness of parade-ground and 
 quarters, and all general arrangements for the 
 personal comfort of officers and men. The Gen- 
 eial received my son and my'~elf in the most cor- 
 dial manner, and we had the pleasure of par- 
 taking of an excellent dinner at his quarters 
 with some American officers who had just re- 
 turned from a residence of several years at the 
 more distant post of Fort Leavenworth on the 
 Missouri. 
 
 The succeeding day we made an excursion 
 on foot to the coal-field in the bluffs of Illinois, 
 
66 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 which we had passed over in our way to St. 
 Louis. The seam which at present supplies St. 
 Louis with coal lies horizontally in the blufl's 
 about a mile and a half north of the public road 
 from Vincennes, and as they are about eighty 
 feet in height, they nearly correspond with the 
 plateau on which St. Louis is built. The coal 
 lies beneath a bed of light grey limestone, from 
 which I procured some tine producta and tere- 
 bratula; in the shale which formed the roof of 
 the seam I could find no fossil-plants, but abun- 
 dance of sulphuret of iron. The seam measured 
 eight feet thick to the ground, and probably went 
 down several feet i'arther, so that it was not pos- 
 sible to ascertain whether it rested upon clay or 
 not. To obtain the best quality of the coal they 
 have nothing towdo but to make drifts into the 
 bluff of from twenty to one hundred feet, take it 
 out in large blocks, and cart it over a wretched 
 road in the swamp to St. Louis, where the in- 
 habitants pay from 14 to 16 cents the bushel lor 
 it. The carts, drawn by oxen, can carry in dry 
 weather — when the swamp is most passable — 
 1400 lbs. 1 suggested to the contractors to con- 
 struct a cheap railroad for the six miles, which 
 would not cost more than 3500 dollars a-mile, 
 and would reduce the cost of transportation at 
 least two-ihirds. The excavation of the coal is 
 carried on in a slovenly manner; the roof of the 
 seam is often not secured at all, and, of course, 
 is continually falling down, so that when they 
 have run their drift as far as they dare— and 'I 
 did not see one exceeding a hundred feet in 
 length — they abandon it and go to another place. 
 Coal is also found on the opposite side of the 
 Mississippi, about four or five miles west of St. 
 Louis; and as we had seen seams of the same 
 kind near the surface a little west of Vincennes, 
 and were continually observing them in our 
 progress through the State of Illinois to these 
 bluffs, besides being told that they are found for 
 great distances north and south in the ancient 
 banks of the Mississippi, it would seem that all 
 these seams are but sections of one great con- 
 temporaneous deposit underlying all this part of 
 the prairie country, and which, perhaps, at some 
 ancient period, was connected with the coal- 
 fields betwixt it and the Atlantic — a conjecture 
 that would appear extravagant to one who had 
 not actually crossed them all. 
 
 Having examined the coal-ground we directed 
 our steps to some elevated mounds we had seen 
 as we advanced to the Mississippi, and having 
 reached them after a good smart walk across 
 the plain, were highly gratified with their ap- 
 pearance. They were about thirty in number, 
 some of them near to each other and others iso- 
 lated. Rome were conical, some ohlong, some 
 flat at the top, and the larger ones usually had a 
 small tumulus connected with them by way of 
 projection frotn the side. They were of various 
 sizes, but the largest of them was so very strikins: 
 an object, that after getting up to the top of a few 
 of the others, and remarking that there was a de- 
 pression in the surface of the ground near to each 
 of them, from whence the materials of which 
 they were made were probably excavated, 1 turn- 
 ed my attention principally to it. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 A remarlcable Barrow — The MonumPtits of the Ancient Red 
 People analogous to those of the Old Races in Europe — 
 Probable cause of the diversity in Indian Dialects — A pet- 
 
 rified Forest — Society at St. Louis — More bolting at the- 
 Table il'Udte — Fur-trappers of the Rocky Mountains — 
 Excellent Markets at St. Louis— Money the real object of 
 Life. 
 
 This lofty barrow consists of an oblong tumu- 
 lus stretching north and south, the summit of 
 which is 115 feel from the ground, with a broad 
 terrace round it, at not quite half of its height 
 from the base. The width of the oblong across 
 at the north end is about 160 feet, and its length 
 on the east side is about 350 feet. At the south 
 end the width is somewhat abraded, but appears 
 at one time to have corresponded to that at the 
 other end. From the centre of the terrace anoth- 
 er oblong of 50 feet on each side projects. The 
 east side of the terrace is 200 feet wide, and its 
 front both to the east and west measures 450 
 feet. In the rear, at the north, runs the Cahokia 
 Creek, which contains some good fish, as J was 
 informed, and here a dense woodland commen- 
 ces, in which are various other mounds. On 
 the west side, and near to the large barrow — 
 which the neighbouring people call Monk's- 
 Mound — is a smaller one, where some monks of 
 La Trappe once fixed their residence when they 
 took refuge in this country; but the dwelling in 
 which they resided is now levelled with the 
 ground, and few remains of it are still visible. I 
 walked over the area where these melancholy 
 beings resided, of whom some curious stories are 
 related. A benevolent lady of St, Louis once 
 visited them to offer her services, and was re- 
 ceived in profound silence. Finding that her 
 offers were promptly declined, and that they 
 were not disposed to hold any communication 
 with her, she took her departure, but no sooner 
 had she left the door than one of them took a 
 swab and a pail of water, and immediately began 
 to scrub the place upon which she had beea 
 standing, as if to purify it. These ascetics cul- 
 tivated a part of the large mound, and raised 
 their vegetables upon it. 
 
 At this time it is in the possession of a me- 
 chanic named Hill, who has built a house at the 
 top, around which we saw abundance of Indian 
 corn, pumpkins, tomatoes, &c. ; for the soil of 
 which the mound consists is the rich black mould 
 taken from the surface below, which is extremely 
 fertile. Mr. Hill laid the foundation of his 
 dwelling upon an eminence he found on the 
 summit of his elevated territory, and upon dig- 
 ging into it, found large human bones, with In- 
 dian pottery, stone axes, and tomahawks; from 
 whence it would appear that these mounds not 
 only contained a sepulchre at their base, but 
 have been used for the same purpose in after-^ 
 times at the .summit.* The extraordinary di- 
 mensions, however, of this mound, seem to war- 
 rant the conjecture that they .served various pur- 
 poses: for when the adjacent low land was in- 
 undated, many families could reside upon it, and 
 its great elevation made it an excellent look-out 
 for the approach of an enemy. Mrs. Hill told 
 me that even the top of the mound was unhealthy 
 in the autumnal months, and that she was then 
 sufferins; from the malaria of the place. We 
 next visited another oblong mound, with an em- 
 inence or small tumulus upon it, south of that 
 upon which the Trappists dwelt; and if I had 
 had time, and had been prepared, I should have 
 opened the small tumulus in the expectation of 
 deterring some ancient chief, but night was com- 
 
 * I have seen mounds of this kind— although not of this 
 i7e — opened, which contained vast quantities of bodies 
 iled in layers upon each other. 
 
TRAVELS IN AAfERI(L4. 
 
 67 
 
 ing on, we had at least six miles to walk, and 
 ran some risk of not reaching the Mississippi 
 before the last trip of the steam ferry-boat. 
 
 In the coarse of this day we saw upwards of 
 sixty mounds large and small, some oblong, some 
 conical,'and others quadrangular, like tho#e upon 
 the plateau upon the other side of the Mississip- 
 pi. From their relative position to each other 
 it might seem asifliiey were intended for defence, 
 and yet they may be nothing but ancient ceme- 
 teries where distinguished chiefs were buried: 
 again, from their frequent occurrence on these 
 low swampy bottoms, one of their principal uses 
 may have been as dry places to resort to during 
 the inundations which periodically covered those 
 plains with the swollen floods of the river; and 
 the broad terrace attached to Monk's Mound 
 strengthens this view of the subject, since it ad- 
 mitted of being inhabited at any stage of the wa- 
 ter. It is plain, however, that they were not ex- 
 clusively used as places of resort in times of in- 
 undation, since similar ones are frequently found 
 upon plateaux of land far above the rise of the 
 Mississippi. General Ashley, who perhaps pos- 
 sesses more practical information respecting the 
 Indians than any other individual, assures me 
 that he has found them in every possible situa- 
 tion in the remote countries adjacent to the Rocky 
 Mountains; so that when we consider that one 
 or more skeletons, accompanied with pottery 
 and warlike weapons, have been found in all the 
 mounds that have been opened, we may at any 
 rate reasonably conclude that these structures 
 were intended, in their origin, as sepulchres for 
 the eminent dead of the aborigines, and were to 
 the Indians what the pyramids were to the ancient 
 Egyptians, and the barrow to the races that in- 
 habited England in times of yore. 
 
 The ingenuity of the human race, before met- 
 als came into use, seems generally, and in situ- 
 ations the most remote from each other, to have 
 been directed to the same ccutrivances ; the an- 
 cient British raised the barrow over the chief- 
 tain, and placed an earthen vase slightly orna- 
 mented near the illustrious dead ; the red Indian 
 of North America did exactly the same thing; 
 and not only are all the specimens of pottery 
 found in these American barrows, which I have 
 seen, whether in Tennessee, Missouri, or in the 
 museums, made of sand and clay, and freshwa- 
 ter shells ground up, but they exactly resemble 
 each other in their ornaments and form, and 
 scarcely at all differ in the size and pattern. I 
 possess many specimens of ancient British and 
 American vases, that only differ fro^ each oth- 
 er in the ingredients of which they are made. 
 In the ancient British barrows the 'stone coffin, 
 too, or kistvaen, is composed of six pieces of 
 stone, just as the stone coffins spoken of at page 
 48, near Sparta, in Tennessee. 
 
 The remarkable diversity of dialects which 
 has for a long time existed between the Indian 
 tribes that inhabit North America, the rooted 
 antipathy that one tribe often cherishes to an- 
 other, and some striking differences which are 
 to be observed in their customs, are facts which 
 have led to the inference with many persons that 
 the existing races have hnd a various origin ; 
 still their colour, their skulls and physiognomies, 
 the close resemblance in their modes of sepul- 
 chre wherev^er found, the forms and materials 
 of their vases, their mounds, their stone axes,* 
 
 * The stone axe found in the ancient mounds, with a 
 groove around it in the place of aueye (which is sometimes 
 found in the British barrows) to attach a liandle to, with a 
 
 , arrowheads, and the purposes to which they 
 have been applied in all times, .seem — independ- 
 ent of their traditions — to form an indestructi- 
 ble link betwixt the ancient and existing races 
 of Indians, and to prove that these last are but 
 generations descended from the first; all these 
 natural, artificial, and traditionary evidences 
 betraying a connexion which cannot otherwise 
 be proved in the case of a savage people who 
 have never had any permanent records. 
 
 As to the difference betwixt the dialects, I 
 imagine it appears to be greater than it is : few- 
 persons have studied the structure of the Indian 
 languages, and no one has yet successfully en- 
 tered upon the task of showing how human be- 
 ings in a state of nature, with no motives, and 
 no aid, to improve their oral communications, 
 must, when separated into groups or tribes for 
 purposes of subsistence, necessarily permit the 
 influences of climate, food, and the new objects 
 they become familiar with, to effect great chang- 
 es in their language. If the Sclavonic, Teuton- 
 ic, Gallic, British, and other nations, who are — 
 although remotely — descended from a commoa 
 stock, no longer understand each other, it is not 
 surprising that the red Indians, whom civilisa- 
 tion in no shape has ever reached, should speak 
 different dialects. Our own language has chang- 
 ed in the last four hundred years strangely; 
 what changes, therefore, may not have taken 
 place during two thousand years perhaps, or 
 more, that the red Indians have inhabited North. 
 America, and who never have possessed the 
 means of even temporarily fixing one of their 
 tongues'? These mounds have been supposed 
 by some writers to have been erected by a race 
 that once passed through the country, and that 
 had no blood connexion with the existing peo- 
 ple ; but the evidence they furnish of a similar- 
 ity of customs and manners does not support that 
 opinion. It is true that the present races do not 
 appear — as far as I have any information — to 
 continue the practice of constructing them, but 
 this may be occasioned by the whites having 
 gradually possessed themselves of the country, 
 and, indeed, the particular race that were in the 
 habit of constructing such mounds may haTe 
 perished amidst the conflicts in which the Indi- 
 ans have always been engaged amongst them- 
 selves. 
 
 At General Ashley's I saw the head of an ani- 
 mal, which, but for the appearance of a tusk, 
 was apparentlv of the genus Cervus, and was 
 entirely converted into a siliceous fossil: the left 
 jaw had been broken off by a man who wanted 
 to see if the brains were petrified. It was found 
 near the sources of the Yellow Stone River, a 
 tributary of the Rockv Mountains, wJi'ich fm^ 
 on the east flank of that great belt. This fossil 
 was not found imbedded'm any rocky stratum 
 but was lying loose on the ground, and had prob^ 
 ably become silicified bv the same process that 
 has at some period acted upon a very large scale 
 and wnh great intensity in that part of ihe coun- 
 try. General Atkinson and other intelligent of- 
 ficers, who had examined a singular phenome- 
 non there, informed me that upon the west bank 
 of the Missouri, a fexv miles below its junction 
 with the Yellow Stone, the remains of an ancient 
 forest are found, at an elevation of about 300 feet 
 
 th.mg- made of hide or the sinews of some anjma) is the 
 same weapon used in our own times by the Indians of the 
 West. I saxv- several of them fitte.l with handles attached 
 by thongs, which General Clarke had brought from the ftr 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 -•above the river, extending twenty or thir'jfc- miles 
 on the open prairie, every tree ol which is now 
 a perfect siliceous petrifaction ; the surface of 
 the ground being literally covered with broken 
 trees, stumps, roots, and fractured branches, con- 
 verted into stone, and scattered about in innu- 
 merable fragments. Some of the trees were bro- 
 ken off close to the root, whilst the trunks of 
 others were standing at a height of several feel 
 above the surface; one of the stumps was up- 
 wards of fifteen leet in circumference. Various 
 specimens of these silicified plants have been 
 shown to me, and the phenomenon must be ad- 
 mitted to be one of the most extraordinary facts 
 in the history of mineralogy. 
 
 The fossil which was found in this petrified 
 forest exhibited on its right side part of the cra- 
 nium of the animal, of which the whole posterior 
 pait was wanting. The right orbit, with a cav- 
 ity lying obliquely from it, was tolerably perfect, 
 as well as the snout, part of which was brolicn 
 off. The teeth of the upper jaw were pretty well 
 preserved, and consisted of four molars, lour in- 
 cisors, and, in a line almost on a level with the 
 lower edge of the orbit, were the remains of a 
 tusk. On the opposite side of the jaw were a 
 corresponding socket and tusk, but the rest of 
 
 ' the teeth were unfortunately destroyed by the 
 philosopher that wanted to see if the animal's 
 brains were petrified. From the edge of the pos- 
 terior molar to the tusk a curve is described. 
 The osseous structure is otherwise perfect; and 
 the whole is converted into siliceous matter, ex- 
 cept some calcareous earth in the cavities, which 
 somewhat resembled the calcareous fiUings-in 
 of the fossils of Montmartre, near Paris. The 
 owner was so annoyed by the very unscientific 
 treatment which the head had received, that he 
 ■was loath to trust it to me to make a drawing, 
 and so I contented mvself with a hasty sketch 
 of it. 
 
 The venerable discoverer. General Clarke, 
 made my stay at St. Louis very agreeable to 
 me: whenever I had any leisure, I had his mu- 
 seum and his pleasant and instructive conversa- 
 tion to resort to. His son-in-law. Colonel Kear- 
 ney of the U. S. Dragoons, and his lady, were 
 also very polite. Mrs. K. is a lovely woman, 
 and inherits a great deal of the spirit of enter- 
 prise which had distinguished her father. She 
 accompanied her husband by land all the way 
 through the wilderness from Fort Towson, on 
 
 , Red River, to St. Louis, and lefi; this last place 
 to go into winter-quarters with him at the De 
 Moine, much higher up the Mississippi. From 
 Dr. William Kerr Lane, too, I received the most 
 useful and pleasing attentions : nor ought I to 
 forget those which were paid to me by some of 
 the respectable French inhabitants. On leaving 
 Sparta, in Tennessee, iny amusing friend M. 
 
 ■ Nidelet, putting a letter in my hand, addressed 
 
 , to his father-in-law, General Pratte, at St. Louis, 
 exacted a promise from me that I would deliver 
 it in person. 1 did so, and thus became accriilile 
 in some of the mo.st respectable French families, 
 where I passed many agreeable moments. They 
 
 i. soon found out that I liked their society, and! 
 
 !^ became — what under other circumstances I never 
 
 \ could have been — the confidant of many of their 
 
 I suppressed national feelings. 
 
 ; At the tavern where I lodged all was dirt, dis- 
 order, and want of system. A pack of ragged 
 
 ; young negroes performed the service of cham- 
 
 (1 bermaids and waiters, and did it about as well 
 
 I as a pack of grown monkeys, caught in the Bra- 
 
 zils, would do in three months' teaching. The 
 landlord, who to me was always very obliging, 
 seemed to have no sort of authority either over 
 his servants or his guests. These principally 
 consisted of those impudent, smoking, spitting 
 shopboys^who are dignified in the United States 
 with the appellation of "clerks." I only occa- 
 sionally dined there; but it was always the same 
 thing. At the ringing of a bell these " clerks" 
 rushed in crowds to the table, just as a pack of 
 hounds or a drove of swine would to their feed. 
 I found it most prudent to wait a short time, for 
 in eight minutes they had gobbled everything 
 up, and had again rushed out to take a glass of 
 swipes, a cigar, and go to their "stores." One 
 of the intolerable evils of practical equality is, 
 the obliging clean people to herd with dirty ones. 
 The landlord, however, seeing my way of doing 
 things, used generally to send me something hot 
 and conifortable to eat at my leisure. But an- 
 other class of men was not so exceptionable : 
 every now and then, extraordinary-looking, 
 coarse-dressed, weather-worn, dried-up, queer 
 animals — travellers like myself— would come in, 
 and sitting down without a word to anybody, 
 would commence the most astounding voracious 
 performances. Fish, pork, beef, sausages, pud- 
 dings,, all on the same plate together at the same 
 time, and bolted down with the most stoic indif- 
 ference as to which the knife and fork laid hold 
 of first. It was like Potier's song — 
 
 " Deux canards s'en vont promenant, 
 Le premier va au devant." 
 
 These men often looked like very indifferent 
 company, but in fact were much more estimable 
 persons than most of those at the table who were 
 better dressed. The American swell is easily 
 known, for he is always a preposterous fine gen- 
 tleman, but these men belonged to a class that 
 possessed a great deal of that kind of information 
 I was anxious to possess myself of. They were 
 trappers f rem the Rocky Mountains. Some oi' them 
 had been many years in the remote countries of 
 the west, sometimes trapping beaver on their 
 own account, at other limes acting as agents 
 and servants to others. They were generally 
 modest, unpretending men, and appeared uncon- 
 scious that they were objects of the liveliest in- 
 terest to me. I formed an acquaintance with 
 several of them who had frequently traversed the 
 plains west of the Rocky Mountains, and par- 
 ticularly with two who had wintered with the 
 Spaniards on the shores of California, and had 
 resided some time both at Monterey and the 
 magnificent §ay of S. Francisco. 
 
 The adventures of some of these trappers were 
 very striking; accustomed to penetrate into the 
 most secret haunts of the mountains near the 
 sources of the streams that flow into the North 
 Pacific, they would set their beaver traps at 
 night, visit them early in the morning, and skulk 
 away during the daytime to avoid those parties 
 of the Blackfeet, Crow, and Eutaw Indians, 
 which were scouring the country to punish 
 these intruders into their native hunting-grounds. 
 Many were the fights they had had with them, 
 with the loss of one or more of their companions. 
 One of these men had a broad scar on his fore- 
 head, made by an arrow which a Blackfeet In- 
 dian, who had been brought down by a rifle and 
 refused to receive quarter, fired iiito his face 
 from the ground. The point fastened itself in 
 his skull, and was extricated with difficulty. 
 
 These men, from their own account, seldom 
 save anything from their hard- won earnings; 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 69 
 
 ■when they have anything beforehand they spend 
 it freely, or give it away, and when the annual 
 supplies come from St. Louis, they are charged 
 such immense protits, that they are always in 
 debt to the traders, whose policy it is to keep 
 them in the fur country, that they may not have 
 the trouble and expense of sending more out. 
 The consequence is, that the country is over- 
 trapped, and the destruction of animals is so 
 great, that subsistence will ere long be obtained 
 with difhculty. This state of things is already 
 approaching: the American Fur Company no 
 longer derives the great profits it once did, and 
 will probably be dissolved rather than expend 
 their capital in an unproductive trade. When 
 that state of things arrives, many of the trappers 
 will combine and establish themselves at some 
 point or points in the territory of the Columbia, 
 probably in the Valley of the Wallamet, a trib- 
 utary ot the Columbia, where the soil is some- 
 what fertile, the situation healthy, and where a 
 greater amenity of climate prevails. All these 
 men concur in speaking with great admiration 
 of the softness of the winter climate in some of 
 the valleys of the Columbia territory, and the 
 very early state of the spring there, which, no 
 doubt, is to be attributed to the western breezes 
 bringing to that coast the mild temperature of 
 the ocean which they traverse. 
 
 Of the British or Hudson's Bay Fur Company 
 these men always spoke with respect; they said 
 it was a good thing to be in their employment, 
 because it was steady and constant, and did 
 not admit of people doing as they pleased, and 
 creating so much confusion : they observed to 
 me that the people who were connected with 
 them were not charged unreasonable profits for 
 supplies, and were provided for when they were 
 old: the fur trade, they remarked, would never 
 flag with them, because they had all the north 
 country in their own hands, and had secured the 
 best trappers even in the southern parts: some 
 of them gave it as their opinion that the Ameri- 
 can Fur Companies could not contend with them, 
 and would be driven out of the country by supe- 
 rior capital and untiring energy; so that in the 
 end the whole country would be in their hands, 
 and that they would keep it, for they " acted" so 
 kindly and liberally to the Blackfeet, the Crows, 
 and all the Indians on the Columbia, that they 
 would always side with the British, "and it 
 would never be worth while for the Americans 
 to try to root 'em out, for they couldn't do it." 
 
 These appeared to me to be sensible observa- 
 tions, and under such circumstances the terri- 
 tory on the Columbia would not seem to war- 
 rant any great eflTort on the part of the United 
 States to establish a colony in so remote a situ- 
 ation; one, indeed, which would have to be kept 
 up at an enormous expense, without any great 
 object in view, and without any great advantage 
 to be obtained by it. It is very clear that the 
 Hudson's Bay Company, which has such nu- 
 merous posts and important agricultural settle- 
 ments in the Columbia territory, are the real and 
 only colonists who can maintain themselves 
 there. No doubt that territory, in an agricultural 
 point of view, has been extravagantly over-rated ; 
 but that the British Government will ever sur- 
 render the mouth of the Columbia river, through 
 which it has an uninterrupted communication 
 from Q,uebec to China, is highly improbable; 
 quite as much so as that the United States will 
 commence an expensive career of colonization, 
 which, although occurring naturally to England 
 
 from her limited home, the industry, wealth, and 
 increase of her population, would seem to be 
 very unwise on the part of a country which ap- 
 pears called upon by what is due to its own 
 prosperity to curtail its possessions rather than 
 to increase them. 
 
 The markets of St. Louis are full of excellent 
 things ; game of every kind is in profusion, and 
 extremely cheap; but, unfortunately, these good 
 things are always irretrievably ruined in the 
 cooking at our hotel. At General Clarke's, how- 
 ever, I ate some \vild ducks very nicely dressed, 
 and which I thought as tender and high flavoured 
 as the famous canvass-back ducks of the Susque- 
 hannah. In my walks 1 liequently met sportsmen 
 coming home loaded with wild fowl, the splendid 
 wood-duck {Ajias sponsa), with his magnificent 
 crest, and those beautiful teals with blue {Anas 
 discors) and green wings. As to venison I have 
 seen very little of it, and it has always been so 
 badly dressed wherever I have met with it, that 
 I have generally thought it the worst meat at ta- 
 ble. The fish of these waters is very good, es- 
 pecially the catfish (PiMc/orf7is?), which are rich. , 
 and palatable without sauce of any kind. The . 
 country, indeed, abounds with what is good, but \:[ 
 the majority of the people do not seem to care ,,"; 
 how they live, provided it does not interfere with 'i' 
 the grand exclusive object of their existence, ma- ■]{ 
 king money. Wherever I go — with Ihe fewest ■ 
 exceptions — this is the all-prevailing passion. 
 The word money seems to stand as the repre- 
 sentative of the word " happiness" of other coun- 
 tries. In other lands we see rank, distinction 
 in society, scientific and literary acquirements, ! 
 with the'other elevating objects that embellish. I 
 and dignify human lile, pursued by great num- I 
 bers with constancy and ardour; but here all ; 
 other avenues to advancement, except the golden ' 
 one, seem nearly untrod — the shortest cut, coute 
 qui coutc, to that which leads to ready money. 
 being the favourite one. Where this sordid 
 passion stifles the generous ones, a rapacious > 
 selfishness is sure to establish itself; men cease 
 to act for the general welfare, and society at 
 length resolves itself into a community, the great 
 object of every individual of which is to grasp 
 as much as will last as long as himself 
 
 In every large town of the United States 
 where I have been, I have, it is true, found ami- 
 able and delightful exceptions to this general de- 
 feet in the American character ; but such is the 
 force of evil example, that hereafter it is to be' 
 apprehended they may stand about in the same i 
 relation to the whole that the planets do to the'; 
 fixed stars. The oflicers of the United States' : 
 army, however, appear strikingly exempted from ' 
 this base inclination of sacrificing everything to 
 money; these gentlemen are much better edu- 
 cated than they used to be, and appear to have 
 neither the opportunity nor the inclination to de- 
 grade the miutary prestige. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Purchase a Waggon — Old French Town of St. Charles on 
 the Missouri— Linden Grove— Origin of the Mounds — 
 Customs of the Osage Indians. 
 
 Before we left St. Louis I purchased a nice| 
 little waggon called a Dearborn, and a young i 
 horse that had been sired by one of the wild ' 
 prairie horses ; he was a very elegant animal.i 
 good-tempered, appeared sound, and I named, 
 him Missouri. We were now at the end of all 
 
70 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 3tage-coach travelling, and as I was desirous 
 of proceeding in a southern direction as far as 
 the frontier of Mexico, I thouglit it was hetter 
 to procure a conveyance of this sort than to 
 purchase horses : with it we could carry our 
 luggage, our specimens, and some provisions ; 
 ■when one of us was waliving the other could 
 drive, and we could sleep under it at night into 
 the bargain. It gave us great pleasure to think 
 ■we should be quite independent with this little 
 equipage, should have no smoking and spitting 
 passengers, no cursing and swearing drivers, 
 and nobody to care, about but ourselves and 
 Missouri, whose beautiful grey skin, arched 
 neck, full eye, and ample tail attracted great 
 attention. 
 
 Our first excursion with him was to the old 
 French town of St. Charles, on the Missouri. 
 The road over the prairie was excellent ; we 
 passed a race-course, and a tolerable tavern 
 four miles from St. Louis, where the land was 
 so good that 85 dollars an acre was asked for it. 
 Farther on the plain was agreeably diversified 
 by woodland and small valleys, and game seem- 
 ed to be plentiful, for we passed numerous cov- 
 eys of fine quails, so tame that they would scarce 
 get out of our way. We came also within 
 eighty yards of three beautiful deer, in fine con- 
 dition ; they were amusing themselves quietly 
 in the middle of the road, and, as we drew 
 nearer, bounded gracefully into the thicket. At 
 fifteen miles from St. Louis we came to Owen's 
 station, a poor village in a fertile tract of land 
 •which was first settled when the Spaniards 
 possessed the country : from hence the coun- 
 try fell gradually towards the valley of the Mis- 
 souri, in the way to which we passed some beds 
 of horizontal limestone which a stream had un- 
 covered, and then came to a rich black bottom 
 about two miles broad, which, like that adjoin- 
 ing the Mississippi, formed part of the ancient 
 b.d of the river when its waters were more vo- 
 luminious. We saw the north bank of the Mis- 
 souri before we saw the river itself, and at length 
 came suddenly upon it. When the waters are 
 high, it would seem, from the muddy margin, 
 to be about 4000 feet wide ; but at this time it 
 was unusually low, and in the deepest part the 
 stream did not exceed fifteen feet in depth, hav- 
 ing a clayey sluggish appearance. 
 
 The south bank consists of strata of clay and 
 loam, and is constantly wearing away ; but the 
 north bank is a gentle slope, exhibiting various 
 beds of fossiliferous limestone, probably the 
 equivalent of the carboniferous limestone of 
 England. There are some circumstances con- 
 nected with the alluvial banks of the Missouri 
 and Mississippi which deserve notice. The soil 
 on the south bank of the Missouri extended, 
 ■within the recollection of individuals now liv- 
 ing, so much farther into the river as to have 
 conlracted the channel — as I was informed— to 
 three-fourths of the present width ; perhaps this 
 may be exaggerated, but a person whose house 
 ■we passed about one hundred yards from the 
 eiJge of the present bank has been obliged to 
 remove it three times, and it appeared to me 
 that he would have to repeat the operation 
 within the next ten years. The same wearing 
 away of the alluvial bank on the east side of 
 the Mississippi, opposite to St. Louis, is going 
 on at the same rate. There are persons who 
 
 remember when voices could be heard across 
 that river, which is not the case at present. If 
 this is permitted to go on long, these rivers will 
 carry away the alluvial banks, will re-establish 
 their dominion over the width of the ancient 
 channel, and the present volume of water 
 spreading itself over so great an increase ol 
 breadth, the navigation will be destroyed, as it 
 is in the Hudson River, near to the city of Al- 
 bany. This would be a great misfortune to the 
 city of St. Louis, and it ought to be averted in 
 time. 
 
 St. Charles is a poor tatterdemalion-looking 
 place, presenting a long street with some old 
 French houses, and shabby brick stores, where 
 a few American shopkeepers are wasting away 
 their lives. The tavern we put up at was in 
 keeping with the rest, the bed-room we were 
 shown into being so dirty and comfortless that 
 we gave up all hope of a good night's rest. We 
 therefore walked into the country about a mile 
 and a half, to a Major Sibley's, to whom I had 
 a letter. His villa, which is called Linden 
 Grove, is prettily situated on the plateau about 
 a mile back from the river, where the country 
 undulates gracefully, and has fine woodlands. 
 Everything looked rural and nice about the 
 house, the trees were cleared away with taste, 
 and there was an extensive garden bearing 
 marks of unusual care. The Major received us 
 very cordially, and I soon discovered that he 
 was an intelligent and agreeable person. If he 
 had asked us to bivouac in his neat garden, we 
 should have been grateful ; but he pressed us 
 so earnestly to stay all night with him, offering 
 the great luxury of separate bed-rooms, that I 
 really thought him one of the most enlightened 
 men I had met with in the western country. 
 
 He had resided many years amongst the west- 
 ern Indians as agent of the United States, and 
 had been one of the commissioners appointed 
 to lay out the traders' great road to Santa Fe, 
 in Mexico. We soon got into conversation 
 about the lofty mounds I had seen, when he 
 stated that an ancient chief of the Osage In- 
 dians (corrupted by the Ft^ench from Whashash) 
 informed him whilst he was a resident amongst 
 them, that a large conical mound, which he. 
 Major Sibley, was in the habit of seeing every 
 day whilst he resided amongst them, was con- 
 structed when he was a boy. That a chief of 
 his nation, who was a most distinguished war- 
 rior, and greatly beloved by the Indians, and 
 who was called Jean Defoe by the French, un- 
 expectedly died whilst all the men of his tribe 
 were hunting in a distant country. His friends 
 buried him in the usual manner, with his weap- 
 ons, his earthen pot, and the usual accompani- 
 ments, and raised a small mound over his re- 
 mains. When the nation returned from the 
 hunt, this mound was enlarged at intervals, ev- 
 ery man assisting to carry materials, and thus 
 the accumulation of earth went on for a long 
 period until it reached its present height, when 
 they dressed it off at the top to a conical form. 
 The old chief farther said that he had been in- 
 formed and believed, that all the mounds had a 
 similar origin ; and that the tradition had been 
 steadily transmitted down from their ancestors, 
 that the Whashash had originally emigrated 
 from the east in great numbers, the population 
 being too dense for their hunting-grounds : he 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 71 
 
 described Ihe forks of the Alleghany and Mo- 
 nonghatiela rivers, and the falls of the Ohio, 
 where they had dwelt some time, and where 
 large hands had separated from them, and dis- 
 tribiite;^l tiiemselves in the surrounding country. 
 Those who did not remain in the Ohio country, 
 following its waters, reached St. Louis, where 
 other sei)arations took place, some following 
 the Mississippi up to the north, others advan- 
 cing up the waters of the Missouri. He enu- 
 merated many existing tribes who had sprung 
 from tiieir stock, but mentioned the Saukies as 
 a people not related to them. It would seem, 
 lljerefore, from this chiefs account, that the In- 
 dian tribes have always been in the habit of in- 
 truding upon other nations with as little cere- 
 mony as the whites have upon them. 
 
 Amongst the curious corruptions which In- 
 dian names have undergone, Major Sibley men- 
 tioned the following : Of the Indian name Wha- 
 shash, the French have made Osages, and have 
 divided them into Ics Grands Osages et les Petils 
 Osages ; but as the voyagairs abbreviate every- 
 thing, they called them les Grands Sds cl les 
 Petits Sds, pronouncing the word pet its plils 
 and tils. The Americans, who followed the 
 French, and adopted their terms without un- 
 derstanding their language, have transmogrified 
 " les Petits Osages" into the Teat Saws.* After 
 such a specimen of etymology, no wonder that 
 great changes have been produced in language 
 by savages who have been intruding upon each 
 other perhaps for 2000 years. 
 
 Major Sibley also gave us a great deal of cu- 
 rious information of the customs of the Indians, 
 and of some of the causes of their going to war 
 with each other. It sometimes, he said, occurs 
 jn a tribe, that young men, either because they 
 are enamoured of the daughters of some of the 
 chiefs, or moved by other causes, are determin- 
 ed to perform some achievement that will raise 
 them into importance. Stealing horses, if done 
 adroitly and successfully, is considered an hon- 
 ourable action ; surprising and scalping indi- 
 viduals of a distant tribe, with whom they are 
 jiot upon good terms, is a sure road to distinc- 
 tion. The preparations are silently made and 
 ^promptly executed ; then comes retaliation, and 
 after it war. When a young woman is about to 
 be married amongst the Osages, an Indian, who 
 fills the office of town crier, takes her dressed 
 in all her finery rouad the town, and announces 
 that she is going to become the bride of such a 
 j'oung man. Upon one of these occasions, when 
 the daughter of a distinguished chief was about 
 to be led round, painted in grand costume, her 
 cheeks and her hair smeared over with vermil- 
 ion, it was suggested by one of the chief's wives 
 that Major Sibley's clean white shirt would con- 
 trast very well with the vermilion, if it were 
 put on the young maiden ; so he very gallantly, 
 in the assembled presence of her friends, strip- 
 ped himself of his shirt, and the young lady put 
 it on, to the great delight of everybody. 
 
 The Osages, in the opinion of Major Sibley, 
 are as capable of showing strong affection and 
 friendship as the whiles, and are sometimes 
 passionately attached to one of their wives. 
 The other wives are with them rather in the 
 
 * Tliis is equal to the name a* island in Lake Michigan 
 now goes by, which from " Bois Brfll6" has been changed 
 into " Bob Eule^'." 
 
 capacity of help-mates, for when an Indian is 
 opulent everybody flocks to his lodge, and he 
 must have assistance to prepare food for them. 
 These supernumerary wives he occasionally 
 permits, from motives of gain or friendship, to 
 cohabit with other men ; but if one of them 
 without his connivance is detected in her infi- 
 delity, he takes a summary and barbarous re- 
 venge. He conducts her himself to the prairie, 
 and there delivers her to twenty-five young men, 
 where, after being brutally treated by them, she 
 is turned adrift, and ever after considered infa- 
 mous. This IS called " walking the prairie.'" 
 
 In the morning, after a hearty breakfast, vvi 
 took leave of the worthy Major, and went to see 
 the Mammelles, of which we had heard a good 
 deal. They were nothing hut rounded detached 
 points of land belonging to the bluffs of the pla- 
 teau, to which the early French voyageurs had 
 given this name on account of their form. From 
 the top of one of them we had a fine view of 
 the extensive prairie at their foot : viewed from 
 a distance these Mammelles have the appear- 
 ance of isolated mounds, and it is only when 
 close to the bluffs that you perceive their real 
 character. 
 
 On our return to St. Louis, our new purchase, 
 Missouri, remembering his stable there, per- 
 formed to admiration, and seemed determined 
 to support the high character his vender had 
 given him : this excellent person, when I laid 
 the money down before him, and asked him for 
 a receipt, was so affected either by the sight of 
 the dollars, or the loss of such a valuable ani- 
 mal, that with a melancholy kind of tone he of- 
 fered the following spontaneous pledge to me : 
 — "Stranger, if that ar boss don't go like a 
 screamer, I'll give you leave to ex-flunctify me 
 into no time of day at all ; if I don't I'm no ac- 
 caywnt I reckon, not by no manner of means.'' 
 A very generous proceeding on his part, since 
 it was not included in the bargain, and one 
 which it was not easy to appreciate ! 
 
 On the 2.5th of October, in the evening pre- 
 ceding our departure from St. Louis, there was 
 some danger of a row in the town betwixt the 
 Roman Catholics of the lower classes and the 
 Presbyterians. The new Catholic cathedral 
 was to be consecrated on the succeeding day, 
 at which ceremony many bishops and clergy- 
 men from a distance were to assist. General 
 Atkinson, in honour of the occasion, had very 
 kindly permitted the band of the sixth regiment 
 to be in the procession, and had lent them two 
 field pieces. During the night some ill-natured 
 persons spiked them, and the enraged French- 
 men of the lower classes imagining it to have 
 been a spiteful act of the Presbyterians, seized 
 the guns, and threatened to turn them against 
 one of the meeting-houses. Better* counsels, 
 however, prevailed ; the guns were unspiked, 
 and order was restored. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Departure from St. Louis— The Comforts of au Indian Mat- 
 rimonial Alliance — Tame Buffaloes — Herculaneum in 
 America — Immense flocks of Cranes — History of Mrs 
 Gallatin— Valine's Mines. 
 
 We took our final departure from St. Louis 
 on the 26lh of October. Our " Dearborn" just 
 
72 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 held everything that we possessed comfortably ; 
 we had added a lop to it to shelter us from the 
 sun and ram, our harness was in good order, 
 and perhaps we were as well equipped for get- 
 ting through a savage sort of country, cut ofT 
 from everything like old society, as we could be. 
 As we drove through the streets, Missouri be- 
 came exceedingly restive, and gave sundry 
 signs of dissatisfaction by plunging and eleva- 
 ting his hind heels rather too much above the 
 level of the shafts to promise any good to the 
 general concern. The fact was that the Cana- 
 dians were blowing away out of the two pieces 
 of cannon as fast as they could, and our horse 
 did not like the noise. At one time I thought 
 we should have been wrecked before we got out 
 of the town ; but by a little management and 
 coaxing we at last got out of the sound of the 
 uproar, and Missouri showed his usual docility. 
 I remained a short time at Carondelet, and pro- 
 cured some fossils from the limestone beds, of 
 the same species with those at St. Charles and 
 St. Louis, and at evening drove up to General 
 Atkinson's, at Jefferson Barracks. He and his 
 lady were assisting at the consecration at St. 
 Louis ; but he had left orders that I was to take 
 possession of the house without ceremony 
 whenever I arrived, so that we got into good 
 quarters at once. Meantime, Captain Nevvitt, 
 an officer of the sixth regiment, whom I had 
 become acquainted with at the White Sulphur 
 Springs, undertook to entertain us at the mess 
 until the General's return. Here one of the offi- 
 cers, who had been several years in the Northern 
 country amongst the Indians, related an amusing 
 adventure of his own. He had been living a long 
 time alone, and had no society whatever, ex- 
 cept occasionally a few of the Indian chiefs 
 whom he knew, one of whom had a young and 
 rather pleasing daughter. Her brother, who 
 had been amongst the whites, and spoke a little 
 English, one day asked him if he would like to 
 have her for a wife, and told him that if he 
 would make the usual presents to the family, 
 she should come to his lodge. As she was a 
 comely and clean-looking young squaw, he got 
 the necessary presents from the sutler, consist- 
 ing of cloth, blankets, tobacco, gunpowder, &c., 
 and delivered them to her friends ; upon which 
 she was brought to his tent, and left there, di- 
 vested however of every article of clothing, ex- 
 cept an old dirty blanket which covered her 
 shoulders. When he returned in the evening 
 he found this young creature crouching down in 
 a corner, and half-frightened out of her senses. 
 He now sent for some old squaws, and had her 
 thoroughly scrubbed, washed, combed, and clad 
 in new clothes. The next morning he went 
 out a hunting, and on his return in the evening 
 found they had taken all her clothes away again. 
 This was repeated three times, when, losing his 
 patience, he told the brother that if it were done 
 again, he would send her back to her father's 
 lodge, and have nothing more to do with her. 
 Although she was now permitted to keep her 
 clothes, he was soon visited by an annoyance 
 of another kind, for every day all her friends 
 and relations came to his tent to see her and 
 talk to her, and as the Indians are the idlest 
 people in the world when not occupied in the 
 chase or in war, he found it at length impossi- 
 ble to drive them away. 
 
 The fact is, that when there is anything to 
 eat in a lodge, the Indians go to work as if there 
 would be something wrong in procrastination, 
 and so seriously set about eating everything up 
 at once ; and his young housekeeper following 
 the example she had witnessed at her father's 
 lodge, gave them everything she could lay her 
 hand upon ; they ate his bread, his meat, his 
 sugar, and they used everything that he had in 
 his tent besides. At length they took to sleep- 
 ing in it, so that it was in a fair way of becom- 
 ing a receptacle of filth of every kind. He now 
 found out that the comforts of matrimony with 
 a comely and clean-looking Indian maiden may 
 be purchased rather too dear, and like all men 
 who have made a precious bad bargain, began 
 to sigh for the tranquillity of his bachelor's life. 
 At length his impatience became so great, that 
 he told his brother-in-law, the match-maker, he 
 was determined to strike the tent, and break up 
 the matrimonial connexion. But the brother 
 took it up very punctiliously, and said as the 
 girl had not been unfaithful, he could not do it 
 without offending all her relations : this the of- 
 ficer was aware of, and would have been not a 
 little puzzled what to do, if the Indian — who 
 from the first had been more solicitous about 
 what he could get from him than for the honour 
 of his alliance — had not relieved his anxiety by 
 saying, " You my broder, you got big heart here, 
 very big heart ; you lay blanket on ground, rifle, 
 powder, shot, tobacco, cloth for leggings, my 
 sister go back with me to lodge." The officer 
 saw at once that this was the least troublesome 
 and expensive course to pursue to get a divorce, 
 so closed with the offer, and thus got rid of his 
 lady, who very contentedly went back to her 
 connexions with her new suit of clothes on. 
 
 The limestone beds on the shore of the Mis- 
 sissippi here abound in cyathophylla, calamo- 
 pora, and terebratula ; they also contain round 
 nodules of flint, with silicified alcyonia and en- 
 crinites : the bluffs are about 150 feet high, and 
 are composed of various beds of limestone. On 
 the evening of the 27th General Atkinson and 
 his lady arrived, with information that the fes- 
 tival had gone off harmoniously, and that the 
 spiking of the cannons had been traced to some 
 idle young fellows for whose conduct no sect 
 was responsible. On the 28th we bade adieu to 
 our kind friends at Jefferson Barracks, and took 
 our departure for the lead mines in the State of 
 Missouri. 
 
 The country for a great distance around the 
 garrison abounds with the same kind of depres- 
 sions on the surface that we noticed in the lime- 
 stone country betwixt Nashville and Louisville, 
 called sink-holes. The road was indifferent, 
 and led through a forest of oaks, through which, 
 as we were passing, we were very much amu- 
 sed with the quails, which were so numerous 
 and tame that they would scarce get out of the 
 way with a crack from the whip-lash. After 
 drivingeight miles, we came to a broad rich bot- 
 tom of land, through which flows the Merrimac 
 River, a beautiful stream, about 160 yards wide. 
 The southern sources of this river rise in Wash- 
 ington County, in the State of Missouri, and on 
 its way to the Mississippi it receives Big River, 
 about thirty miles»west from its mouth : wc 
 crossed it in a ferry-boat, about one mile from 
 the confluence. Rising out of this valley we 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 73 
 
 came again upon the table-land to a high undu- 
 lating cduiilry, consisting of" limestone, wilh 
 abundance of chalcedonised chert. 1'lie ex- 
 traoidiiiaiyquantity of siliceous matter in these 
 calcareous beds is quite remarkable. At the 
 Sulphur tipnngs, sixteen miles from the garri- 
 son, we were overtaken by a cold heavy rain, 
 and Slopping at a plantation belonging to Major 
 O'Falloii, an Indian agent, who was from home, 
 we took the liberty of quartering ourselves there 
 for the night ; a black woman, who was left in 
 charge of the premises, entertained us in the 
 best manner she was able, and laying ourselves 
 quietly down upon some buffalo hides, spread 
 upon the floor near a good fire, we got over the 
 night as well as we could. The springs, at this 
 place, are slightly impregnated with sulphuret- 
 ted hydrogen, and the solid contents in solution 
 are muriate of soda and carbonate of lime. In 
 a field, not far from the house, I saw two tame 
 buffaloes which the Major had brought from the 
 Indian country, a bull and a cow ; they looked 
 exceedingly thin and lank : indeed, I have nev- 
 er seen any of these animals in good condition 
 when under restraint, and I am told that they 
 seldom breed when deprived of their liberty. 
 
 In the morning we proceeded to Herculaneum 
 on the banks of the Mississippi, through a coun- 
 try of limestone knobs : this little place is built 
 at the edge of the river, in the front of a semi- 
 circular cove where the edges of the strata of 
 limestone are worn down so as to resemble the 
 seats of an ancient amphitheatre, from which 
 circumstance Mr. Moses Austin, the original 
 founder of the place (the father of Mr. Austin, 
 the leading man amongst the Americans in the 
 Mexican province of Texas), who was a fanci- 
 ful as well as an enterprising person, gave it the 
 name the ancient city bears, which has been so 
 many centuries covered up near Naples. At 
 each horn of the amphitheatre the limestone 
 blufi's are very fine, and the beds are so full of 
 seams and blotches of black siliceous matter, 
 that the mineral contents of the beds seem to be 
 almost equally divided between silex and lime. 
 We got a very comfortable breakfast at this 
 place, at a small hut kept by two women from 
 JMew-England, who had brought all the nice 
 clean habits of their own respectable State here 
 with them ; and, pursuing our journey, we dis- 
 covered, whilst getting out of the ferry-boat on 
 crossing the Si. Joachim — which figures on some 
 of the American maps as Sivasking Creek, a 
 strange imitation of St. Joachim — that an im- 
 portant part of the machinery of our waggon was 
 broken. This was an incident that brought us 
 up in good season ; we were still in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Herculaneum, where, fortunately, 
 there was a blacksmith, and torrents of rain 
 were pouring down. All this would have been 
 bad enough if we had been far from any settle- 
 ment ; for although we were provided with ham- 
 mers, and nails, and cords, and every appliance 
 for common accidents, we had no blacksmith's 
 forge, and the case required one. We therefore 
 drove to the blacksmith's, and finding that we 
 could " get in" at a widow's close by, whose 
 name was Gallatin, I went there, and found her 
 a very respectable person, with a clean bed- 
 room and sitting-room at our service ; indeed, 
 our quarters looked so prouiising that I deter- 
 " to stop here a short time, being desirous 
 K 
 
 of looking about me, and examining the shores 
 (if the Mississippi. As soon therefore as the rain 
 ceased, we sallied out and climbed to the top of 
 the bluff behind Mrs. Gallatin's house, which is 
 about 100 feet high, and upon which a Mr. 
 Bates, one of the original settlers, has erected a 
 shot-tower, where a great deal of shot is made, 
 that is dropped from the height of 130 feet. 
 
 The river scenery is remarkably beautiful at 
 Herculaneum ; the bluffs are imposing, and dis- 
 integrate in a peculiar manner into large grot- 
 toes, which look as if they had been excavated 
 by man, but they are to be seen in the very in- 
 cipient part of the process at the most inacces- 
 sible parts of the top of the bluf!'. On the shore 
 immense blocks of limestone, filled with chert, 
 as much as the chalk is with flint in some parts 
 of England, are piled upon each other. To the 
 north the view is very graceful : the alternate 
 bold and depressed banks on the left, the pictu- 
 resque wooded islands in the river, and the rich, 
 alluvial bottoms of the State of Illinois, making- 
 a fine picture. To the south the long vista down 
 the Mississippi, its well wooded and lofty banks ; 
 the extensive island in front of Herculaneum,. 
 with a spacious level and dry sand-bar, that at 
 this season of the year might be converted into 
 an excellent race-course ; the whirring and 
 croaking of tens of thousands of cranes {Mega- 
 lornis Americanus), the scourge of the corn-fields,- 
 that after their devastations by day return at 
 night to the sand-bar to set up a croaking that 
 makes the whole country ring again ; the flocks 
 of wdd geese that rival the cranes with their 
 harsh trumpeting ; and, last of all, those mon- 
 sters of the waters, the numerous steamers- 
 heard from a distance of several miles before 
 they are seen, and which, when they appear, 
 come on belching and sughing out from their 
 metallic throats as if they were huge animals in 
 their last agony ; all these concurring features 
 excited our admiration strongly, and we con- 
 fessed that we felt as if we were realising some 
 of those fancies which are so eloquently ex- 
 pressed in the tales of the " Arabian Nights." 
 
 Being desirous of examining the opposite 
 shore, I engaged a man to take us across the 
 Mississippi in his skiff, which here is about a 
 mile wide : the skiff was an old rotten, ticklish, 
 affair, but as we could not get a better, we en- 
 tered it with our rifles, and landed on the large 
 island in front, which has been cut off by the 
 river from the Illinois side. It contains several 
 hundred acres of good soil, but on account of 
 its lying very low, and being subject to annual 
 inundations, can never be cultivated. I made 
 my way through the small timber that covers it, 
 but found no game, although my son, who trav- 
 ersed the island in another direction, got a sight 
 of two deer, without however getting a shot at 
 them. From this place we got into our danger- 
 ous skiff again, and after being snagged two or 
 three times, at last paddled ashore. We walk- 
 ed along the fertile alluvial bank to Harrison- 
 ville, one of those wretched settlements con- 
 sisting principally of a country store or two. 
 Seeing a very extensive field of Indian corn. I 
 asked the owner how many bushels it would 
 average per acre, and he answered, that the 
 crop had suffered much for want of rain, and 
 would not average more than sixty bushels per 
 acre, but that in good seasons the land would 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 yield from 80 to 100 bushels. He also said that 
 good corn was now at 15 and 20 cents the 
 bushel, and that some persons who wanted 
 money very much had offered their crops at 12^ 
 cents (sixpence) : he added, that it was not an 
 uncommon occurrence here to sell a barrel of 
 sound corn, containing seven bushels, for one 
 dollar. The people at this place were begin- 
 ning to recover slowly from their annual attacks 
 of the fever and ague : their sallow, emaciated 
 countenances, that looked distressed by the 
 monstrous quantities of calomel they were ac- 
 customed to take, and the feeble and uncertain 
 steps with which they went about their avoca- 
 tions, betrayed how dearly they paid by the 
 3oss of health for the privilege they enjoyed of 
 occupying a fertile soil, which, whilst it gave 
 them the means of existence, destroyed the 
 power of enjoying it. 
 
 From hence we walked six miles through the 
 " American Bottom," the greater part of which 
 is a rich alluvial flat, to the limestone bluffs, the 
 limit of the bed of the ancient Mississippi, whilst 
 thousands of cranes were wheeling about and 
 deafening us with their cries : not far from the 
 bluffs were several lagoons, containing immense 
 numbers of fresh-water shells, especially Ana- 
 dontas, which delight in dead water. Prodigi- 
 ous quantities of wild fowl were disporting upon 
 these pools, where we shot some very fine fat 
 teal with brilliant green wings. After a fatigu- 
 ing day we retraced our steps, and re-crossed 
 the river to our lodgings. 
 
 The vast extent of the calcareous strata in 
 these parts of North America, exhibiting an 
 uniform flat deposit for many htmdreds of miles, 
 awakens many reflections. It is a popularopin- 
 son amongst geologists, that the sedimentary 
 ■beds are derived from the detritus of other rocks 
 which preceded them, and in many instances, 
 no doubt, the opinion is well justified. But 
 where are the roots of the rocks that have fur- 
 nished the mineral matter of which the whole 
 basin of the Mississippi and hundreds of miles 
 of contiguous territory are formed, comprehend- 
 ing an area as large as Great Britain? And 
 -what a stretch of the imagination does it not 
 require to contrive the destruction of a conti- 
 nent of such extent ! It would seem to be a 
 jnuch more simple process, and one capable of 
 fulfilling all the conditions of the problem, to 
 suppose a great portion of the solid contents of 
 the existing strata to have once been in solu- 
 tion in subterranean depths, and to have been 
 sent to the surface loaded with calcareous mat- 
 ter, as in the case of the Sweet Springs in Vir- 
 ginia, and with siliceous matter, as in the case 
 of the Geysers, as they are exhibited in our own 
 day. The manner in which siliceous matter is 
 often found mixed up with the calcareous rocks 
 certainly seems to point to a period when they 
 were in the state of calcareo-siliceous mud de- 
 posited from thermal sources, the molecules of 
 the respective minerals having cohered togeth- 
 er by mutual attraction. 
 
 The morning succeeding to our excursion I 
 went farther d'jwn the shore of the Mississippi, 
 on the right banic, for the river being unusually 
 low at this season, I thought it probable some 
 beds might be exposed which I should never 
 have an opportunity of seeing again ; and I was 
 jiot mistaken, for about a mile north of the 
 
 Plattin Creek, which is about thirty-three miles 
 from St. Louis, I found an important bed of 
 sandstone, only a few inches above the level of 
 the river, of a loose granular texture, consisting 
 of quartzose grains held together without ce- 
 ment, and so very incoherent in some places 
 that it crumbled between the fingers. Upon ex- 
 amining the calcareous rocks in the bank which 
 rested upon the sandstone, I found that a great 
 change had taken place, and that they no long-" 
 er consisted of compact limestone containing 
 seams and blotches of cherty matter, but that, 
 though much mixed up with silex, they were 
 fetid, non-fossiliferous, and abounded in cale 
 spar with occasional streaks of sulphate of lime : 
 mdeed they so strongly resembled some cal- 
 careous beds I had seen in the galeniferous 
 countries of Europe, that I thought it probable 
 they might he connected with the lead district 
 which lay immediately to the west. I was, 
 therefi)re, extremely particular in my examina- 
 tion of the sandstone bed and the beds immedi- 
 ately above it, as they might serve as keys to 
 decipher the stratification of the lead district 
 which I was about to enter. 
 
 We had been so much interested with the 
 geology and natural history of the neighbour- 
 hood, and were so well satisfied with the quiet 
 and comfortable quarters Mrs. Gallatin had pro- 
 vided for us, that we did not leave her house 
 until the 31st of October. She was a person of 
 great worth, and when I learned her history — 
 which is not an uncommon one in this part of 
 the country — I could not but feel great respect 
 for her. Her husband had lived happily with 
 her for a great many years, but having become 
 a speculator, had mismanaged his affairs and 
 brought upon himself numerous pecuniary em- 
 barrassments : not liking his prospects he, like 
 many others, determined to go to Texas, a 
 country which had for some time loomed up as 
 the asylum of that portion of oppressed human- 
 ity that feels nervous under the restraints of 
 law. He, therefore, left his excellent wife with 
 three modest, amiable daughters, all marriage- 
 able, one son an adult, and another a child of 
 about five years old, under a solemn promise 
 that he would return for them as soon as he 
 had provided a home there. After he had been 
 absent two years she received a letter from 
 him, which held out some encouragement of 
 his return, but another j-ear had passed away 
 and she had heard nothing more. " He has 
 been too long away from us now," said she to 
 me with an appearance of subdued grief, " too 
 long I imagine ever to wish to come back to us 
 again. J tliink he must have pretty much for- 
 gotten us by this time, and we must try not to 
 break our hearts about it." All the individuals 
 of this family were remarkable for the neatness 
 of their persons ; the mother had known much 
 better times, and although her conversation and 
 conduct proved that she knew how to meet this 
 trial with spirit and sense, yet in her counte- 
 nance well-defined traces of sorrow were to be 
 seen. The daughters were maidenly looking 
 young creatures, with great modesty of de- 
 meanour, and the eldest son appeared a steady 
 and useful man, extremely attached to his moth- 
 er and sisters. They seemed to be all usefully 
 employed from morn to night, and to be habit- 
 ually under the influence of the religious train- 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 ing they had received. I felt great sympathy 
 for this worthy family on partms with them, 
 especially for the sorrowful mother ; but I had 
 seen many more unfortunate than themselves, 
 for they were manifestly under the care of Him 
 who protects and blesses the virtuous in adver- 
 sity. 
 
 We left the Cove of Herculaneum by a deep 
 miry road in the black soil, and with some dif- 
 ficulty Missouri got our equipage up a very 
 steep and had hill, at the top of which we found 
 ourselves in extensive barrens containing strag- 
 gling trees. We had not proceeded very far in 
 the country ere I saw on our left a denuded 
 sort of deep ravine, and descending into it I 
 found at the bottom the incoherent sandstone I 
 had seen on the shore of the Mississippi : and 
 on examining the upper strata I recognised the 
 fetid non-fossiliferous calcareo-siliceous beds, 
 which satisfied me that I had got a good hold 
 of the stratification. Having gone about ten 
 miles we stopped at a settler's named Strick- 
 land, who had erected his house near a spring, 
 and following the water down to a bottom not 
 far from his dwelling, I found some thin beds 
 of limestone and lithographic stone of a very 
 good quality, resembling the white lias. 
 
 From hence we proceeded eleven miles over 
 a broken and undulating country to Vallee's 
 Mines, the sandstone occasionally cropping out 
 at the surface of the ground, and at length 
 came to a low bottom where some smelting 
 houses were erected. - Here were Vallee's 
 Mines, but as to regular mining no such thing 
 had ever been practised at the place, nor any 
 kind of mining beyond digging shallow pits into 
 the alluvial soil in search of galena or suiphu- 
 ret of lead, which at some period when the ga- 
 leniferous rocks once in place here were de- 
 stroyed, had been left in the superficial soil, 
 from the size of a pin's head to masses weigh- 
 ing several hundred pounds. These pits, from 
 six to twenty feet deep, exist in such great 
 numbers, that it is very difficult to drive be- 
 twixt them, even upon the road, and in the 
 night-time it would be impossible. Great quan- 
 tities of sulphate of harytes, called tiff by the 
 ■workmen, is found where they dig, and a pro- 
 fusion of dark red clay is also thrown out by 
 them : but the confused manner in which the 
 digging is carried on at this place baffles ail in- 
 I'esligation. The people employed were prin- 
 cipally French ; the men were brutal, and not 
 disposed to conversation, and the only person 
 from whom we could obtain almost any infor- 
 mation was an old French negress, who had a 
 great deal of that politeness which distinguish- 
 es the old school. The sinelting was conduct- 
 ed in a wasteful manner, in small out-door fur- 
 races, with galena and wood alternately piled 
 in layers As soon as we had seen everything 
 worth our attention, and fed our horse at a 
 -wretched looking hut where there was a pack 
 of dirty old beldames, we continued on to Tap- 
 lilt and Pcrrifs Mines, where I hoped to find op- 
 erations going on in the rock. The road was 
 bad and difficult, and led us to the brow of an 
 abrupt iiill, from whence we perceived a pretty 
 valley bcneatli us, and a number of huts which 
 ■we supposed belonged to the mining establish- 
 ment. Night was approaching, it was cold, we 
 •jvere very much jaded as vygjl as our horse, 
 
 and on reaching the place, received with no 
 small degree of sensibility the information that 
 tiiere was no tavern of any kind there, and no 
 place at which we could stay, as all the huts 
 were full of working people. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Taplitt and Perry's Lead Mines— Geologj- of the Lead Dis- 
 trict— System of Galeniferous Veins— Their Structure 
 analoffous to the Trap Veins at Trottemish in Scotland 
 — Fannington — Visit to the Iron Mountain. 
 
 I.\ this dilemma I went to a kind of double 
 log hut which had rather a more imposing look 
 than the rest, to try if we could not make in- 
 terest to be housed for the night. An old ne- 
 gress, who cooked for the party in this hut, said 
 that " Dr. Perkins was the master there, that 
 he did the doctoring about, and that he was 
 from hum, and she didn't tiiink we could get in 
 nowhere." Just at this moment a good-look- 
 ing young miner coming up to the hut, I made 
 our situation known to him, and he said we 
 were welcome to stay all night if we would put 
 up with such fare as we should find. As nei- 
 ther Missouri nor ourselves had formed any 
 great expectations, we gladly accepted of his 
 offer, and proceeded to take care of our horse 
 and luggage. The hut was soon afterwards 
 filled with miners, who came in for the even- 
 ing, and in a short time we became acquainted 
 with the friends we had to mess w-ith, who 
 treated us with great kindness. Our fare, to 
 be sure, was humble enough, salt beef with 
 very wretched coffee, and not a drop of milk ; 
 but the bread was palatable, and having prepa- 
 red some of our own tea, we managed tolerably- 
 well, and passed the evening talking with the 
 miners by the side of a cheerful fire. The 
 young man, to whose civility we had been so 
 much indebted, had the management of a part 
 of the concern entrusted to him, and he inform- 
 ed us that shafts had been sunk here in the solid 
 rock with great success, which we should have 
 every facility of examining in the morning. 
 This was very gratifying information ; for such 
 confused ideas had got abroad of the geological 
 character of the lead district, that everything 
 was to learn about it, and these shafts could 
 not but afford a great deal of instruction. 
 
 Finding these miners to be all resolute young 
 adventurers, and quite intelligent and obliging, 
 I felt bound to contribute something on my part 
 to the entertainment of the evening, and pro- 
 duced some old Cogniac brandy which we had 
 laid in for great emergencies only — and it was 
 so highly approved of, that when the hour for 
 sleeping had arrived, they surrendered in the 
 most friendly manner one of their beds on the 
 floor, upon which my son and myself, without 
 being too curious, laid down and passed the 
 night. In the morning we partook of the frugal 
 breakfast of our entertainers, and sallied out to 
 examine the hills preparatory to descending the 
 shafts. The country in the lead district, except 
 where it is interrupted by the valleys, presents 
 an extensive table-land, through which a few 
 slight streams run. which are used by the mi- 
 ners to wash the soil taken out of the shallow 
 pits or " diggings" which have before been spo- 
 ken of, and which were first commenced by the 
 
76 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 Spaniards when they had possession of the 
 country. These streams, in cutting their way 
 through the superficial soil, had sometimes dis- 
 closed valuable deposits of the ore, and this had 
 induced adventurers to commence "diggings" 
 in other parts of the alluvial soil, sinking Iheir 
 pits until it became inconvenient to throw or 
 hoist the mineral matter out, and then abandon- 
 ing them to excavate others. I observed people 
 occupied in this kind of work in several places : 
 the soil at the top consisted generally of about 
 a foot of red earth mixed with pieces of mamil- 
 lary quartz and petro-siliceous stones ; next a 
 deposit of red clay of a few feet deep, resting 
 upon a bed of gravel and cherty pebhles, in 
 which the fragments of galena were contained 
 These deposits do not differ in point of mechan- 
 ical arrangement from the gravel deposits con- 
 taining gold in the Southern States, all of which 
 appear to be the result of the destruction of the 
 superior strata. 
 
 At present, owing to the greater energy of 
 the Americans, almost the whole surface of the 
 country is dug up into pits of various sizes, 
 from four feet diameter to some exceeding 
 twenty fieet square, with a proportionate depth. 
 These larger areas belong entirely to modern 
 times, and are the result of the discovery grad- 
 ually made, that the loose fragments of galena 
 in the superficial soil, which were once the sole 
 object of the diggings, are connected with 
 "mineral" — as it is called here — imbedded in 
 the solid rock. As soon as this was ascertain- 
 ed they went to work as men would do in an or- 
 dinary quarry, without much relation to method, 
 and in one or two places I saw a quarry of the 
 extent of half an acre opened, and people blast- 
 ing the galeniferous rock with gunpowder ; so 
 that mining, as it is called here, is precisely 
 what quarrymg is in other places. 
 
 In selecting a place for conducting these ex- 
 cavations, they observe, as the miners do in 
 Cornwall, certain external indications of " min- 
 eral" on the surface, such as the prevalence of 
 masses of quartzose rock, generally cellular and 
 full of groups of small mamillary crystals, which 
 are often very brilliant. These crystals fre- 
 quently rest upon chalcedonized concentric lay- 
 ers with an agate structure. In other instances 
 the crystals are formed into pyramids, and their 
 masses are hollow. These quartzose masses 
 are called in the mining district " mineral blos- 
 som," and are always thought, I believe with 
 justice, to indicate the presence of galena be- 
 low : indeed it was obvious to us, on entering 
 the lead district, that a great change had taken 
 place in the mineral matter; numerous locali- 
 ties presenting a confused but distinct and rath- 
 er unvarying character of crystallization in the 
 agate structure, the mamillary quartz, and the 
 indications of sulphate of barytes. 
 
 The hills around the small valley where we 
 were, consisted of the same calcareo siliceous 
 rock which we had seen superincumbent upon 
 the incoherent sandstone. Some practical Eng- 
 lish miners had stink a shaft on the slope of 
 these hdls, and Messrs. Taplitt and Perry, being 
 enterprising men, had imitated their example. 
 The shaft they had sunk was 110 feet deep, and 
 the young miner who had the charge of it very 
 obligingly caused me to be let down in the buck- 
 et, and gave me every a'd and facility for ex- 
 
 amining their underground works. For the 
 first sixty feet we went through the calcareo- 
 siliceous rock, rather incoherent towards the 
 top, and then came upon a horizontal vein o 
 sulphuret of lead : lower down they had come 
 upon a second horizontal vein, the appearance 
 of which was surprisingly brilliant and curious ; 
 for as I stood in the widest part of the drift, I 
 could see a band of bright shining compact ga- 
 lena upwards of a foot wide, running through 
 the rocks in a horizontal line. Numerous sub- 
 ordinate veins and threads were connected with 
 ;his hand, and where the metal appeared to be 
 promising, they had cut drifts into them. In 
 pursuing this principal horizontal vein, I came, 
 in succession, to a great number of cavities or 
 pockets in the calcareo-siliceous rock of various 
 sizes, all of which seemed to be analogous to 
 those which exist underground in the gold re- 
 gion of Virginia. Some of them were not more 
 than four or five feet wide, whilst others were 
 much larger. The largest I entered was about 
 forty feet from top to bottom, and about thirty- 
 five feet in diameter. In this, as well as in the 
 other cavities, they had uniformly found an im- 
 mense quantity of red clay, resembling that 
 found in the superficial deposits, with a thick 
 plate of sulphuret of lead at the bottom of it, as 
 if it had sunk there by its specific gravity. But 
 what gave me the greatest satisfaction was 
 coming at length to a vein almost vertical, con- 
 taining a breadth of about eighteen inches of 
 compact galena ; this my conductor said they 
 called the main channel. I took its course, and 
 found it to be N.N.E. S.S.W., with an inclina- 
 tion of 18°. On a full consideration of all the 
 circumstances connected with this main chan- 
 nel, I came to the opinion that all the horizon- 
 tal veins were lateral jets from this vertical 
 lode, which, rising from below, had injected the 
 horizontal bands into the rock. The phenome- 
 non appeared to me to be quite analogous to the 
 case which Mr. M'Culloch has cited of the in- 
 jection of horizontal bands of trap into sand- 
 stone, at Trotternish, in Scotland.* 
 
 Having made these observations upon the di- 
 rection of the veins, I commenced an examina- 
 tion of their structure more in detail, and found 
 they were all what is called in some of the min- 
 ing districts of England "wet veins," being, with- 
 out exception, encased, not in sulphate of bary- 
 tes, but in pure bright red argillaceous matter, 
 quite wet beneath the galena, and cutting with 
 a shining waxy face. Wherever the metal runs, 
 this wet red clay accompanies it, enclosing it as 
 it were in a sheath, and carrying along with it 
 sometimes nodules of quartz, iron, zinc, and a 
 little galena, a compound to which the miners 
 have given the name of dnj bones. We here 
 find the origin of the red clay which covers the 
 gravel beds of the superficial soil in the valleys, 
 and an almost incontrovertible proof that that 
 deposit is the result of the destruction of an- 
 cient beds. Everything connected with the ge- 
 ological phenomena of the metallic districts of 
 this country concurs to show that there has 
 been in ancient times a period of great violence, 
 accompanied with mighty aqueous action, that 
 has ended in greatly lowering the ancient sur- 
 face. 
 
 We were informed that the y could raise and 
 
 * Vide M'CuUoch's " Western Highlands of Scotland." 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA, 
 
 77 
 
 bring to the surface at these mines 5000 lbs. 
 ■weight of the ore a clay, a quantity that I should 
 think could be easily quadrupled, if the demand 
 for the metal justified it. Tlie compact sulphu- 
 ret they obtain is very valuable, for it is free 
 from foreign matter, and yields 65 per cent, of 
 pure lead of commerce. I advised them to de- 
 sist from cutting drifts upon so many of the 
 threads, as they were making a labyrinth of 
 their works, but_J,o sink another winze from oue 
 of their galleries, and cut out upon the main 
 channel below, as it was not improbable that in 
 doing so, they might intersect another suite of 
 horizontal bands of the ore. 
 
 Having paid our debt of hospitality to our 
 ]\ind entertainers in douceurs to the black work- 
 men in their service, we shook hands cordially 
 ■with them, thanking them with great sincerity, 
 and departed for Farmington, a small village, 
 distant about twenty miles. We kept the high 
 table-land for the first ten miles, constantly ac- 
 companied by the mineral indications, and then 
 descended to a low country where the calcareo- 
 siliceous rock no longer appeared. Crossing a 
 pretty stream, called by the French Terreblue — 
 of which the Americans have made Tarblue, — 
 whose waters were exceedingly pellucid, we 
 passed some fai'ms where the soil seemed to be 
 fertile, and in eight miles more reached Farm- 
 ington, and put up at a quiet comfortable tav- 
 ern kept by a Mr. Boice. Here I had a chance 
 of writing up my journal, which was a little be- 
 hindhand, and of doing justice to my internals, 
 which for some time had been upon rather scan- 
 ty allowance. 
 
 The distance from this place to the Iron 
 Mountain, which was the great lion of this part 
 of the State of Missouri, being only sixteen 
 miles, I determined to take a look at it, and Mr. 
 Boice having procured us a couple of country 
 saddle-horses, we gave Missouri a holiday, and 
 started early the next morning. Our course 
 was about S.W., and having proceeded four 
 miles the country began sensibly to grow high- 
 er, and we came upon some thin beds of the 
 calcareo-siliceous rock; but in four miles more 
 a still greater change took place, for we came 
 to very lofty hills of a different kind to those 
 we had seen on the preceding day, with an ab- 
 rupt and stony ascent. Having reached a place 
 where the rocks were entirely denuded, I dis- 
 mounted, and found we were upon a formation 
 of well-defined syenite, consistmg of a regular 
 chain, apparently running for a great distance 
 N.E. and S.W. Crossing this chain, we turned 
 into the woods in a S.S.W. direction to exam- 
 ine it on the west side, and there found it de- 
 flected rather inwards, taking somewhat a cra- 
 teri-form. Riding on about an hour and a half, 
 we at length came to a hill where the syenite 
 was ponderously impregnated with iron, and at 
 a distance of about a mile from this, reached 
 3ne of the rarest metallic spectacles I have ever 
 witnessed. 
 
 This consisted of two very singular hills, 
 sparingly covered with trees, and adjacent to 
 3ach other ; one of them about 350 feet high, 
 ind both together perhaps containing 500 acres 
 3f land The surface of these hills had the ap- 
 pearance of being paved with black glossy-look- 
 ng pebbles of iron, having a bright metallic 
 'racture of a steel gray colour Beneath these 
 
 pebbles, as far as I could judge, there was a sol- 
 id mass of micaceous oxide of iron, and I traced 
 it north and south near half a mile, until it was 
 covered with the superficial soil at the foot of 
 the hills. Near the tops of these hills are im- 
 mense masses of this oxide, and the space be- 
 tween them is filled up by fragments that have 
 been broken from them, with angular edges a 
 little rounded by the weather. Some portions 
 of the ore are mixed up with quartzose matter 
 of a flinty character, and, in some instances, 
 crystals of iron were imbedded in the quartz. 
 The other hills around, which I had an oppor- 
 tunity of examining, consisted of a dark-col- 
 oured coarse quartz with reddish felspar, but 
 no mica. We were filled with admiration at 
 what we saw : everything had the appearance 
 of being metalic matter erupted from below, 
 and I left the place regretting that I could not 
 devote a whole week to a more particular ex- 
 amination of this curious syenitic chain, as we 
 had been informed that other parts of it con- 
 tained very striking mineral phenomena. 
 
 On our return at evening we saw a great 
 many coveys of quails, with a numerous flock 
 of fine grown wild turkeys ; and as they beha- 
 ved with pretty much the same indifference to 
 us that tame ones would have done, we dis- 
 mounted, tied up our horses, and gave chase to 
 them in the woods ; but they had not been 
 creeping about the day before on their hands 
 and knees in lead mines, nor gone through a 
 fatiguing day's ride of forty mdes as we had 
 done, and soon left us at a very satisfactory dis- 
 tance ; we therefore remounted, pushed on to 
 Farmington, and after partaking of such a meal 
 as country people roused from their beds were 
 disposed to give us, retired willingly to rest. 
 
 On the third of November we started at an 
 early hour for Mine la Motte, about sixteen miles 
 from Farmington. There is a good deal offer- 
 tile alluvial soil in this neighbourhood, where 
 emigrants from Tennessee and Kentuky have 
 settled themselves, hut they do not live com- 
 fortably. People of this class usually leave 
 their native homes compelled by their poverty, 
 and not being strangers altogether to the pre- 
 carious and shifty existence of settlers in a 
 wild country, they have recourse to all sorts of 
 simple expedients to get along, and end by 
 adopting, as permanent usages, the shifts they 
 had at first been compelled to practise. These, 
 with their descendants, become manners and 
 customs, to which the traveller is obliged to 
 conform. Their cooking, their washing, their 
 eating, their sleeping, and all their domestic 
 matters are got through with in the simplest 
 way, without much system, and with very little 
 ceremony. An explorer of this wild country 
 soon becomes accustomed to their ways, and is 
 quite contented — if he is a man of experience — 
 when he finds them good-tempered and clean. 
 He is generally hungry, and if he finds anything 
 on the table that he can eat with satisfaction, 
 he slicks to that, helping himself liberally at 
 first ; for inconstancy and the search after va- 
 riety do not generally produce useful results in 
 countries where the grand object is to lay in a 
 capital supply for the gastrics to work upon as 
 long as possible, and where there is not much 
 certainty about the next meal. The real cares 
 of such a traveller are food /or the day, and a 
 
78 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 clean lodging for the night. He may get some- 
 thing to eat at one place, and at -night he may 
 come to another with little or nothing that he 
 can eat, and must content himself with lying 
 down on the floor, wrapped up in his own gar- 
 ments, there to get what sleep he can amidst 
 the whole assembled family. His happy mo- 
 ments are all out of doors, where nature, always 
 clean and always attractive, generally compen- 
 sates him for every privation : there clinging to 
 the open woods and the murmuring streams as 
 long as daylight lasts, he reluctantly seeks the 
 habitation of man only when compelled by want 
 of food and rest. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Mine la Motte— Veins of Galena tlistuAed by electric Mat- 
 ter — Earthquake at New Madrid in 1811 — Fredericktown 
 — A Judge's Encomium on the Missouri Bar — Panther 
 Stories— Greenville— Fare at an opulent Missouri Farm- 
 er's — Life of a Squatter— How to " bring up" the Sover- 
 eign People — Bear Oil Currency— Scene in a Court of 
 Justice. 
 
 We soon began to cross some of the head 
 waters of the river St. Francis, and after pass- 
 ing a deep ravine where strong horizontal led- 
 ges of sandstone jutted out on its sides, we 
 came upon an extensive table-land, where the 
 trees being nearly all cut down, I supposed we 
 were near the mine : soon after we reached 
 some miserable log cabins on a naked plain, in- 
 habited by the most ignorant human beings I 
 almost ever conversed with, the mothers and 
 wives of some of the labouringminers. A couple 
 of miles farther on we came to the old French 
 village of Mine la Motte, where was another 
 set of miserable huts, in the inside of one or two 
 of which, however, I perceived some signs of 
 hope, such as tea things neatly arranged, bed- 
 curtains, looking-glasses, &c., belonging to the 
 families of some English miners, as we found 
 upon inquiry. Speculators from all quarters 
 seem to have resorted to this place; the French 
 are not very numerous, and those who succeed 
 the best are the English, who have been brought 
 up to mining in their native country ; for being 
 conversant with the throw of veins, and accus- 
 tomed to follow a regular system of work, less 
 of their labour is wasted : the Americans, how- 
 ever, are gradually adopting their plans, and be- 
 ing ingenious mechanics and persevering men, 
 are beginning to do very well. What rather 
 surprised me was, that even Englishmen had 
 adopted the method of quarrying instead of sink- 
 ing shafts, alleging, as the reason, that the whole 
 vicinity was so cut up by pits made by those 
 who followed the practice of shallow digging, 
 that it was hardly practicable to do anything 
 but quarry the ore, for which the nature of the 
 surface offered great facilities. 
 
 This part of the lead district presents many 
 curious phenomena deserving attention. Its 
 surface is upon a table-land of great extent, with 
 a few inconsiderable streams passing through 
 it, and the diggings are so numerous in every 
 direction, and the country is so wasted, ttiat the 
 cattle running at large frequently fall into the 
 holes. One quarry had been opened to the ex- 
 tent of fifty feet in length and twenty-five feet 
 in depth, and another had been irregularly work- 
 ed in the side of a hill for a greater distance, so 
 
 that sections of the manner in which the galena 
 was connected with the stony matter were ex- 
 hibited in various ways. At the quarry called 
 Mme la Prairie, the galena not only ran in the 
 rock in compact bands, as at Taplitt's, but in 
 some places was interspersed with it in small 
 patches, and sometimes the calcareo-siliceous 
 rock was even speckled throughout with minute 
 portions of the ore, so as to give the appearance 
 of the stony and metallic matter having both 
 come into place at the same time, for if either 
 the one or the other were abstracted, no prin- 
 ciple of cohesion would be left for the remain- 
 ing mineral. This ore is troublesome to reduce, 
 being much mixed with sulphuret of copper, and 
 only yields from 40 to 50 per cent. 
 
 In another quarry phenomena of a different 
 character presented themselves ; the calcareo- 
 siliceous rock .was so decomposed as to be quite 
 incoherent, and loose enough to be shovelled 
 out ; occasionally it changed its character, the^ 
 silex and lime being separated so as to leave 
 the rock sometimes hard, sometimes soft, some- 
 times granular, sometimes compact. In one 
 place I observed a seam of sandstone near three 
 feet thick lying upon a seam of bright galena 
 six inches broad, with limestone below. But 
 what inade this locality, where the constituents 
 of the calcareo-siliceous rock had separated, so 
 interesting, was the state of the galena found in 
 it. A band of ore, upwards of twelve inches 
 wide — which evidently had once run horizon- 
 tally in a compact body through the rock, like 
 that which we had seen at Taplitt's — was still 
 there, but shattered and dislocated into myriads 
 of sharp angular fragments, some of them stand- 
 ing on their edges in one direction, eight or ten 
 inches wide, and others at right angles to thein ; 
 whilst near to them parts of the original com- 
 pact horizontal band were lying flat on the rock 
 as if they had never been disturbed, resembling 
 the condition of the shattered flints in the chalk 
 cliffs at the Isle of Wight. For this phenome- 
 non, perhaps, the proxiinate cause is at hand, 
 in the subterranean disturbances that seem t» 
 be peculiar to this district, and which occurred 
 at New Madrid, on the Mississippi, in 1811 and 
 1812.* These produced very remarkable ef- 
 
 * New Madrid is a settlement on the right bank of the 
 Mississippi, about seventy miles south-east from this dis- 
 trict ; it received this name inconsequence of its having been 
 the site of an old Spanish post, and was settled first in 1780. 
 The country around is a flat alluvial area without a vestige 
 of rocky strata in any part of it, generally well wooded, but 
 containing two or three prairies of about five miles square, 
 where cotton and Indian corn are cultivated. 
 
 In the month of December, 1811, the inhabitants of New- 
 Madrid were roused in the night by distant rolling sounds 
 somewhat resembUag the discharge cf artillery ; soon after 
 this the earth began to rock to and fro, and to open into vast 
 chasms, from whence issued a dense vapour accompanied 
 with torrents of water. Near one-half of the county of New 
 Madrid was depressed about four feet from its ancient 
 level ; the bedsof ancjent lakes were upheaved, and became 
 areas of sand, and lands of the most fertile quality were 
 sunk in some places and converted into lakes, one of which 
 is said to be sixty miles long and from three to twenty miles 
 broad ; some parts of this lake are so shallow as to permit 
 the tops of the trees to appear above the water, but the 
 depth in other parts is said to be from fifty to (me hundred 
 feet. At one moment of this convulsion a portion of the 
 bed of the Mississippi was heaved up so high as to make its 
 waters refluent, and accumulate them to an extent which 
 menaced the sulimergence of all the adjacent country ; and 
 the settlers were only spared this evil by the increasing 
 power of the aqueous volume, which at length wore a pas- 
 sage through the artificial dam thui created, and restored 
 the channel. 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 fects ; tliey raised and depressed extensive dis- 
 tricts of country, filled up old lakes and formed 
 new ones, and completely changed the surface 
 of the country in the interior for a great distance 
 on the west side of the river ; a disturbing in- 
 lluence which, from causes unknown to us, may 
 have frequently visited this part of the country 
 Perhaps even the syenitic chain, which includes 
 the Iron Mountain, may have been thrust up at 
 the period when an electric power of great in- 
 tensity passed along these lodes, and brought 
 them into their present shattered condition. 
 
 Highly gratified by what I had seen here, we 
 departed (or Frederictown, four miles distant, 
 over a tolerably level country. This was the 
 ancient St. Michel of the French, in the vicinity 
 of whi(;h this modern American settlement has 
 been built on a hill, with its court-house and 
 steeple, a magnificent object to our now rustic 
 eyes, so long accustomed to log cabins. We 
 stopped at an indifferent-lotjking tavern, kept by 
 a German named Heihner, an intelligent and 
 good man, who was exceedingly unhappy at 
 this time, having had the misfortune to kill a 
 drunken Frenchman who had insulted and an- 
 noyed him excessively in his own house. He 
 was under bad for a large amount, but enter- 
 tained confident hopes that he would he acquit- 
 ted upon his trial, as it was known to many re- 
 spectable people that the Frenchman was the 
 aggressor, and would probably have slain Heth- 
 ner if he had not been too quick for him. 
 
 This tragical incident had occasioned a feud 
 in the place not very favourable to the poor Ger- 
 man's hopes, a strong party having been formed 
 exceedingly hostile to him ; for a majority of the 
 inhabitants being of French origin had taken up 
 the affair warndy, and being a foreigner he had 
 not as many friends as a native American would 
 have had. Nevertheless, he was not without 
 them ; some of the most respectable people 
 were determined he should have fair play, and 
 the magistrate who had admitted him to bail 
 was at the head of them. A person we became 
 acquainted with gave us an amusing account of 
 this worthy personage, who had been " raised" 
 on the frontier settlements of Kentucky, and el- 
 evated to the dignity of judge of the county 
 court here, not because he had ever studied 
 law, or any other art or science, but because he 
 was a thorough going party-man. The judge 
 was a straight-forward, fearless person, and, 
 having emigrated into the state of Missouri in 
 consequence of a ruinous law-suit, iiad brought 
 with him an utter detestation of lawyers. It 
 happened that the friends of the deceased 
 Frenchman had engaged the services of a con- 
 ceited, talkative, satirical limb of the law, who 
 also had come here to make his fortune, and 
 betwixt this man and his honor the judge a 
 grudge had arisen upon the following occasion. 
 Amongst the functions his honor was charged 
 with, was the duty of taking acknowledgments 
 of deeds ; and soon after his elevation to the 
 bench the attorney wailed upon him accompa- 
 nied by a female, and, presenting hmi with a long 
 conveyance, told him he was " to examine her 
 secretly and apart," whether she had signed the 
 deed by coaipulsion, and was to certify the afRda 
 vil immediately, as they wanted to use the deed 
 in half an hour. Ashe had never exercised this 
 fun(;tion before, and had no very clear notion 
 
 of what sort of examination she was to under 
 go, and, above all, not liking either the man or 
 his manner, he told him to leave the paper, and 
 that he would look it over and see what he 
 could do. To this the attorney testily replied, 
 "you have no business to look at the paper at 
 all, your business is only with the atlld'avit." A 
 little nettled at this want of reverence, the judge 
 as sharply rejoined, " I calculate you must take 
 me for a most almighty fool to suppose that I'm 
 a mind to swar to what's in that ar paper be- 
 fore I've read a word in it, and I ain't a-going- 
 to do no sich thing for no lawyers on the uni- 
 versal arth, I tell youV It was in vain his hon- 
 or was told that he was not the person that was 
 10 swear to the affidavit ; he would not listen 
 to the attorney, and the lady inclining to the 
 judge's opinion, and expressing a wish that he 
 would read the paper, the attorney was outvo- 
 ted and had to submit, taking his revenge, how- 
 ever, afterward, by ridiculing the judge upon 
 all occasions. At the period when this homi- 
 cide took place, his honor had received so many 
 affronts from the attorney that a " rumpus" was 
 expected betwixt them every time they met. 
 
 When Hethner was brought before tlie judge, 
 a violent altercation arose betwixt him and the 
 attorney on the propriety of admitting the ac- 
 cused to bail. Authorities were quoted, statutes 
 were produced, and the bench was emphatically 
 told that he " could not by law admit him to 
 bail, and that no man that was the very begin- 
 ning of a lawyer would say he could." To all 
 this his honor replied, " the court knows well- 
 enough what it's abaywt, it ain't a-going to do 
 no sich thing as read all them law books by no- 
 manner of means, and it's no use to carry on so, 
 for the court decides all the pynts agin you."'. 
 Having delivered the opinion of the bench with 
 great firmness, his honor now took to a remarka- 
 ble personal peculiarity he had, which was to 
 gather his lips together when he had made a 
 speech, and suck the air in with great vehemence. 
 No sooner, therefore, was the decision promul- 
 gated than the attorney sarcastically observed, 
 "Some folks gets their law from books, and 
 some folks, I calculate, mu.st suck it in" This- 
 sally having produced a universal titter, his hon- 
 or immediately arose to vindicate the dignity 
 of the bench, and addressed the following elo- 
 quent rebuke to the offending barrister : — " Suck 
 or no suck, I swar I ain't a-going to be bully- 
 ragged by no sich talking Juniuses as you, a 
 sniggering varmint that's the non compus men- 
 tus of all human abhorrence, and that's parfictly 
 intosticated with his own imperance — that's 
 the court's candid opinion — if it ain't, I wish 
 
 the court may be etarnally ." 
 
 I should have been glad to have visited other 
 parts of this interesting mining district before 
 the winter had set in, if my plans had permitted 
 me to do so, but we had still .500 miles of this 
 part of the country to travel over in a S.W. di- 
 rection before we could reach the Mexican fron- 
 tier, and during the whole of that distance. Lit- 
 tle Rock, upon the Arkansa River, was the only 
 village we should meet. Our horse Missouri, 
 too, had shown symptoms of not being equal to 
 the task of drawing his load over roads that 
 would probably not grow better as we advan- 
 ced : this was a discouraging circumstance, as 
 our sole dependence for accomplishing our touc 
 
80 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 •was upon him. I determined, therefore, to de- 
 fer my visit to Potosi and some other mines to 
 a more favourable opportunitv, and putting our 
 waggon into the-best order that we could, and 
 agreeing to ease our horse by walking the whole 
 "way if necessary, we took leave of this the last 
 village on our route to the Arkansa, and, with 
 my rifle on my shoulder, and my hammers in my 
 belt, and my son holding the reins, and walking 
 by my side, we now entered the endless forest. 
 In the course of the morning we got upon hilly 
 land, and found it less woody, but abounding in 
 pebbles of hornstone, masses of cellular mamil- 
 lary quartz, opaque flints, siliceous gravel, and 
 •everything indicating a mineral country where 
 •quatzose and siliceous matter had the dominion 
 Not only were the pebbles of mamillary quartz 
 agatized at the edges, but large nodules of 
 opaque flint in concentric circles occurred at 
 every step. These mineral indications increas- 
 ed as we advanced, and on an extensive ridge 
 ■which we had to traverse we could find nothing 
 but siliceous matter. Having made about six 
 miles, we passed some heads of the St. Francis, 
 the water of which was beautifully transparent, 
 as are all those of this siliceous region. 
 
 Seeing a smoke at some distance in these 
 pine barrens, I walked some distance to it in 
 the expectation of meeting with some person or 
 other, but it only turned out to be some old logs 
 burning ; and as we advanced we found the 
 whole country black and incinerated in every 
 direction, the woods having been generally on 
 fire. At Twelve Miles Creek we found some 
 obscure settlers, and at sixteen miles from 
 Frederictown we passed lofty hills of massive 
 dark reddish greenstone, probably connected 
 with the syenitic chain : we then fell down to 
 a bottom of some extent, and at twenty-three 
 miles crossed a mountain about two miles and 
 a half from foot to foot, composed of the old 
 siliceous matter, hornstone, mamillary quartz, 
 &c. A mile farther brought us to a settler's 
 named M'Faddin, on a fertile bottom of land, 
 half a mile east of the river St. Francis. The 
 bed of this stream contains great quantities of 
 siliceous gravel, a circumstance unfavourable 
 to the erection of water-mills, since it makes it 
 difficult to lay their mill-dams on the solid rock, 
 and when they do not succeed in doing so, the 
 water dodges under the gravel, and the dam 
 comes down. For this reason the people about 
 here are frequently obliged to send their corn 
 fifteen or twenty miles to be ground. Mr. 
 M'Faddin showed me pieces of galena that he 
 had ploughed up in his lands : zinc also and 
 manganese are found, which last the settlers 
 call black tin. In every direction the mountains 
 contain magnetic oxide of iron, this appearing 
 to be the favourite metallic associate of siliceous 
 countries. 
 
 Here we boiled our kettle, and got a refresh- 
 ing cup of tea, which, with the addition of a 
 mouthful of buffalo tongue, taken from a small 
 supply we had brought from St. Louis, set us 
 all right again. M'Faddin is an experienced 
 hunter, and entertained us with some capital 
 wild-beast stories. The panthers are numerous 
 about here, and are frequently killed. His son 
 and a negro man had lately driven one up a tree 
 with their dog, but they had no gun, and being 
 determined on having some sport they cut the 
 
 tree down with their a.xes. The animal not 
 being much stunned when he came to the 
 ground, immediately made fight and flew at 
 them ; but the negro having disabled him with 
 a gash from his axe, he was soon dispatched. 
 This was considered a daring achievement, for 
 the paniher when roused to resistance is con- 
 sidered dantrerous, and only to be dealt with by 
 the rifle. M'Faddin told us of a singular habit 
 of this animal, who, when he has killed a deer 
 or any creature he has mastered, first feeds 
 upon it, and then covers his prey over with 
 leaves, lying there to watch it until he is hun- 
 gry again, M'Faddin has frequently found a 
 stag covered in this manner, and the panther's 
 lair near to it, when he has been frightened 
 from it by the dogs. Only a very short tinae 
 ago he was searching the woods for his hogs, 
 when he roused a large panther, who taking to 
 a tree, was brought down with the rifle ; re- 
 turning to the place whence he started him, he 
 found one of his hogs covered up with leaves, 
 that the animal had killed and partly devoured. 
 Bears, too, are numerous, and when in the au- 
 tumnal evenings they are heard scratching ia 
 the dry leaves for mast, the hunter steab upon 
 them with his rifle : this is called stdl-hunling. 
 A mile from this place we got again upon the 
 calcareo-siliceous hills, the rock being fetid in 
 many places, and found masses of compact sul- 
 phate of barytes with the usual quartzose indi- 
 cations. The change of level was now con- 
 tinued from one hill and valley to another, and 
 rendered our progress slow ; at seven miles 
 from M'Faddin's we ascended a very abrupt hill 
 about 1200 feet high, composed entirely of sili- 
 ceous matter, and at the summit enjoyed what 
 we had been long strangers to, an extensive 
 view of the country. Immediately below us 
 was a very deep glen, as savage-looking as the 
 wildest nature could make it, distinguished by 
 a fearful but attractive character : we had been 
 told of this place, and that it was not resorted 
 to by panthers, because there was no water 
 near. It is water that makes herbage plentiful, 
 and the smaller animals attracted by it are fol- 
 lowed by the rapacious carnivorous ones which 
 prey upon them. To the N. and N.W. were 
 numerous lofty ridges running nearly parallel to 
 each other, like those of the Alleghany ; and 
 here and there to the west some remarkable 
 high cones, overtopping all the other mountains. 
 The ridge upon which we stood was not more 
 than 100 feet broad, and assuming a semicircu- 
 lar form, gave a crateri-form appearance to the 
 glen below. We enjoyed this view exceeding- 
 ly ; its extent and grandeur, the perfect silence 
 and solitude of the scene, the consciousness that 
 we were there alone, in a country so wild and 
 savage, that if any misfortune happened to us, 
 we could expect no assistance ; and the more 
 comfortable consciousness that we were in the 
 possession of health, strength, and resolution, 
 imparted a romantic and exhilarating feeling 
 that made us happy for the moment. 
 
 From this mountain, at the foot of which frag- 
 ments of galena have been found, we descended 
 three miles to Greenville, a poor wretched col- 
 lection of four or five wooden cabins, where the 
 miserable inhabitants die by inches of chills and 
 fever. It is a most distressing thing to arrive 
 at these settlements on the water-courses at 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 81 
 
 this season ; the poor people, feeble, emaciated, 
 and sallow, are just beginning to recover from 
 the malaria of the country : to many of the 
 persons whom I here saw life seemed to be a 
 burthen, whilst others were roistering about at 
 that indespensable' rendezvous of every seltle- 
 . ment, a dirty-looking store, where all the vaga- 
 bonds congregrate together, to discuss politics 
 and whiskey. The settlement, however, is 
 beautifully situated on a rich bottom of land on 
 the east bank of the St. Francis, a fine clear 
 stream about eighty yards broad, running thirty 
 feet lower than the banks at this time, but 
 "which often during the floods overflows them. 
 
 After feeding our horse, and endeavouring in 
 Tain to purchase a little milk for ourselves to 
 eke out some gingerbread we had, we proceed- 
 ed fifteen miles farther through mountains and 
 fertile bottoms resembling those of the morning, 
 until at night we reached a settler's of the name 
 of Stevenson, half a mile distant from Big Black 
 River, a tributary of White River, in the terri- 
 tory of Arkansa, which it joins a little south of 
 36° of N. lat. Here we were obligingly receiv- 
 ed, and having taken care of our horse, sat 
 down with the family to their humble evening's 
 repast. Not having eaten since I left Frederic- 
 town, I was ready enough, and there was some- 
 thing on the table they called a dish of meat ; 
 but it was such an extraordinary-looking afl^air, 
 that I did not venture even to taste it : there 
 •was also a companion to it which went by the 
 name of pumpkin pie, a dish that in the Atlantic 
 States is deserving of every commendation. I 
 did taste this, but it would not do; so asking 
 permission to boil a cup of my own tea, I ate a 
 sweet potato with it, and afterwards went into 
 the yard to eat a piece of gingerbread, for the 
 double purpose of satisfying the cravings of my 
 appetite, and of not giving offence to our hosts 
 by appearing to be above eating the fare they 
 had provided. 
 
 And here it is to be observed, that these peo- 
 ple occupied 160 acres of fertile bottom land, 
 had 1000 bushels of Indian corn ready harvest- 
 ed, two or three hundred bushels of wheat, nu- 
 merous cows, with a boundless range for them 
 on the adjacent hills and bottoms that afforded 
 excellent grass, great numbers of barn-door 
 fowls, wild turkeys in profusion around them, 
 deer to be had at an hour's notice ; and yet so 
 indolent were they, and so ignorant of the de- 
 cencies of existence, that they would not take 
 the least pams to prepare anything that was 
 nourishmg even for themselves. With such 
 people every repast, whether it be breakfast, 
 dinner, or supper — for there is no variety in 
 their meals — consists of the worst possible cof- 
 fee, indifferent dirty frothy-looking butter, black 
 sugar or honey, as the case may be, a little ba- 
 con, or some sort of dried meat cooked, I do 
 not know how, and as tough as leather, and 
 miserably made Indian corn bread : if you ask 
 for milk, the general answer is, " We ain't got 
 none, for the kayws is somehaw got a haunt of 
 not coming hum." Eggs we have not once 
 met with. 
 
 All these settlers are, in fact, drawn from the 
 poorest classes of Tennessee, Kentucky, and 
 Louisiana. Where they are agriculturists they 
 are hardworking enterprising men, always busy, 
 fencing, ploughing, chopping timber setting traps 
 
 for the wolves, hunting the panthers that de- 
 stroy their calves and swine, and are continu- 
 ally occupied without a moment's relaxation. 
 With them the ceremony of eating is an affair 
 of a few moments ; the grand object is to fill 
 the stomach as quick as possible with the usual 
 food ; this, from long habit, they prefer to any- 
 thing else; and the women having got into a 
 daily routine without any motive for changing 
 it in the slightest degree, and, indeed, witliout 
 even suspecting that it would be agreeable to 
 anybody to do so, go on preparing the same dis- 
 gusting coffee, pork, bread, and butter three 
 times a day, as long as they live. 
 
 If the settler is merely a hunter and a squat- 
 ter, you find a poor cabin and no farm ; a cow, 
 perhaps, that comes in from the woods once 
 every two or three days to get a little salt, and 
 that then only gives a leacupfull of milk. But 
 in most cases when you arrive, the owner of the 
 mansion is not at home, and in his place you 
 find six or seven ragged wild-looking imps, and 
 a skinny, burnt up, dirty female, who tells you 
 that he " is gone to help a neighbour to hunt up 
 an old painter that's been arter all the pigs ; he 
 ain't been hum in a week, and I reckon he's 
 stopt somewhar to help to shuck corn (the strip- 
 ping the maize from the husk when it is ripe) : 
 we han't not nothing in the house but a little 
 corn that I pounds as I uses it, and a couple of 
 racoons jist to sarve us till he gits back."* The 
 corn they consume is paid for in deer-skins, and 
 the heavier debts of the squatter he literally li- 
 quidates with bears' oil. K he has to negotiate 
 the purchase of a horse to the amount of 50 
 dollars, the items of the appropriation are as 
 follows : On or before Christmas he is "to tura 
 in" 15 gallons of bar (bear) oil, the current value 
 of which is one dollar per gallon ; twelve deer- 
 skins at 75 cents each ; then he is to go with 
 " a negur" to Big Swamp to help to " hunt up" 
 some young horses that were taken there six 
 months ago to pasture, and is to have a dollar 
 a day for that service ; and as to the rest, he 
 " is to git along with it somehaw or other." 
 
 This curious bargain I took down from the 
 mouth of one of these fellows who had been 
 born in the woods, had never even been in a 
 village, and knew nothing of the arts and cus- 
 toms of society. He seemed a fearless, good- 
 tempered creature, with a great deal of conceit 
 of his own cleverness ; had no property of his 
 own but his rifle, and never had possessed any 
 save that which he acquired by his wandering 
 and desultory pursuits. He had a prejudice 
 against all men who were not, like himself, 
 freed from every kind of restraint, and did not 
 go willingly amongst them. When I had con- 
 versed with him for some time, he asked me if • 
 I was a lawyer. I told him no, that I was afraid 
 I was nothing much to boast of in the way of 
 business. " Why, then," said he, " I swar that's 
 jist what I am, and I'm glad you are not a law- 
 yer, for the lawyers is the most cursedest var- 
 
 * A traveller in these districts told me that he once came 
 to such a place, where the number of little peltry clad imps 
 was so great, and they ran abont so quick, tliat he could not 
 get an opportunity of counting them. Not one of them had 
 a hat, and never liaving- used one, the hair of every one of 
 them was white. Upon his saying to the mother, " Why, 
 you have got a surprising^ quantity of children ; how do you 
 ever mean to brin? them up?" "Bring- 'em up!" replied 
 she, " why, my husband brings 'era up every Saturday, I 
 reckon, and then I washes 'em all." 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 mint, I reckon, that's abawt ." "Where have 
 you met with any lawyers," said I ; " there are 
 none in this part of the country 1" "Stranger," 
 he repUed, " I once lived ajyning (adjoining) to 
 the Gasconade what runs into the Missoura, 
 and so they set off Franklin Caywnty ajyning to 
 it ; and wherever they set up a caywnty, you 
 see, there the lawyers is sure to come. And 
 so a farmer what I owed fourteen deer-skins to, 
 sent a constable and tuk me, and wanted to 
 haul me into the caywnty, and so the more he 
 wanted me to go the more I wouldn't go, and I 
 gave him a most almighty whipping. Soon 
 arter three fellows comed from Franklin and 
 tuk me, and hauled me to what they called the 
 court-house, where there was a lawyer they 
 called Judge Monson, and he fined me ten gal- 
 lons for whipping the constable. ' Why,' said 
 I, 'you don't mean to say you'll make me pay 
 ten gallons for whipping that ar fellow T 'Yes, 
 I do,' says he, ' and that you shall see !' 'Then,' 
 
 says I, ' I calculate I'll whip you like the 
 
 first time I catch you in the woods, if I have to 
 pull all the bees and all the bars in Missoura 
 out of their holes.' And so the crittur had me 
 locked up till one of the settlers that wanted 
 me to do a job for him said he would pay the 
 ten gallons : but I didn't like them prac/yces ; I 
 seed the country warn't a going to be worth 
 living in, and so I left the Gasconade Caywnty 
 and comed here, for you'll mind that wherever 
 the lawyers and the court-houses come, the 
 other varmint, bars and sich like, are sure to 
 quit." 
 
 Characters of this kind are now only to be 
 met with on the remote frontiers : most of their 
 cabins are destitute of furniture and food, and 
 at certain seasons the sickly inhabitants look as 
 if their clothes had never been taken off, their 
 faces washed, or their hair combed. The set- 
 tling of the country is a great annoyance to men 
 of this class ; for where the white man comes 
 to plant and live, the buffalo and elk will not 
 stay, the deer and bear become thinned off, and 
 amongst his former friends the hunter is almost 
 reduced at last to the deer, the wild turkey, the 
 racoon, and opossum, which being totally insuf- 
 ficient for his wants, he gradually becomes a 
 dependant upon the more opulent planter, the 
 only person who has always something to eat. 
 This he tries for a while, and pays for his sub- 
 sistence in little jobs ; but the restraint is too 
 great, and at length he bursts his chains, and 
 plunges into the wilderness some hundreds of 
 miles off, " whar the bars is a plenty." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIl. 
 
 Big Black River —First appearance of Parroqueets — Elk 
 and Buffalo— Little|Black River— A Disaster and a Night 
 in the Woods — Ivory-billed Woodpeckers, and one of the ; 
 Sovereign People unable to hold the reins of Govern- 
 ment—A Forest on Fire— The Currant River. 
 
 At the break of day 1 left my uncomfortable 
 bed, and having refreshed myself at the well, 
 examined a ravine not far from the house, in 
 the banks of which I found some very long and 
 curious stalactitic rods of oxide of iron. Veins 
 of micaceous oxide are very abundant in this 
 neighbourhood, and some hunters who frequent 
 the mountains inform me that it is in the great- 
 
 est profusion in various localities there. Pur- 
 suing our journey, we came to Big Black River^ 
 a broad limpid stream, with a rapid current 
 moving down so swiftly that our horse, after 
 taking us one-third of the distance across, be- 
 came alarmed, and 1 was afraid we were going 
 to have a scene with him. We found it impos- 
 sible to get him to move without compromising 
 the safety of our vehicle and luggage ; so, after 
 trying in vain to get him on for a quarter of an 
 hour, it became at length necessary for one of 
 us to get into the river and try to lead him. My 
 son accordingly got into the water and led him 
 a few steps, whilst I plied him with the whip 
 to prevent his stopping. On nearing the shore 
 we found the water almost took him off his legs, 
 and my son, finding it too deep to walk, let him 
 go. In this dilemma, and every moment ex- 
 pecting to come to a grand stand-still, I happily 
 reached the bank, but with the waggon full of 
 water, and my son scrambled out of the river as 
 well as he could It had been a severe frost 
 during the past night, the water was bitterly 
 cold, and he suffered a good deal ; so we stop- 
 ped on getting to dry land, and soon got up a 
 cheerful fire for him to change his clothes at. 
 We now perceived that, if we had taken a dif- 
 ferent period for passing these mountains, we 
 could not have proceeded, for in the rainy pe- 
 riods these fords are impracticable for wheels, 
 as well as many of the bayous and creeks. 
 
 After travelling some distance through the 
 forest, we got upon an extensive bottom, where 
 we again found the country on fire, the leaves 
 and twigs all burnt up, and every thing as black 
 as soot. At length we reached a place where 
 fire had not passed, and as there was a small 
 clear running stream close by, we determined 
 to make this our breakfast parlour. Whilst my 
 son attended to our horse, I collected materials 
 for a fire ; and after many vain attempts to light 
 it with some pretended English matches I had 
 procured in Baltimore, I succeeded. The next 
 thing was to set our new tin tea-kettle that we 
 had procured at St. Louis on the fire, and bring 
 it to boiling heat. All this I did with so much 
 dispatch and apparent cleverness, that I could 
 not help calling to my companion to observe 
 my rare dispositions in the culinary line. Un- 
 fortunately, I was too soon obliged to put a 
 much lower estimate upon them than I at first 
 thought they deserved, for my son, coming to 
 the fire, communicated the alarming informa- 
 tion that I had made a veteran of the new ket- 
 tle on its very first performance. The fact was 
 that I had left it a few minutes, and the fire 
 burning up fiercely had made it completely black 
 with smoke, and what was worse, and was a 
 serious misfortune, had melted all the soldering 
 from both the spout and the handle, so that we 
 were immensely puzzled how to take hold of it 
 and convey it to the teapot. We, nevertheless, 
 made a cheerful and hearty breakfast. Mrs. 
 Stevenson had managed to put us up a bottle of 
 new milk before we came away, we had good 
 black tea, nice loaf sugar, some biscuit and buf- 
 falo tongue, and were in capital spirits. As we 
 were breakfasting, four beautiful crested wood- 
 ducks alighted in the stream not far from us, 
 but they became alarmed before we succeeded 
 in getting a shot at them. Just before we left 
 the place, we perceived that our fire was creep- 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 ing through the leaves, and that, if not extin- 
 guished, It might produce a serious conflagra- 
 tion. Thinking it right to leave Nature as clean 
 as we (bund her, we spent about a quarter of an 
 hour in bringing pails of water from the stream 
 untd the fire was out. Many careless persons 
 do not take so much trouble ; they kindle a fire, 
 and then leave it unextinguished ; the conse- 
 quence of which frequently is, that many thou- 
 sands of acres are burnt over, the mast upon 
 which the deer and bears would have fed is de- 
 stroyed, the buildings of the farmer endangered, 
 his fences burnt down, and his corn-fiekls in- 
 jured- The hunters, too, sometimes, with the 
 intention of driving the game to a particular 
 quarter, will purposely fire the country in vari- 
 ous places, indifferent to the devastation and 
 inconvenience they cause ; and all this merely 
 to get a few deer with greater dispatch than 
 they would do by going a little farther into the 
 country. It is in vain to remonstrate with these 
 men ; they live by getting deer, and as they look 
 upon the farmer as an intruder, have little or 
 no sympathy for him. 
 
 A few miles from this place we came to a 
 shallow ravine, or dry bayou, with a little stag- 
 nant water at the bottom. The bank was very 
 steep ; and when we got down our wheels stuck 
 fast in a mud-hole, from which our horse with 
 all his efforts could not extricate them. After 
 many futile attempts, we were obliged to take 
 him out, unload the carriage, cut poles and logs 
 to place before the horse as a bridge for him to 
 stand on, and using others as levers, finally, 
 after three hours' hard work, succeeded in suc- 
 cessfully assisting Missouri to get us out of the 
 bayou. We now reloaded and pursued our 
 journey, and after travelling a few miles over a 
 kind of ridgy country, sometimes upon calcareo- 
 siliceous beds, at others upon siliceous rocks, 
 came to one small ridge which we found almost 
 composed of millions of tons of the very best 
 gun-flint, equal in quality to the chalk-flmt of 
 Europe ; a substance unknown in the United 
 States, there being no chalk beds hitherto dis- 
 covered there. 
 
 Descending to the south we came to some 
 very beautiful situations of fine dry undulating 
 land, easy of access, the slopes exceedingly gen- 
 tle, and beautiful woodland trees scattered about 
 as they are seen in the charming park scenery 
 of England. Having made about fourteen miles 
 we stopped to feed our horse at a Mr. Eppes's, 
 who has a plantation on a very fertile bottom, 
 and here we saw the first appearance of a cane- 
 brake {Miegia macrosperma) : this plant is al- 
 ways indicative of good soil, and in some por- 
 tions of the southern States pushes up its jointed 
 stem amidst the forest trees so thickly that a 
 chicken would sometimes find it difficult to creep 
 betwixt the plants. We had also other indica- 
 tions of a Southern latitude here : small flocks 
 of parroqueets were wheeling and screaming 
 about in the bright sun, and showing their brill- 
 iant colours to the greatest advantage. 
 
 Upon the wall of the cabin where the family 
 ]ived was a frame upon which the skin of an elk 
 was stretched that Mr. Eppes had killed the day 
 before. Learning that he was in a corn-fielii 
 about half a mile distant, I walked there and 
 found him, when he confirmed to me what I had 
 before heard, that in the " Big Swamp," which 
 
 bordered his plantation on the east, and which 
 extended about twenty miles to the river St. 
 Francis, there were still a great many elk and 
 buffalo, the only situation in which these ani- 
 mals are to be found east of the most advanced 
 settlements of the whites, it being favourable to 
 them from the great extent of the swamp, the 
 luxuriance of the wild grass, and the absence of 
 man. Mr. Eppes related to me that two or 
 three days ago he and his son had entered the 
 Big Swamp to hunt up some young horses they 
 had turned into it in the spring to thrive upon 
 the leaves of the miegia, which granivorous an- 
 imals are very fond of; that wandering about 
 in the mazes of the swamp, and tearing their 
 clothes to rags amongst the green briars {snnlax), 
 the supple jacks {Mnoplia voluhiHs), saw briar 
 {Schranha homdula), and all sorts of pests of 
 their kind, they had lost themselves, and know- 
 ing of no method to find out where they were, 
 but going to the river to observe the direction: 
 of the current, they crossed a broad "sign" or 
 track of buffalo, where at least forty of them had 
 recently passed. This they knew by their dung, 
 the marks of their hoofs, and the peculiar tracks 
 these animals make when they travel. Sooa 
 afterwards they crossed a " sign" of numerous 
 elk, and whilst they were deliberating what to- 
 do, three large ones came trotting up and stood 
 still at no great distance from them. Mr. Eppes 
 fired and one of the elk dropped : the others 
 stood some time by their fallen companion, but 
 made off before he had time to load again. He 
 said they were about the size of a large Spanish 
 mule, and that they looked extremely well with 
 their branching antlers when they first came 
 boldly up. Having skinned the animal they left 
 the carcase behind, and soon after, coming upoa 
 their own trail, proceeded home. 
 
 From hence we proceeded through some 
 pleasant open woods, consisting principally of 
 oak-trees growing on a very fertile soil ; and 
 some time after night heard the murmuring 
 sound of Little Black River before us. I hesi- 
 tated a moment whether or not to stop and biv- 
 ouack here — our experience of the last ford we 
 had passed did not afford much encouragement 
 for a similar adventure in the dark ; but Mr. 
 Eppes had assured us the ford was an easy one, 
 Missouri seemed very willing, and I thought I 
 would proceed a few miles farther through the 
 thick woods, where we could have seen nothing 
 by daylight ; so whipping on our horse, away 
 we went literally, for, in making a sort of turn 
 to go down the bank, the nigh wheels, which 
 we could not see, got on a hummock of land;, 
 and the whole concern, including the \\nZ2^ 
 pecting Missouri, made a complete turn over, 
 luggage and all, leaving the waggon bottom up- 
 wards. We both of us jumped out, as we felt 
 we were coming to a "fix," and thought with 
 dismay upon this most disastrous occurrence. 
 Our fine-tempered horse behaved extremely 
 well ; instead of kicking up a rumpus in the 
 dark, and making things worse, which would 
 have been a very natural step for him to take, 
 he laid still, and permitted us to take the wag- 
 gon to pieces as well as we could, and to un- 
 buckle and unstrap him before he stirred ; he 
 seemed almost to comprehend us as we patted 
 and comforted liim ; and it was not until he 
 could neither hurt the waggon nor himself, that. 
 
84 
 
 TI^AVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 a little aided by us, lie maae an effort, and with 
 a plunge arose from tlie very awkard position 
 in which he lay with his bank down hill. 
 
 We were now brought to a "nonplush;" it 
 was dark, our luggage, our axes, our hammers, 
 our rifles, our everything that we had in the 
 world, was scattered on the beach, and we had 
 nothing to do but make the best of what had 
 happened, and endeavour to look cheerfully for- 
 ward rather than to look sorrowfully back. Our 
 first care was to tie up our horse, our next to 
 regain the bank, choose a level and open place 
 in the wood, and make a good fire. All this 
 being successfully done, we gave Missouri his 
 corn in the pail, and secured him for the night 
 with a long rope that admitted of his having a 
 limited range to pick up the wild grass in. We 
 next made a small fire on the beach, and by its 
 aid collected and put together the parts of our 
 waggon — not one of which was broken — and 
 drew it to a safe place beyond the danger of a 
 sudden rise of the stream. We then gathered 
 together our luggage, our provision-basket, and 
 all the articles we could see, leaving my loose 
 specimens and other small matters on the beach 
 until morning. Things being made as snug as 
 circumstances admitted of our making them, we 
 got a warm cup of tea and a mouthful to eat, 
 and then proceeded to lay in a supply of logs 
 for our fire. 
 
 It was a very cold night, and unfortunately 
 dead wood was not plentiful where our camp 
 was pitched ; having, therefore, collected all 
 that was at hand, we went to work and cut 
 down some young trees, a laborious operation 
 that made our hands sore. The last thing was 
 to spread our buffalo-hides on the ground, put 
 our large blanket coats on, and lie with our feet 
 to the fire, my son taking the first watch. Ma- 
 king my pillow of some minerals that were tied 
 up in a bag, I tried to compose myself to sleep, 
 and looking upwards at the brilliant stars of 
 heaven through the tops of the trees, waited 
 until the oblivious moment should come upon 
 nie, which at length it did, and dreams of other 
 scenes came and went in my wandering ima- 
 gination. Besides the rigour of the weather, 
 the damp from the river fell heavily upon us, so 
 that we were constantly obliged to replenish 
 our fire, and twice had to get up and cut more 
 wood. Durmg the night various animals, at- 
 tracted no doubt by the fire, came rustling 
 through the leaves and alarmed our horse ; the 
 whooping of the owls was disagreeably fre- 
 quent; the howling of the wolves and barking 
 of the foxes were more amusing. But there 
 was one animal, however, most resolutely and 
 mischievously curious, and which we could not 
 drive away. What it was we could not see ex- 
 actly, as it did not come very near to the fire, 
 but kept constantly hovering and prowling 
 about . sometimes, when we attempted to drive 
 it away, it would cross the stream, but ere long 
 would come tramping back again. Missouri, 
 who was tethered close to us, would prick up 
 his ears and arch his neck, and look at u.s in a 
 very expressive manner, whenever he heard 
 this intruder in motion. As to ourselves, the 
 worst apprehensions we entertained from this 
 visitor were that it would trample our things to 
 piece? that lay scattered on the beach. Neither 
 of us being able to sleep much, we were glad 
 
 when the dawn came, and hastening to replen- 
 ish our fire, and take a hasty cup of tea, we col- 
 lected our disjcrta membra and prepared to start. 
 I missed, however, a large towel I had used the 
 preceding evening, which I remembered well 
 having spread out over a bush before I supped ; 
 and my son assuring me that he had not remo- 
 ved it, we came to the unavoidable conclusion 
 that our nocturnal visitor must have taken it. 
 Just before we turned down the bank to go to 
 the river, looking up the woodland road we had 
 travelled, I saw sometliing like a parcel lying at 
 a distance on the ground, and going to it, found 
 it was my towel, quite wet and rolled up in a 
 very odd manner. Casting my eyes round, I 
 saw a cow in the woods looking at me, the 
 identical animal that had annoyed us during the 
 night : she had taken the towel and amused 
 herself with chewing it, until she found she 
 could make nothing but a towel of it, and had 
 then dropped it. These animals sometimes 
 stray to great distances from the settlements. 
 I was glad to find my towel ; and having wash- 
 ed it well at the river, and made up a little fire 
 to dry it, we finally crossed the stream and pur- 
 sued our journey. 
 
 We soon rose again to the table-land, and 
 got upon our old ground, the calcareo-siliceous 
 rock : it was a fine open country, and very ex- 
 tensive ; and the trees were so far asunder 
 from each other that we could have imagined 
 ourselves travelling through some park. Here 
 we saw the first ivory-billed woodpeckers {Pi- 
 cus principalis), a beautiful bird, not found far- 
 ther north than this part of the country. About 
 10 A.M. we came up with a sorry-looking horse, 
 with a saddle on his back, grazing without a ri- 
 der ; and two miles farther found a man, with 
 a gun by his side, bleeding, and lying apparent- 
 ly senseless on the ground. At first we thought 
 he had fractured his skull by a fall from his 
 horse, and began to consider what we could do 
 for him ; but we soon found that he was beast- 
 ly drunk, and had probably fallen from his horse 
 because he was unable to keep his seat. We 
 therefore left him to get sober, as probably his 
 horse and himself were accustomed to freaks of 
 this sort. Towards noon we were evidently 
 advancing to a part of the country which was 
 on fire, and soon became enveloped in a dense 
 and distressing smoke. Our eyes became so 
 sore that it was very difficult to drive, and the 
 horse suffered as well as ourselves. Many of 
 the dead trees had been burnt so near to the 
 ground, that they had fallen in various places 
 across the path, which obliged us to wind about 
 as well as we could amongst the tall trees on 
 fire — that were here rather too thick for our 
 safety — under constant apprehension that some 
 of them would fall upon us. The severe ner- 
 vous headache I got during this morning's drive 
 was almost insupportable ; the smoke was black 
 and dense, and filled our eyes and our nostrils. 
 
 Worn out with pain and fatigue, we reached 
 a Mrs. Harris's in the afternoon, and were glad 
 to remain here the rest of the day, although we 
 had only made fifteen miles. She was a widow, 
 with some sons and daughters, and we were kind- 
 ly received, but all that they had to offer us was 
 bad fried bits of pork, with worse bread, and no 
 milk. Towards night the fire gained upon the 
 country so fast, that the family became alarmed 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 85 
 
 for their fences and buildings, and all hands 
 were turned out to occupy themselves in wliat 
 they called " fighting the fire." Night having 
 fallen, we could see a fiery horizon through the 
 forest in every direction, and hear the crackling 
 of the advancing conflagration. It was a most 
 interesting spectacle, and, notwithstanding my 
 indisposition, I was out until a late hour ob- 
 serving it. We were upon an elevated table- 
 land, «)vered with dry autumnal leaves, grass, 
 and sticks, upon which stood numerous dead 
 and dry trees killed by previous fires. Not a 
 quarter of a mile from the house was a nar- 
 row edging of bright crackling fire, sometimes 
 not more than two inches broad, but much wider 
 when it met with large quantities of combusti- 
 ble matter. On it came in a waving line, con- 
 suming every thing before it, and setting fire to 
 the dead trees, that, like so many burning masts, 
 illuminated the scorched and gloomy background 
 behind, and over which the wind— against which 
 the fire was advancing— drove the smoke. Ev- 
 ery now and then one of the flaming trees would 
 come to the ground : and the noise thus pro- 
 duced, the constant crackling of the devouring 
 element, the brilliancy of the conflagration, and 1 
 the extent of the spectacle, formed a picture 
 that neither description nor painting could do 
 justice to. The wild turn our minds had caught 
 from the scenes we were daily passing through 
 was singularly increased by this adventure, and 
 amidst many exclamations of admiration we re- 
 tired late in the night to the house. I measured 
 the progress of the fire, and found that it ad- 
 vanced at the rate of about a foot a minute, 
 leaving every thing incinerated behind it, and 
 casting a beautiful warm light into the forest ! 
 in front where we stood. To "fight the fire" 
 means to beat this edging of flame out with 
 sticks, which it is not difficult to do when it 
 first begins ; but when it has extended itself 
 several hundred yards, it is generally beyond 
 the power of a very few individuals to accom- 
 plish. Upon this occasion the line of fire in 
 front of the buildings was extinguished, but not 
 Avithout great exertions. 
 
 Fires of this kind are much dreaded by the 
 agricultural settler. If his buildings and fences 
 are burnt, his cattle and swine destroy what lit- 
 tle crop he has, and at any rate, the advancing fire 
 destroys the mast about the country, upon which 
 many depend for the subsistence of their stock, 
 which often have nothing else to eat : for the 
 small settlers have no fields, with the exception 
 of one or two in which they raise their Indian 
 corn ; they raise no wheat, no rye, no oats ; 
 they have no meadows, and, of course, no hay 
 or straw ; the little fodder they have they save 
 from the leaves of their corn-stalks ; and there 
 being nothmg for the cattle at the homestead, 
 they roam about the country to pick up the 
 mast ; the which if it fails, they get so little to 
 eat at the farm that few of them survive the 
 winter. Those who live near the corn-brakes 
 are more fortunate, the leaves of the miegia be- 
 ing always green, and affording a good deal of 
 nourishment. 
 
 Mrs. Harris's cabin was a double one, and of 
 course had two rooms ; a very proper arrange- 
 ment, as there were both males and females in 
 the family, and in one of these rooms were two 
 beds When we came in from "fighting the 
 
 fire," she pointed to one of the beds and said it 
 was for me ; and my son, taking it for granted 
 that the other was for himself, immediately turn- 
 ed down the clothes, a movement which he was 
 not long in discovering was somewhat prema- 
 ture, for our hostess told him that was her own 
 bed, and that she was going to sleep there. We 
 had no ground for contesting the matter, so lay 
 down in our great coats as we were fiecpiently 
 in the habit of doing, Mrs. Harris honouring us 
 with her company in the adjoining bed, her two 
 sons lying down on the floor, whilst the young 
 ladies very properly kept the other room exclu- 
 sively to themselves. In the morning the good 
 old lady asked me if I could give her some to- 
 bacco, as she was fond of smoking a pipe, and 
 appeared very much disappointed when I told 
 her I never used tobacco in any form. Take 
 them altogether, they were an amiable and good 
 family of people, and not without the means of 
 living comfortably if they only knew how to set 
 about it. 
 
 From this place we drove about eight miles 
 and descended to the valley through which the 
 Currant River flows, a beautiful pellucid stream 
 of from 70 to 80 yards wide, in the territory of 
 Arkansas. This river is deep, and contains a 
 great variety of fine fish ; salmon from 20 to 
 30 lbs. weight, large red horse suckers {Catas- 
 tonmsl) 10 to 15 lbs., buflfalo, drum {Corvinal), 
 perch, and large catfish of excellent quality. 
 The water of this river, coming from the sili- 
 ceous country to the north-west, is so limpid 
 that fish are seldom caught except in the night- 
 time. Having crossed the river in a ferry-btjat, 
 we stopped a short time at a very decent hiouse 
 of entertainment, wherewith the aid of our own 
 tea and sugar we made a tolerable breakfast. 
 On the banks of the stream I found non-fossil- 
 iferous beds of horizontal limestone with a good 
 deal of chert in them, and was fortunate enougli 
 to get a few rare specimens of the genus unio.* 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 The "Military Road"— Eleven-Mile Point River— Obli- 
 ging conduct of Widow Newlund — The advantages of 
 "camping out" — Our front and hind Wheels quarrel; 
 the liind Wheels turn back — Mr. and Mrs. Meriwether 
 — Two suspicious Travellers — Murder of Mr. Childers — 
 E.xtraordinary Spectacle produced by wild Pigeons — 
 Bury the remains of Mr. Childers. 
 
 Feom this place we were happy to learn that 
 a road had been cut out, through the territory 
 
 * The following fact, which is illustrative of the econo- 
 my of nature, may be found interesting to cunchologists. 
 Towards the sources of those streams which take their rise 
 in and flow exclusively over siliceous minerals, or where 
 calcareous matter is comparatively scarce, I found that 
 many of those varieties of the shells belonging to the genus 
 XJnio, which have been considered by some zealous cunchol- 
 ogists as distinct species, were wanting, with the exception 
 of a few that conformed in their external appearance to 
 those simple types found in the Schuylkill of Pennsylvania, 
 the Rappahannock of Virginia, and other Atlantic streams. 
 But where the streams, after leaving the siliceous beds, had 
 penetrated deeply into the hills amongst the calcareous beds, 
 or had risen almost amongst the calcareous beds at the 
 eastern slopings of the highlands, as some of them do, there 
 numbers of those beautiful varieties wanting in the sdiceous 
 districts, and which abound in the Cumberland and Ohio 
 Rivers, were always found. To minds not indoctrinated in 
 the mystery of specie making, it appears probable that the 
 external arrangement of a testaceous covering, which is so 
 much relied on by specie makers for establishing species in 
 the place of varieties, may, in a very great number of cases, 
 be due to the presence or absence of calcareous matter. 
 
86 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 of Arkansas, by authority of the government of 
 the United States, called the " MiUtary Road." 
 Entering upon it, we found the trees had been 
 razed close to the ground, and that the road 
 was distinguished by blazes cut into some of 
 the trees standing on the road-side, so that it 
 could not be mistaken ; a great comfort to trav- 
 ellers in such a wilderness. For a few miles 
 we pursued it through a fine bottom, then got 
 upon the horizontal limestone we had seen at 
 the Currant— which is probably the equivalent 
 of that at Herculaneum — and at length rose to 
 the level of our old friend the calcareo-siliceous 
 rock, where many rocky knolls appeared, alto- 
 gether petro-siliceous. Fourteen miles from 
 the Currant we crossed " Fourche de Thomas," 
 i? a deep fourche, or creek in the forest, but pass- 
 f ing here by the name of " Fourche de Mas," 
 according to the French method of abbreviation. 
 We passed it by an excellent wooden bridge 
 constructed in the best style, and had a good 
 view of the ledges of horizontal limestone crop- 
 ping out on the bank, which a little farther on 
 we found was overlaid by the siliceous rocks, 
 that soon presented nothing but quartz, horn- 
 stone, chert, and opaque and agatized flints. 
 One or more settlers here having quarrelled 
 about the direction of the Military Road, have 
 taken the liberty to cut roads resembling it, and 
 blazed the trees, to tlieir own cabins ; in conse- 
 quence of this we got out of our way, and after 
 driving sixteen miles, reached at a late hour a 
 Mr. Russel's, who moved his family in here about 
 twenty-four years ago, among the earliest Amer- 
 idacs who came to the territory of Arkansas. 
 Afe We were approaching the place, we saw two 
 wild-looking urchins of boys trailing a beeve's 
 head through the woods to bait a wolf-trap ; that 
 anmial abounding about here, and being fre- 
 quently caught in that way. 
 
 Last night we had the pleasure of Mrs. Har- 
 ris's company in our bed-room, and this night, 
 soon after we had retired, old Mrs. Russel, a 
 discreet matron of at least seventy, accompanied 
 by a sickly, unhappy-looking girl, of, perhaps, 
 eighteen, came into our room, where there 
 were three beds, upon one of which I was laid 
 down, and my son upon the other. Without 
 uttering a word, these amiable ladies very de- 
 liberately went through the ceremony of un- 
 robing and getting into the other bed. This to 
 be sure was an unexpected treat ; I thought my 
 son would never have done laughing, and cer- 
 tainly I never saw anything done with more 
 nonchalance. 
 
 Pursuing our journey the next morning, we 
 found an undulating country, the horizontal non- 
 fossiliferous limestone always in the valleys, 
 and the siliceous rocks on the high lands. We 
 found no fossils here ; it would almost seem as 
 if the waters which deposited all these beds 
 had been too hot to admit of animal life exist- 
 ing in the mineral matter. At Eleven- mile 
 Point River, another beautifully pellucid stream 
 about 130 yards broad, running through a fer- 
 ; tile bottom, we stopped to breakfast upon our 
 I , own provender, in a sorry hovel. There was 
 no man to attend the ferry, and we were obliged 
 to cross the stream in an awkward flat boat 
 jondiicted by a girl about 16 : the landing was 
 an exceedingly bad one, and in making it we 
 harely escaped ruining both horse and carriage. 
 
 The country from hence was rough and hilly 
 for six miles to Jackson, a wretched place which 
 passes for the county town, and which is situa- 
 ted — why I know not — at the inconvenient dis- 
 tance of a mile from a beautiful transparent 
 stream called Spring River. From hence we 
 drove fourteen miles over a country somewhat 
 less hilly, and part of it in open woods, to a 
 widow Newland's, where we were most misera- 
 bly provided for, and shown to a wretched, flock- 
 bed, neither long enough nor wide enough for 
 two to lie down upon ; which, perhaps, was the 
 reason why the good, considerate old lady did 
 not favour us with her company. 
 
 Early in the morning we gladly started again ; 
 we had passed a bad night and got nothing to 
 eat, and it was clear we should have fared much 
 better if from the first we had relied entirely 
 upon ourselves, and had " camped out" at nights. 
 We could have purchased meal and chickens at 
 some of the farm-houses, and could have made 
 a hearty repast of them at the end of the day. 
 " Camping out" to be sure is not always as 
 comfortable as sleeping under a roof, having in 
 the winter season many disadvantages ; still 
 even then there is much to be said in its favour, 
 and at any rate you don't find old widows every 
 night in the woods ; but it was important to 
 consider our horse ; he w'anted food and a stable 
 at night, and we were obliged to seek one for 
 him. 
 
 Jogging along we came to a rather deep and 
 dry bayou, with a very steep descent down into 
 it, and this part of the business we achieved 
 exceedingly well with both of us in the waggon ; 
 but Missouri being rather too confident made a 
 dash to get up the opposite bank, and my son 
 who had the reins aiding him lustily with the 
 whip to get out of the bayou, the horse, just at 
 the edge of the bank, made a desperate effort, 
 and successfully carried my son, the shafts, and 
 the front wheels for some short distance on our 
 route ; as to myself, I philosophically took the 
 part of the hind wheels, which, released from 
 all restraint, incontinently retreated back again 
 with me to the bottom of the bayou. It would 
 have amused a third person to have observed 
 us when we met again, looking at each other 
 upon the occasion of so melancholy a dismem- 
 berment of the machine that we so much de- 
 pended upon. But our discomfiture was so pal- 
 pable that no rooin was left for doubt or hesita- 
 tion, and we came instantly to the conclusion 
 that all other business must give place to wag- 
 gon-mending : so setting resolutely to work, we 
 dragged the hind wheels up the bank, cut some 
 stout stuff to splice our shafts, that were broken 
 clean from the axle-tree, and making use of the 
 ropes that we had happily furnished ourselves 
 with, in about three hours we got under way, 
 though in such a crippled state, that we were 
 now obliged to walk, a punishment too light for 
 having been so inconsiderate as to sit in the 
 waggon whilst the horse was drawing it out of 
 the bayou. Luckily the fore and hind wheels 
 kept upon tolerably good terms during the rest 
 of the day, except occasionally when we were 
 going down hill. 
 
 We were now on rather a flattish country with 
 open woods, and flocks of parroqueets scream- 
 ing around us. Being in advance about a mile, 
 and very near the bank of Slraioberry River, 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 87 
 
 I heard the cry of a wild goose, and getting a as well as he could by hunting, and trading, and 
 glimpse of him through the bushes, as he was ! raising a patch of corn. He said that the track 
 trumpeting on the other side of the stream, 1 1 by which we had come to his cabin from the 
 took It for" granted he was calling us to break- main-road, was part of the ancient Indian path 
 fast, and firing at him put a ball into his neck j or trail from Vincennes on the Wabash to 
 close to his head, a lucky shot that 1 could not ] Nachitoches in Mexico, and had been adopted 
 have made perhaps once in twenty times. 1 1 as the general road by white people moving in 
 immediately rushed through a ripple of the river that direction. This was the reason why so 
 to secure my prize, and seeing a cabin not far i many desperate men from all quarters, Span- 
 ofTwent there to wait for my son and inquire if iards, Frenchmen, Americans, and other out- 
 they bad any meal, but the people were steeped laws, had settled near it, and that the greater 
 
 in poverty and broken down by fever and ague. 
 We however made a breakfast of what we had. 
 
 part of the deserted cabins we had seen h 
 been inhabited by them. There, under the pre- 
 
 and were too glad to procure a feed of corn for tence of entertaining travellers, they got them 
 our horse. Before leaving the place I went into their cabins, and olten murdered them if 
 down to the river again, and c(dlected a great they had anything to be plundered of 
 many unios resembling those of the Cumber- j Wliilst he was thus entertaining us his dogs 
 land, but with a deeper flesh-coloured nacre in- • began to bark, and going to the door he found a 
 side. After breakfast I drove the horse, my tall, thin, pale young man, with a dirty blanket 
 son preferring to walk, and proceeding through { coat on, and a rifle in his hand, who asked if he 
 a fertile flat country, a very heavy ram set in ; i could get any milk and bread. He was very re- 
 the old saying, that it never rains difficulties j luctant to enter the house, but at length came 
 but it pours, was now verified, for in ascending in, and certainly his appearance was very for- 
 
 hill the coupling pin of the fore part of the j lorn 
 carriage came out, and the front and hinder 
 wheels again separated, and brought us to a 
 stand. This was a day of great trouble : we con- 
 trived, however, soaked through as we were, to 
 drag our waggon on with various luck, and in the 
 evening took shelter at a settler's called Meri- 
 wether, ten miles from the Strawberry. 
 
 Mr. Meriwether's log-cabin was at the top of 
 a hill a short distance from the main-road ; he 
 seemed to be a hearty good-fellow, for he as- 
 sisted us with great alacrity to get our tilings 
 out of the rain, and to take care of our poor 
 horse, who was very much jaded. On going 
 into the house we were made acquainted with 
 a person he called Mrs. Meriwether, but who 
 from her great height, which was six feet two 
 inches, an extraordinary dark, bony, hairy face, 
 and trimmings to match, I should have taken 
 for some South American grenadier in women's 
 clothes. Here, seated before a rousing fire, we 
 soon contrived to dry ourselves, and with the 
 aid of some of their milk, corn meal, and fried 
 pork, and our tea and sugar, managed to make 
 a hearty supper. Our appearance was the 
 greatest godsend imaginable to these worthy 
 people ; they were two of the greatest talkers I 
 ever heard, had not seen any travellers for a 
 long time, and now a fine opportunity occurred 
 of delivering everything they had to say. The 
 only great difl^culty they laboured under was, 
 that both wanted to talk at the same lime. 
 When Mr. Meriwether had fairly entered upon 
 one of his yarns, she would cut in upon him 
 with " Well, but, John, I've heer'n that so often 
 BOW ;" upon which he would say, " Jist give me 
 a chance to git through, and I swar you shall 
 have a chance too ; ride and tie, you know, 
 that's fair." 
 
 Our host said that he had been once a soldier, 
 and that he was a relative of Captain Meri- 
 wether Lewis, the associate of the venerable 
 Captain Clarke of St. Louis, in the exploration 
 of the country west of the Rocky Mountains, 
 and that he was with Captain Lewis when he 
 destroyed himself in Tennessee. He told me 
 that he had led an adventurous and merry life, 
 had not laid up a dollar, and was one of the 
 earliest settlers in Arkansas, where he got along 
 
 His story was, that himself and a com- 
 panion, with the intention of hunting a few 
 hours, had separated from the waggons, bound 
 from Illinois to Texas, in which their relatives 
 were, and that they had never been able to find 
 them again. This happened three weeks ago 
 after leaving St. Louis. Herculaneum was the 
 only place he could name as one which they 
 had passed through, but of the names of the 
 rivers and creeks he did not remember one. 
 Upon asking where his companion was, he said 
 he had left him at the foot of the hill. Our host 
 gave him a small quantity of sweet potatoes ; 
 and upon his saying that they had no money, 
 I gave him half a dollar to pay their ferry over 
 White River, which was not far off When he 
 was gone, old Meriwether and his wife thought 
 the story a very unsatisfactory one ; they could 
 not conceive how they could have crossed the 
 St. Francis, the Currant, and Strawberry rivers, 
 without hearing their names, and therefore pro- 
 nounced them to be a couple of vagabonds, who 
 had seen us on the road, and were now dogging 
 us with evil intentions. I was not quite con- 
 vinced of this, but listened willingly to the ad- 
 vice of our host to us to be vigilant. He said 
 that although there were a great many respect- 
 able settlers in the country now, yet there was 
 "a heap of villains" in it; and mentioned a 
 place on the Mississippi, called Helena, which 
 was in the territory of Arkansas, where all sorts 
 of "negur runners," counterfeiters," "horse- 
 stealers," " murderers, and sich like," took shel- 
 ter "agin the law." Nothing was easier, he 
 said, than for two fellows that were good marks- 
 men to pick off, with their rifles, two travellers 
 like us when we were not thinking of it. These 
 monitions he followed with a relation of the 
 story of a Mr. Childers, which was harrowing 
 enough. 
 
 This person, it appears, was an old bachelor, 
 and a man of some property ; a few years ago, 
 being on a journey, be slept at a man's on the 
 south side of White River, whose name was 
 Couch, and pursuing bis journey the next morn- 
 ing, was dogged to within two miles of Meri- 
 wether's cabin, and murdered when he was 
 asleep at his bivouac ; " and theie tiie old man's 
 bones are to this day," said Meriwether. I ex- 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 pressed here in strong terms my surprise to 
 him, that knowing these things he had not given 
 the remains a decent hurial. He replied that he 
 had ollen thought of it, but had never done it. 
 
 The hour of rest being come, we were shown 
 to a part of the cabin which was quite out of 
 repair, and where the weather came in freely 
 enough, for it rained in torrents the whole night. 
 We were, however, alone, and did not neglect 
 our host's advice to he vigilant. The appear- 
 ance of Mr., and especially of Mrs. Meriwether, 
 would have done credit to any melodrama; that 
 of the pale-faced young fellow was quite in 
 keeping, and these stories of outlaws, murders, 
 and especially the admitted fact that the re- 
 mains of a murdered man were yet unburied in 
 the neighbourhood, all made me thoughtful and 
 careful too. I had heard of Helena when in 
 Tennessee ; it had been described to me as a 
 sink of crime and infamy, and we were now not 
 far from it. Placing, therefore, our trunks 
 against the door, we prepared ourselves as well 
 as we could for any emergency before we laid 
 down to sleep ; but daylight broke with a clear 
 sky, and on going into the kitchen we found 
 our two hosts just as talkative and obliging as 
 ever. I therefore soon got over my suspicions ; 
 and finding that Meriwether was not only able 
 but willing to mend our waggon, I restored him 
 entirely to my good opinion. 
 
 A new and very interesting spectacle now 
 presented itself, in the incredible quantities of 
 wild pigeons that were abroad ; flocks of them 
 many miles long came across the country, one 
 flight succeeding to another, obscuring the day- 
 light, and in their swift motion creating a wind, 
 and producing a rushing and startling sound, 
 that cataracts of the first class might be proud 
 of. These flights of wild pigeons constitute 
 one of the most remarkable phenomena of the 
 western country. I remember once, when 
 amongst the Indians, seeing the woods loaded 
 from top to bottom with their nests for a great 
 number of miles, the heaviest branches of the 
 trees broken and fallen to the ground, which was 
 strewed with young birds dead and alive, that 
 the Indians in great numbers were picking up to 
 carry away with their horses: many of their 
 dogs were said to be gone mad with feeding upon 
 their putrefied remains. A forest thus loaded 
 and half destroyed with these birds, presents an 
 extraordinary spectacle which cannot be rival- 
 led ; hut when such myriads of timid birds as 
 the wild pigeon are on the wing, often wheeling 
 and performing evolutions almost as complicated 
 as pyrotechnic movements, and creating whirl- 
 winds as they move, they present an image of 
 the most fearful power. Our horse, Missouri, at 
 such times, has been so cowed by them, that 
 he would stand still and tremble in his harness, 
 whilst we ourselves were glad when their flight 
 was directed from us. 
 
 Whilst Meriwether was assisting my son to 
 repair our waggon, I went, under the guidance 
 [ of a little boy, the only one of their children 
 who had survived the efl^ects of the malaria, and 
 who was recovering from a broken arm that 
 had been badly set, to look for the remains of 
 Mr. Childers. We found the place where he 
 had been murdered, and after a very long search 
 amidst the dead leaves and rubbish, which a 
 little stream balled the Curie had carried there, 
 
 and near to which we had bivouacked, we at 
 length found a sort of heap of what appeared to 
 be soil, and taking some of the earthy matter in 
 my hands, I perceived a rank smell of putrefac- 
 tion Removing the heap with a spade I had 
 brought, I found what remained of the skeleton, 
 two shoulder blades, two thigh bones, two leg 
 bones, and one arm bone. The rest had prob- 
 ably been carried away either by the wild beasts 
 or by the stream at some time of high flood. 
 Having collected all the remains I could find, 1 
 dug a grave on the spot where he had been sleep- 
 ing when he was slain, and there deposited them 
 in their proper order, thus rescuing them, as far 
 as I could, from further dishonour. I then placed 
 a stone over the grave, and having charged my 
 little assistant to take care of it, and to put the ' 
 other bones in it if he should find them, I gave • 
 him a dollar to encourage him, and returned to 
 the cabin. 
 
 Mr. Meriwether informed me that in the hills 
 about this part of the country- there is a surpris- 
 ing quantity of micaceous oxide of iron — of 
 which I had shown him specimens ; and I found, 
 from his conversation, that the River St. Fran- 
 cis, which empties into the Mississippi, and the 
 Big Black, which empties into White River, are 
 very much choked up with rafts, the which if 
 they were cut out and the country drained, 
 several millions of acres of rich bottom land 
 would be reclaimed. There is galena also in 
 this part of the country ; a mine of which has 
 been opened somewhere up the Strawberry 
 River. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Description of White River — Judge Tucker's Cabin ; his 
 account of the Murder of Childers — Account of the first 
 Judge Lynch, and the state of Legal Practice in his 
 Court — A successful Speculation in Lead— Clock Ped- 
 lars insinuating Persons— White River Mountain— A 
 Rutlian of the first order. 
 
 Having repaired our waggon, we bade our 
 entertainers good bye, and proceeded through a 
 pretty undulating country to the settlement of a 
 Mr. Tunstall, an enterprising person of this dis- 
 trict, who lives in a tolerable house, built on a 
 well-chosen and pleasant situation. Here I saw 
 a fine field of wheat. But Mr. Tunstall being- 
 from home, we drove on towards White River, 
 through a tolerable road in sandy barrens, with 
 trees far apart. A great change in the climate 
 was here obvious : the trees, whose leaves 
 were all dead and had fallen when we left St. 
 Louis, were here green, as well as the shrubs ; 
 and various species of oak began to appear that 
 we had not seen before. As we proceeded 
 through these barrens. I got a glimpse of the 
 man in the dirty blanket coat who had called at 
 Meriwether's last night ; but as he disappeared 
 almost immediately. I thought it was possible 
 that he and his companion might have dodged 
 behind .some trees which appeared very thick 
 some distance before us. Although I did not 
 fully partake of the prejudices of Meriwether 
 against these men, who really might be honestly 
 pursuing their way to Texas, yet I thought it 
 prudent that we should be on our guard ; for the 
 place, being a wilderness, without a human 
 being to hear testimony to any thing, or to re- 
 ceive assistance from, was very opportune to 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 do us mischief. We accordingly concerted our 
 plan. My son was to remain in the waggon, 
 coming slowly along, and if he was attacked 
 was to abandon the waggon if necessary, and 
 come to close quarters with the axe ; whilst I 
 was to enter the woods quietly in advance of 
 my son, but always sufficiently near to him, and. 
 rifle in hand, was to turn and discover their 
 flank, and act accordingly, if I saw symptoms 
 of treachery. 
 
 The strange conduct of the man we had 
 spoken with, the unwillingness of the other to 
 show himself, the fact of their not having slept 
 at a house Meriwether had directed them to 
 (which we had ascertained), Mr. Meriwether's 
 raw-head and bloody-bone stories, and the bury- 
 ing of the bones, had rather disposed me to be 
 wary and uneasy ; but after advancing a con- 
 siderable distance with great caution, and ex- 
 amining all the trees on both sides of the road 
 without seeing any one, I rejoined my son. A 
 couple of miles farther on we saw them to- 
 gether ; and hearing our wheels, the unknown 
 fellow turned to look at us, and spoke to the 
 other, who did not turn round, which we con- 
 strued unfavourably, perhaps putting a wrong 
 construction upon everything they did, as I ob- 
 served at the time. I now determined to get 
 before these fellows, and putting the horse on 
 at his best pace, with our rifles prepared, we 
 came up to them and accosted them. Each had 
 a gun ready cocked. The unknown fellow hung 
 down his head ; but putting a close question to 
 him, he raised it to answer me, and I must say 
 that a more hang-gallows-looking phiz I never 
 saw. We now pushed on, my son driving, 
 whilst I kept my face turned to the men, but 
 they made no movement of an extraordinary 
 character ; and soon afterwards, the sun being 
 set, we entered the ample alluvial bottom of the 
 valley of White River, and having traversed a 
 canebrake, drove to the ferry. 
 
 This stream, which is very little known be- 
 yond the precincts of the territory of Arkansas, 
 is one of the most important and beautiful rivers 
 of North America. It takes its rise in the 
 western edge of that elevated country which 
 has obtained the name of Ozark* Mountains, 
 and receives several important tributaries, some 
 of which take their rise north of 37° of N. lat., 
 draining that charming portion of the territory 
 of Arkansas which is comprehended in the 
 county of Washington ; and pursuing a general 
 easterly course to its principal tributary. Big 
 Black River, it leaves, near that stream, the 
 petro-siliceous highlands to the north, and then, 
 after a serpentine course of from seven to eight 
 hundred miles, deflects to the south in 34° N. 
 !at., to increase the volume of the Mississippi. 
 The latter portion of its course lies through 
 alluvial lands of the most fertile quality, through 
 which it is navigable from its mouth up to 
 Batesville, a distance of 350 miles from the 
 Mississippi; and with little improvement could 
 — it is said— be made so 200 miles farther to 
 the westward. The valley of White River, 
 where we crossed it, divides the petro-siliceous 
 highlands into two portions ; and the river, 
 when full, is about 200 yards wide. At this 
 
 * A. comip ion of aux ^res, the French abbreviation 
 •I auz Arkansas. 
 
 M 
 
 season the stream was low, but exceedingly 
 pellucid, and there was a great margin of beach 
 on each side. 
 
 At the ferry we were told we could obtain 
 " first-rate accommodation" at a Judge Tucker's,, 
 a magistrate who lived a mile farther on the 
 road . 
 
 Comforting ourselves with this prospect, and 
 forgetting that " first-rate," in a ferryman's 
 mouth, might be a qualification only squaring 
 with his own taste, we hastened on, and, to our 
 great mortification, found the Judge living in 
 one of the most dirty and unprovided holes we 
 had yet got into, in addition to which his chil- 
 dren and himself too were just recovering from 
 the malaria. I pitied thetn, for, bred up in dirt, 
 it was evident they knew not what cleanliness 
 meant ; he himself seemed poor and broken- 
 spirited, but was civil and communicative. It 
 turned out that he was the magistrate who had 
 to inquire into the murder of Childers, the cir- 
 cumstances of which, as we learned them from 
 him, were as follows : — It was known that this 
 unfortunate man had lodged at Couch's, and 
 that Couch was under particular obligations to 
 him. Many weeks after his departure from this 
 man's, a boy going through a cane-brake in the 
 neighbourhood of Couch's house, saw, as he 
 thought, a bear lying down in the brake, and 
 fired at it : believing he had killed it, he walked 
 up and found upon examination that it was a 
 bundle of clothes tied up, and apparently hid 
 away. Upon opening it lie found a great-coat; 
 that he remembered Mr. Childers to have worn, 
 together with other things, and taking the bun- 
 dle to Squire Tucker — our host — he, without 
 loss of time, communicated the fact to some of 
 his friends. After some deliberation they came 
 to the unanimous opinion that Childers had been 
 murdered by Couch whilst sleeping in his house, 
 and that the bundle, which contained nothing 
 but what had belonged to the unfortunate man, 
 had been secreted by him. 
 
 Proceeding, therefore, to his residence, they 
 informed him of the bundle having been found, 
 and charged him with the murder of his guest. 
 He stoutly denied the charge, and professed his 
 ignorance of the manner in which the bundle 
 had got to the cane-brake, admitting at the 
 same time that he remembered seeing the 
 clothes in the possession of Childers. As the 
 man persisted with great energy in this decla- 
 ration, and they had no collateral evidence of 
 any kind to support their charge, except the 
 important circumstance that Childers had slept 
 in his hou.se the last time he had been seen, 
 they thought it expedient to submit the case to 
 the highest legal authority then existing in that 
 part of Arkansas. 
 
 This was a very awful personage named 
 .fudge Lynch, whose unrivalled ability in the 
 science of cross-questioning had often thrown 
 light upon the most obscure cases. This talent 
 he had inherited from a famous Virginian an- 
 cestor of his, who lived when the back settle- 
 ments of that colony were also in that happy 
 state of Cocagna which flourishes for a while 
 in every region that is invaded by the advanc- 
 ing population, and where every man, being 
 without restraint, does as he pleases, unless a 
 stronger man interferes. This ancestor, the 
 first Judge Lynch, was a miller and a justice of 
 
90 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 the peace in the back woods ; he had been there 
 from his youth, before the western counties of 
 Virginia were organized, was a man of expe- 
 rience and sagacity, and was acquainted with 
 everything that was passing around him. When 
 a " spree" of a desperate kind occurred, and 
 the atrocity that had been committed had made it 
 necessary for the many to combine against a sus- 
 pected individual, the first step was to appre- 
 hend and take him before the Judge, where all 
 the circumstances of the case, and the proofs 
 to support the charge, were entered into. 
 
 If his Honour saw that the evidence was not 
 strong enough to send him to the seat of gov- 
 ernment with any hope of conviction, and that 
 all the trouble and expense would go for no- 
 thing, besides giving a triumph to the accused 
 party in treating him to a sight of the great 
 world, and lettmg him come back whitewashed 
 into the bargain, — he used to say, " Gentlemen, 
 I swar this won't work no haw, fix it haw you 
 will ; and I reckon the shortest way is to git it 
 out of him with the kayw hide." The party 
 Avas now stripped to the skin, and tied securely, 
 with his face and breast close to a tree, so as 
 to exhibit the best possible view of his dorsal 
 proportions. Two stout fellows, armed with 
 knotted thongs made from a tough hide, were 
 then appointed to keep the flies from his upper 
 and lower parts, and the Judge stood by to 
 direct operations. His invariable rule was to 
 order the administration of twenty smart strokes 
 of the thongs before "axing no questions;" 
 this he said " somehaw stirred the man up, and 
 put up him upon thinking they were in arnest." 
 Now, although the Judge was regarded as a 
 consistent person, and always ordered neither 
 more nor less than twenty strokes to be given, 
 yet it somehow always struck the party most 
 interested in counting them that he got forty 
 instead of twenty, a discrimination which per- 
 haps escaped the Judge, who might have ima- 
 gined—the practice being to apply twenty to 
 the shoulders, and twenty somewhat lower 
 down — that the suffering component parts 
 would each keep the arithmetical account, and 
 not the entire man. It certainly had the effect 
 of producing a perfect conviction that they were 
 " in arnest," accompanied with a correspond- 
 ing strain of piteous entreaty to stop. His 
 Honour would then mercifully ask him "haw 
 many more would you like to have before 
 you've made up your mind, for thar's a heap 
 a-coming, I tell you." But the more the poor 
 devil prayed them to believe he was innocent, 
 and to cease tormenting him, the more they 
 seemed disposed to believe him guilty, and to 
 increase his tortures : if the Judge benevolently 
 ordered him ten strokes, the recipient— such is 
 the discrepancy between theory and practice — 
 knew very well that they would come to twenty, 
 and so in proportion at every renewal of his 
 flagellation. 
 
 Now as it is of the very essence of crime to 
 seek a present apparent advantage at the risk 
 of bringing down a future terrible evil, so a de- 
 ferred death loses its terrors with individuals 
 drawn from the lowest classes, when compared 
 with present sufferings that appear intermina- 
 ble, and thus the unfortunate devils under Lynch 
 law sooner or later generally said, in answer 
 to the Judge's kind inquiry — which interroga- 
 
 tory he called cross questioning — " haw many 
 more do you reckon you can stand nowV 
 " Why, Judge, sartin no man alive can stand 
 this long." " Then, gentlemen," the Judge 
 would tenderly say, " jist give him three kctel 
 wales to help it out of the hopper," alluding to 
 the grain that sometimes stuck fast in the hop- 
 per of his mill, which he thus facetiously com- 
 pared to the confession that seemed to stick in 
 the man's throat. A confession was generally 
 the result, and thus the sagacity and summary 
 process of Judge Lynch raised his name to the 
 pinnacle of fame, and to this day makes Lynch 
 law the terror of those evil doers who, in those 
 countries where there is no other law, would 
 be without the fear of anything to control their 
 actions. 
 
 In this manner the tavern-keeper Couch was 
 tied to a tree, and submitted to the searching 
 cross-questions of Judge Lynch ; but as my in- 
 formant — who was present — told me, he did not 
 stand it long, confessing that a man of the name 
 of Allen had met with Childers at his house, 
 and finding that he had some money with him 
 and two fine young horses, had dogged him the 
 next day. Two days afterwards he said Allen 
 came in the night to his house on the horse 
 Childers had rode, leading the other, and bring- 
 ing with him the plunder he had got ; upon 
 occasion he communicated to Couch that he 
 came upon Childers when he was asleep, and 
 knocked him on the head with a stake he had 
 cut, when Childers sprung on his legs and had 
 a hard struggle with him ; but that having 
 thrown him down he at length despatched him, 
 and stripping the body and dragging it away 
 some distance from the bivouac, had brought 
 the horses and things away. This man, Allen, 
 he said, left the country before daylight for 
 Texas with the horse Childers had rode, leaving 
 the other horse and the clothes with Couch, 
 who told his neighbours that he had purchased 
 the horse of Childers before he left his house ; 
 and as to the clothes, he had hid them in the 
 cane-brake. Notwithstanding this story, and 
 his strong protestations that he had had no hand 
 in the murder, he was disbelieved, and having 
 no prison they put him in a cabin, fastened the 
 door, and agreed to watch him. In the morn- 
 ing the cabin was found empty ; he had pur- 
 chased his liberty no doubt of his guard with 
 poor Childers's money, and had made his way 
 to that asylum of oppressed Republican hu- 
 manity, Texas ; for some time afterwards a 
 person returning from that quarter related that 
 he had seen him there " doing uncommon well." 
 What increases the disgusting brutality of this 
 transaction is the fact that this magistrate, 
 Squire Tucker, or Judge as they call him, told 
 me that he and a coroner's jury went to Curie 
 Creek, where they found and identified the 
 corpse of the murdered man, and came away 
 without burying it. 
 
 It was somewhat curious that whilst this 
 story was relating to me, the same tall, pale- 
 faced young fellow who had called at Meri- 
 wether's the preceding evening, just when he 
 was narrating the same murder, put his head 
 in at the door, and inquired the road. Again he 
 declined coming in when invited, saying he 
 had no time ; his companion, as upon the pre- 
 vious occasion, never appeared ; and although 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 91 
 
 Tucker told him Ibat there was no other place 
 or house to get shelter at for the night, he went 
 away. We did not like this proceeding ; these 
 fellows would now be aliead of us again, and 
 Tucker, on being told of the circumstances un- 
 der which we had seen him before, pronounced 
 him a bad fellow. 
 
 In the morning of November 12th we started 
 very early, and after some time passed the fire 
 •where these fellows had stayed during the night, 
 and saw their lairs where they had laid down 
 upon the leaves. We were now entering a 
 country full of thickets, where an ambush might 
 be laid at every step. I adopted the plan of the 
 preceding day, walking on before, believing it to 
 be most prudent not to expose both our persons 
 at the same point ; it was probable that if they 
 had bad intentions they would be somewhat 
 embarrassed at seeing only one person in the 
 carriage when they expected to see two ; at any 
 rate I thought that being in advance I should 
 get the first intimation of their intentions, and 
 act more prudently than a younger man would ; 
 besides, I wished to give my son the best chance 
 possible. How it occurred I know not, for we 
 saw no bye-road by which they could have 
 turned down, but we never overtook them, 
 though a great part of the morning we came to 
 a more open part of the country, which ena- 
 bled us to push on our horse ahead of them 
 again. The movements of these men were 
 certainly rather mysterious, for whilst we were 
 boiling our kettle at a poor cabin on the road, 
 the man who lived there told us that one of 
 these fellows had called to ask if we had pass- 
 ed, whilst the other went into the woods on ap- 
 proaching the cabin, and had taken a circuitous 
 course to avoid it. 
 
 For some time we had seen no rocks, but 
 here we came upon compact blue limestone, 
 furrowed at the edges like that we had seen in 
 the neighbourhood of Sparta, in Tennessee, and 
 on our journey through Kentucky, running N.E. 
 and S.W. on the same strike with those more 
 northerly beds. Soon after this we reached a 
 settler's of the name of Morton, who had things 
 rather more inviting about him than we had 
 seen for some time ; so finding that we could 
 get good bread and milk, and fried venison — 
 which is tolerably fat at this season — we stop- 
 ped to feed our horse and boil our kettle again. 
 When we came to pay our bill the charge was 
 a lit, or the eighth of a dollar, a little more 
 than sixpence for both of us ; hut we found a 
 difficulty in paying this, for the smallest coin 
 we had was half a dollar, and Mr. Morton 
 had no coin whatever in the house. He was 
 very fair, however, and said he didn't mind, but 
 that he was out of lead, and if my son had a 
 mind to give him a small bar of lead he had 
 taken out of his pocket and placed on the table, 
 he would be glad to have it, as he thought it 
 was worth a bit. My son had purchased four 
 of these small bars at Mine la Mottc to cast 
 balls for his rifle, and not being able to do any 
 better we gave him the bar, with which he was 
 heartily delighted, saying it>. would be worth "a 
 heap" of deer skins to him. This was our 
 trading debuf, and upon the whole was an affair 
 that was creditable to us in a commercial point 
 of view, for my son had paid only a bit for the 
 whole four bars, so that here was a magnificent 
 return of 300 per cent profit. 
 
 Being exceedingly tickled with having Jewed 
 our host so satisfactorily in this business trans- 
 action, before we went away we generously 
 made him a present of another bar on the part 
 of Missouri, and thus became entitled to the 
 respectable appellation of traders, which had 
 been deemed to belong to us on various occa- 
 sions ; for the rear part of our vehicle being oc- 
 cupied by a large basket containing our cooking 
 utensils and muyiiliojis de louche, attracted gen- 
 eral attention when we passed the cabins, which 
 were all accustomed to be supplied by travelling 
 " marchants.'' Wherever we came the inquiry 
 was sure to be, " What goods have you got to 
 sell ■?" and vvhen we assured them that we had 
 nothing at all to sell, the disappointed women 
 would cry out, " Why, what owder arth are you, 
 if you ain't pedlars 1" Upon one occasion a 
 woman screamed out most lustily to us from 
 her door, and as we would not stop she ran af- 
 ter us, and finding we obstinately persisted in 
 giving an unsatisfactory account of ourselves, 
 she said, " Well, then, if you ha'ant got nothin 
 to sell, I reckon you must be tailors, and that 
 you are going about tailoring ;" and I fancy we 
 could have got a very good job if either of us 
 had been put in the way of cultivating the sar- 
 torial bump. 
 
 These worthy people think, if you are not 
 looking for land to settle, that you must be ped- 
 lars : there are no markets or shopkeepers in 
 the country for them to go to, and therefore the 
 markets come to them— pedlars to sell goods, 
 and tailors to cut out and make their new 
 clothes. As to the Yankee clock pedlars, they 
 are everywhere, and have contrived, by an as- 
 surance and perseverance that have been unri- 
 valled from the Maccabees down, to stick up a 
 clock in every cabin in the western country. 
 Wherever we have been, m Kentucky, in Indi- 
 ana, in Illinois, in Missouri, and here in every 
 dell of Arkansas, and in cabins where there was 
 not a chair to sit on, there was sure to be a 
 Connecticut clock. The clock pedlar is an ir- 
 resistible person ; he enters a log cabin, gets 
 familiarly acquainted with its inmates in the 
 shortest imaginable time, and then comes on 
 business. 
 
 " I guess I shall have to sell you a clock be- 
 fore I go." 
 
 " I expect a clock's of no use here ; besides, I 
 ha'n't got no money to pay for one." 
 
 " Oh, a clock's fine company here in the 
 woods ; why you couldn't live without one after 
 you'd had one awhile, and you can pay for it 
 some other time." 
 
 " I calculate you'll find I ain't a going to take 
 one." 
 
 The wife must now be acted upon. 
 
 " Well, mistress, your husband won't take a 
 clock ; it is most a surprising : he hadn't ought 
 to let you go without one. Why, every one of 
 your neighbours is a going to git one. I sup- 
 pose, however, you've no objection to my nailing 
 one up here, till I come back in a month or so. 
 I'm sure you'll take care of it, and I shall charge 
 you nothing for the use of it at any rate." 
 
 No reasonable objection, of course, can be 
 made to this. It is naded up ; he instructs her 
 how to keep it in order, and takes leave. But 
 what can equal their delight, when, with a 
 bright, clear sound, it strikes the hours ! "Weil," 
 
92 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 they exclaim, " if that don't beat all ! Sartin, 
 it is most delightful, curious company !" The 
 wife now teaches her husband to wind up the 
 clock, and great care is taken of it, as it is a 
 deposit, and must be restored in as good condi- 
 tion as it was received. Too soon, Jonathan, 
 the wily tempter, returns, talks of taking the 
 clock down : " it was the best clock he ever 
 had, they are such nice people he almost wishes 
 it was theirs." Such a friendly and disinterest- 
 ed proceeding throws down all the icy barriers 
 that prudence had raised between them and the 
 shrewd Yankee. Before morning the wife gets 
 the husband's consent, and the clock becomes 
 theirs for the mere formality of his giving a 
 note, payable in six months, for some eighteen 
 or twenty dollars, and then 
 
 " If the clock shouldn't go well he can change 
 it for another, to be sure he can ; ha'n't he got 
 to come that way in the spring T' 
 
 He comes sure enough to dun the poor crea- 
 tures, bringing one clock along with him ; and 
 as all the clocks have stopped, as a matter of 
 course, either because they were good for nothing, 
 or because they have wound them up too often, he 
 changes the clock at every place he stops, cob- 
 bling them up in succession as they come into his 
 hands, and favouring every one of his customers 
 with the bad clock of his neighbour. The de- 
 nouement is not a very pleasant one ; long after 
 the clocks have ceased to strike, the constables 
 come and wind up the whole concern, and mis- 
 tress pays too often with her cows for the in- 
 considerate use of her conjugal influence. 
 
 Having made our successful trade with our 
 host, we pursued our journey, and soon began 
 to ascend what is called the White River 
 Mountain, across which a very extraordinary 
 road has been made. The person who laid out 
 the Military Road, instead of winding round 
 this desperate ascent, has, following the exam- 
 ple of the ancient Roman roads in England, 
 taken the shortest line to get to the top, and 
 carried it up at about an angle of 60°. Our 
 horse, therefore, came to a dead standstill, and 
 could scarcely drag the light waggon up, even 
 after we had taken everything out of it ; a not 
 very pleasant operation, because we were 
 obliged, with great labour, to carry our luggage 
 up ourselves in all the worst places. For the 
 distance of about 1500 yards, the track, for it 
 does not deserve the name of a road, laid over 
 immense blocks and fragments of siliceous rock, 
 and in the efforts the horse made to drag the 
 vehicle over them, we were in constant expec- 
 tation of seeing it come to pieces. At the top 
 we found the rocky strata thrown out of their 
 beds in immense masses, but looking around, I 
 observed some portions yet in a horizontal po- 
 sition. We now had got upon a table-land of 
 great elevation, and went on for ten miles in a 
 forest of oak trees, amidst the profoundest soli- 
 tude, not even a bird being upon the wing. 
 From this we descended to a settler's named 
 Caruthers, who has got into a warm, fertile 
 bottom, near some of the head waters of Little 
 Red River. The leaves of his peach trees were 
 still green, and he spoke of his situation as be- 
 ing very favourable to fruit. This man strong- 
 ly advised ns to abandon the Military Road, 
 and to take a new cut, where we should find a 
 level road, good lodgings at a Mr. Hornby's, and 
 
 an excellent ford : he said the Military Road 
 was very hilly, and the ford to which it led 
 rather dangerous. We accordingly followed 
 his advice, and after a tedious drive, passing a 
 deep ravine where the horizontal sandstone 
 was well exhibited, reached this Hornby's after 
 night. Here we found abundant reason to re- 
 gret having left the Military Road, and discov- 
 ered too late that Caruthers, having an under- 
 standing with Hornby, had purposely misled us. 
 Hornby was a squalid, half negro looking, pirat- 
 ical ruffian from Louisiana, living in a wretched, 
 iilthy cabin, with a wife to match, and a Cali- 
 ban-looking negress and her two children, wha 
 were his slaves. This fellow never opened his 
 mouth without uttering execrations of the worst 
 kind. In this den, which had only one beastly 
 room, we were obliged to stay, and suffer the 
 low conversation of this horrid fellow. Some 
 bits of filthy fried pork, and a detestable bever- 
 age they were pleased to call coffee, were set 
 on a broken, dirty table, at which, by the light 
 of a nasty little tin lamp, into which Madame 
 Hornby, after helping herself to the pork, poured 
 some of its grease, we all, tulti qvanti, sat on 
 two lame benches. We passed a most disgust- 
 ing night, the whole party lying down on the 
 floor ; and, from the appearance of every thing 
 around me, I should certainly, if I had beea 
 alone, have expected an attempt on my life. A 
 place better fitted for the nefarious practices of 
 such a set of desperate-looking human beings I 
 never saw. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Little Red River — A distressed family of Emigrants — A 
 new kind of Grist-mill — Black Wolves — A wild Amer- 
 ican scene — Reach the Arkansas River — A Tavern at 
 Little Rock. 
 
 Great was our satisfaction when day broke 
 and gave us light enough to harness our horse; 
 hurrying away as quick as we could, we drove 
 through a lofty cane-brake— that reminded me 
 of the bundle containing Childers's clothes — to 
 Little Red River — over which I had to wade to 
 find out the ford. The bed of the stream is 
 broad, and if the waters had been high we could 
 never have got across ; as it was, our horse 
 made many difficulties, but my son finally coax- 
 ed him over. This was a lesson to us never to 
 deviate again from the Military Road, for there, 
 at least, good bridges have been established 
 over the worst streams. I picked up a few fine 
 unios whilst wading across the river, principal- 
 ly the same varieties which inhabit the Cum- 
 berland. Soon after we crossed the river we 
 came to a very had bayou, with a large, danger- 
 ous mud-hole on the track, and here we had to 
 stop and collect suflicient timber to fill it before 
 we durst venture to attempt it, which we did 
 successfully ; and continuing on for eight miles, 
 we came to the cabin of a settler called Morse, 
 where we found his family, eight or ten in num- 
 ber, in a very deplorable situation : they had 
 emigrated from Tennessee in the month of May 
 last, and had been ever since so completely 
 prostrated by the malaria, that at one time there 
 was not, during two whole days, a single indi- 
 vidual of them able even to draw water for the 
 family. A more sickly, unhappy set of crea- 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 93 
 
 tures I never beheld ; livid, emaciated, helpless, i 
 and all of tliein suffering extreme pains and I 
 nausea from an excessive use of calomel : on i 
 the floor were laid the father and five of the 
 children, still confined to their beds ; but the 
 mother, a kmd, good-hearted woman, finding 
 that we were travellers, and were without any 
 thing to eat, ordered one of the boys, who was 
 still excessively weak, to show us where we 
 could get some Indian corn, and how we could 
 poimd It so as to «iake a hoe cake. He accord- 
 ingly took us to a patch of maize, which was 
 yet standing, and having provided ourselves 
 ■with a sufficient number of ears, w^e began the 
 operation of pounding it. They had no mill of 
 any sort to go to, but had scooped out a cavity 
 in the stump of a large tree, over which was a 
 ■wooden pestle, eight feet long, suspended from 
 a curved pole 16 feet in length, with a heavy 
 •weight at the end of it. A cross stick was 
 fixed in the pestle, about two feet from its 
 base ; so putting the grains of maize int-o the 
 cavity, and laying hold of the cross stick, we 
 pounded away with this primitive contrivance 
 ■until we tliought our grist was fine enough; 
 when, taking it to kind Mrs. Morse, she made 
 it into a hoe cake, and baked it before the fire. 
 This, with the important aid of a pitcher of good 
 milk, and our own tea and sugar — for we had 
 nothing else left — enabled us to make an excel- 
 lent breakfast. 
 
 These good people, who were half broken 
 ■hearted, and who sighed after their dear native 
 Tennessee, as the Jews are said to have done 
 after Jerusalem would not receive any compen- 
 sation until I forced it upon them ; but when I 
 further divided my remaining tea and sugar with 
 her, believing that it would refresh their pros- 
 trated stomachs, she said, with tears in her 
 eyes, " that if anything would set her old man 
 up again, it would be that nice tea ;" and that 
 she was at one time going to ask me if they 
 might take the leaves that we had left, " but 
 that she did not like to do it." So strange are 
 the vicissitudes of life ! We had passed the 
 right with a family in whose favour I could wil- 
 lingly have invoked all the blessings that the 
 stoutest hemp that was growing could confer, 
 and here, when we little dreamt of it, we had 
 become most feelingly interested for the welfare 
 of their nearest neighbours ; such an impres- 
 sion does suffering goodness make upon the 
 heart. 
 
 From hence, passing a pretty stream called 
 Brown's Creek, we drove through a tolerably 
 level country with a lofty sandstone ridge on 
 our right, to a settler's of the name of Stacey, 
 about 14 miles off; there was a fine bear's skin 
 stretched out at the door, and the skin of an 
 extremely large black wolf He told us, that 
 whilst he was out on horseback the other day, 
 his dog, which had been ranging after some 
 game, suddenly came back in great haste, chas- 
 ed by seven wolves, four of them black and the 
 rest grey. The moment they saw him they 
 turned round to retreat, but the dog, encour- 
 aged by the presence of his master, gave chase 
 to the wolves, who again turned round, and 
 came within shot of Slacey's rifle, which 
 brought one of them down. The tail of this 
 beast was extremely long and black. 
 
 We slept at Slacey's, and, starting early in 
 
 the morning, crossed a steep ridge to a bottom, 
 where we found a cabin belonging to one Co- 
 vey. As we were passing it, I ol)served a black 
 girl throw a wild duck into the road, so I stopped 
 and asked the mistress of the house, who was 
 standing at the door, why this was done. She 
 answered me that they " never ate sich truck, 
 because she allowed they had a kind of smell." 
 The truth is, that these poor people kill wild 
 fowl merely for their feathers, and that neither 
 wild ducks nor anything else please them as 
 much as bad fried pork, the coarse taste for 
 which perhaps, when acquired, makes every 
 other kind of flesh appear insipid. From 
 hence we ascended a steep hill of ferruginous 
 sandstone, after a heavy pull of half a mile ; 
 the view from hence was extensive, the whole 
 country appearing to he formed into ridges run- 
 ning east and west, as parallel to each other as 
 those of the AUeghanies. Along this table- 
 land we found a tolerable sandy road, tlirough a 
 pleasant open wooded country, but very much 
 burnt. We stopped to breakfast at Mr. Walk- 
 er's, a man who was pretty well to do in the 
 world ; he seemed to have an industrious fam- 
 ily, and we left the house very well satisfied. 
 The improvement in the climate was constant 
 as we advanced to the south ; to-day Fahren- 
 heit showed 77° in the shade. From Walker's, 
 where we got good bread and milk, our horse 
 had a rather distressing road for 14 miles ; for 
 the first three miles we had two hills to pass, 
 almost as bad as White River Mountain, and on 
 reaching the top of the second, had a very ex- 
 tensive view of a desert wilderness below us, 
 about 12 miles broad, perfectly flat, and bounded 
 by a lofty ridge running east and west. It was 
 an excessively hot day ; in vain we looked for 
 anything that indicated a settlement— we could 
 see nothing but a dense jungle, which, as we 
 had been told, contained no water, except a 
 few stagnant pools in the dry bayous. This 
 was one of the most striking pictures of wild 
 American scenery I had yet seen ; there was 
 nothing to break the comprehensive and uniform 
 character of this woody desert, save an im- 
 mense conflagration that was raging in the dis- 
 tance, right in the line of our march, covering 
 an immense area of country, and from which 
 rose a tremendous dense column of smoke. 
 This desert, and the general aspect of the land 
 ridges, seemed to portend some change in the 
 geological character of the country. 
 
 Into this plain we descended, bent upon get- 
 ting through it as quickly as we could, for we 
 knew the danger of being enveloped in a confla- 
 gratio.n raging in a thick jungle where every- 
 thing was dry, and the smoke of which some- 
 times destroys even animals before they can 
 save themselves. It was painfully hot ; we suf- 
 fered exceedingly from the want of water, and 
 our horse was in such distress, that, seeing a 
 little pool in a low bayou of difficult access, we 
 took him out of the shafts, and cutting a pas- 
 sage, got him down with some difficulty, where 
 he drank, but not eagerly. Despairing of find- 
 ing anything better, we determined to try a lit- 
 tle of it with some brandy, but the remains of 
 dead lizards, and other disgusting animals in the 
 putrid mass, made it impossible, and we there- 
 fore for the first time took each of us a mouth- 
 ful of brandy alone, which refreshed us very 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 much. We passed through a great number of 
 laurel thickets in this desert, the abode no doubt 
 of many a stout panther ; but it beiug in the 
 heat of ihe day, we saw none. To emerge from 
 this place we had to ascend another of those 
 sharp ridges, but were amply repaid by the deli- 
 cious pure air we found at the top. The rocks 
 ■were now becoming highly inclined, the sand- 
 stone was intermixed with narrow seams of 
 quartz, and the quartz was not compact, but 
 consisted of bundles of imperfect crystals 
 closely wedged in upon each other. After a 
 most fatguing drive of seven hours, we reached 
 a place at night called Great Houses, completely 
 knocked up ; here we got something to eat, but 
 the wolves came round the house in such num- 
 bers, and howled in such an amusing manner, 
 that we again turned out in the hope we should 
 get a shot at them, in which we did not suc- 
 ceed. The road from Memphis to the Indian 
 Reservations, on the branches of the Arkansas, 
 comes in here. 
 
 Early in the morning we started again, hav- 
 ing eight miles before us to Finlay's. In this 
 short distance we crossed four severe ridges, 
 running east and west ; and here I found that 
 the opinion I had formed on seeing the contour 
 of these hills at a distance was correct, that we 
 had got off the limestone, and were upon a 
 quartzuse sandstone, superincumbent on slate, 
 which appeared from many circumstances to be 
 the equivalent of old red sandstone. This is a 
 poor country, badly watered, and every body in 
 It sick and miserable. At Finlay's, where we 
 got some breakfast, all were ill ; they had ex- 
 pended everything they had in the world to en- 
 able them to reach this barren region, and were 
 now pining to get out of it, without possessing 
 the means or the health to do so. The barrens 
 that lie betwixt these ridges are settled by the 
 poorest classes of Tennessee emigrants ; the 
 trees are stunted oaks, there is very little run- 
 ning water, and consequently game, which is a 
 great help to the settler at first, is scarce. The 
 next eight miles, to Kellog's differed little from 
 the last ; we had to cross three ridges of ferru 
 ginous sandstone, with seams of quartz grow- 
 mg into broad veins ; the last was a very tough 
 pull for us. During the next eight miles we 
 found the country in a shattered slate ; the tops 
 of the ridges, as well as their flanks, were cov- 
 ered with blocks and fragments of the sand- 
 stone, which indeed were strewed along the 
 whole line of the road. The strata dipped to 
 the south-east, at an inclination of 45°, and 
 quartzose ferruginous veins ran in the beds in a 
 northeast and southwest course. 
 
 Evening was drawing nigh, when we came 
 to a rich black alluvial bottom, upon which, the 
 weather having been dry for some time, we 
 found a good road. I was well aware what this 
 bottom indicated, and a little after sunset we 
 came upon the bank of the far-famed Arkansa. 
 The river was a delightful object to us ; at 
 length we saw the waters gliding along, that 
 rise amidst the glens and valleys of the Rocky 
 Mountains, and, to our great satisfaction, also 
 beheld the town of Little Rock on the opposite 
 side of the river, ir. -Aiiich we hoped to find some 
 renose ana amusement for a few days, before 
 advancing to the Mexican frontier. The river 
 was unusually low, and we had to get down a 
 
 very precipitous track to reach the team -boat* 
 that was to ferry us across. On board of this 
 we led our horse, and soon reached the opposite 
 bank, where the ascent was so very abrupt that 
 it was with the greatest difficulty we got Mis- 
 souri to the top. 
 
 We now drove to a tavern kept by Major 
 Peay, but the Major could not take us in, and 
 from thence we went to another kept by a per- 
 son called Colonel Leech: the Colonel made up 
 his mind to take us in, but stated that he could 
 "not by no manner of means" give us a bed- 
 room to ourselves. He could give us two beds 
 in a room where two olher frc7alemc7i slept, and 
 that was all he could do. Here then we deter- 
 mined to stay for at least one night ; and having 
 taken a cup of tea wiiii — prodigia luxuries re- 
 rum ! — some heavy dough cakes of wheaten 
 flour, and looked in person after the supper and 
 lodgmgs of Missouri, we retired to the room 
 which we could not exactly call ours. It was 
 only half plastered, the door would not shut, and 
 the beds were dirty-looking enough ; so we en- 
 deavoured to act upon our friend Nidelet's rule, 
 that " tout est bon quand il n'y a pas de choix." 
 Besides, we had every reason to be grateful, 
 and to be more than contented ; we had already 
 accomplished a journey of at least 1800 miles in 
 safety, and were in fine healih and spirits to car- 
 ry us through what remained. Independent of 
 this, we had scarcely been houses before a cold 
 steady rain came on, and increased to a storm, 
 a circumstance that would have embarrassed us 
 very much, and would have made it difficult for 
 me to give proper attention to a troublesome 
 sore throat 1 had taken in picking up unios^ 
 wading the streams, and sleeping in wet clothes. 
 About three a.m. the two gentlemen who shared 
 our apartment with us came to bed. Supposing 
 us to be asleep, they continued talking in rather 
 an under tone for half an hour, but I had been 
 awoke by their entrance, and soon found that 
 they had been gambling with a party ; and in- 
 deed it was evident from what they said, that 
 they were professional gamblers on a visit to this 
 place from New Orleans. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 State of Society at LitUe Rock— Don Jonathan— The Rev. 
 Mr. Slevenson — Newspapers versus the Bible— Gover- 
 nor Pope and his Lady— The Laws of Honour at LitUe 
 Rock— A Duel in the Dark— A Bully killed— A Collega 
 of Faro and Rouge et Noir — Arkansas Legislators — The 
 Speaker murders a member in the body of tlie Hous» — 
 His Trial. 
 
 I WAS so fortunate as to obtain my letters 
 from the post-office before breakfast, and as they 
 all contained agreeable information my satisfac- 
 tion was complete, and I went to the breakfast- 
 table in high spirits. This territoryt of Arkan- 
 sas was on the confines of the United States and 
 of Mexico, and, as I had long known, was the 
 
 * The paddles of these ferry-boats are put in motion by 
 horses. 
 
 t A territory, in the United Stales, is an extensive dis- 
 trici ofcnuntrv, the population of which is not numerous 
 enough to justify its admis.sion into the Union liy Congress 
 as a Sovereign State. L'.ntil its admission, therefore, it re- 
 mains under the protection and jurisdiction of the Federal 
 Government, in a quasi colonial state, the governor and 
 judicial officers being appointed by the President of the 
 United Slates. 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 95 
 
 occasional residence of many timid and nervous 
 persons, against whom the laws of tliese res- 
 pective countries had a grudge. Gentlemen, who 
 had tai<en the liberty to imitate the signatures (if 
 other persons ; bankrupts, who were not disjios- 
 ed to be plundered by their creditors ; homicides, 
 horsestealers, -dnd gaynblers, all admired Arlvan- 
 sas on account of the very gentle and tolerant 
 state of public opinion which prevailed there in 
 regard to such fundamental points as religinn, 
 morals, and property. Here, flying from a stor- 
 my world of chicane and trouble, they found re- 
 pose from the terrors it inspired, and looked 
 back upon it somewhat as Dante's storm-tossed 
 manner did upon the devouring ocean : — 
 " E come quei, che con Icna aftannata, 
 Uscito fuor del pelago alia riva 
 Si volge a 1' acqua peiigliosa, e guata."* 
 
 Inferno, Canto Piimo. 
 
 Such a community I was anxious to see, as well 
 as to observe the form society had taken in it ; 
 more especially as a very curious movement 
 was now going on from this very territory in re- 
 lation ■ to the adjoining province of Texas in 
 Mexico, which, being somewhat in want of an 
 enlightened government, seemed preparing to 
 receive one from those persecuted individuals 
 who had shown so much aversion to become 
 the victims of civilized society: 
 
 On entering the breakfast- room I found a very 
 motley set at table, and took my seat opposite to a 
 dignified looking person with a well-grown set 
 of mustachios, a round-about jacket, with other 
 vestments made in the Spanish fashion, and a 
 profusion of showy rings on his fingers. The 
 gravity of his deportment was quite Spanish, and 
 being informed that he was from New Spain, I 
 promised myself a good deal of pleasure in con- 
 versing with him in his native tongue about his 
 own country : but after bolting what was before 
 him with an enviable rapidity — a talent I had 
 never before observed in a Spaniard — he left the 
 room ere I had an opportunity of speaking to 
 him. During the day, however, as I was stroll- 
 ing round the place, how great was my surprise 
 at seeing Don Bigotes seated on a shopboard 
 close to a window, and sewing away cross-legged 
 in a most approved sartorial fashion ! This led 
 me to make some inquiries about him, and then 
 I learnt that he had arrived in Little Rock not 
 long before from Santa Fe in Mexico, on a fine 
 barb horse with a showy Spanish saddle and 
 housings ; and finding that wages were very high 
 in Little Rock, he had declared himself to be a 
 tailor by trade, and had engaged for a month as 
 a journeyman. This certainly was an odd char- 
 acter to begin with in Arkansas, hut my amuse- 
 ment was infinitely increased afterwards when 
 my son informed me that having had occasion 
 to want the assistance of an artist in that line, 
 he had been to the^shop where the Don worked, 
 had had some conversation with him, and that 
 notwithstanding his gravity, his mustachios, and 
 his rings, he was neither more nor less than a 
 Connecticut Yankee of the name of Patterson, 
 who hiving occasion to leave the land of steady 
 }i;ibits, had straggled to New Mexico, where he 
 had practised his art successfully, and having 
 mad>' a little speculation in his barb — upon 
 
 ' With short and gi.spinp breath the anxious wretch, 
 'Sc'ip'd the dcvoiuing waves ;uid gain'd Uie shore, 
 Tunis to regard the nubulent abyss." 
 
 which he set an immense price — had got so far 
 on his way back again to his native country. 
 Such is the plastic nature of Jonathan, his in- 
 domitable affection for the almighty dollar, and 
 his enterprise in the pursuit of it, that it is far 
 from bciing impossible that there are lots of his 
 brethren at this time in the interior of China, 
 with their heads sliaved and long pig-tails be- 
 liind them, peddling cuckoo clocks and selling 
 wooden nutmegs. 
 
 Before I left the room one of the gentlemen 
 who had slept in our apartment came in, look- 
 ing rather frouzily ; there was a great attempt 
 at finery about his clothes, and a tremendous 
 red beard under his chin : it was impossible not 
 to admire him, and equally so not to see that ia 
 his haste to coiue down before everything was 
 devoured, he had forgotten to wash himself and 
 brush his hair. The voice of this worthy was 
 precisely like that of Colonel Smith of the Brit- 
 ish army, whose adventures have been narrated ; 
 and the exquisite manner in which he drawled 
 out his ungrammatical absurdities left no room 
 for conjecture as to his real character. When 
 I asked the landlord who he was, he told me he 
 was "a sportsman," a designation by which all 
 the bloods who live by faro and rouge et nolr 
 are known in Arkansas. 
 
 I was obliged to remain two days i-n this 
 house, all the others being full of adventurers, 
 who were constantly pouring into the place. 
 Decent people, I was told, got into private fami- 
 lies ; but, although we applied in several places, 
 we could find nobody disposed to receive us : 
 our landlord. Colonel Leech, who perceived that 
 we were only travelling for information, was^ 
 very kind and obliging, but he could not let us 
 have a private rooin, and we were, therefore, 
 very uncomfortable, walking about the towa 
 and passing, I dare say, in the eyes of every 
 body for adventurers. At length we heard of a 
 elergyman who lived on the skirts of the town, 
 and sometimes " took in boarders," so we im- 
 mediately hied to the Rev. Mr. Stevenson's. It 
 was a nice-looking cottage enough, separated 
 from the road by a paling, inside of which was 
 standing a somewhat dried-up looking individual, 
 in a seedy-looking, light-coloured jacket, an old 
 hat with a broken rim on his head, only one eye 
 in that, and a rifle in his hand. " Pray, sir," 
 said I, touching my hat, " can you inform me if 
 this is the Reverend Mr. Stevenson's 1" Upoa 
 which he immediately said, "I expect I am the 
 Reverend Mr. Stevenson !" That being his 
 opinion, it would not have forwarded my pur- 
 pose at all to have commenced a dispute with 
 him about it, so we immediately entered upoa 
 bitsiness. I told him who I was, what my pur- 
 suits were, that we had got mixed up with very 
 bad society, and that I should be very happy to 
 pay any thing for a private room and board in 
 his family. Mr. Stevenson turned out to be a 
 much better man than his externals indicated : 
 he entered into iny situation, presented us to 
 Mrs. Stevenson — who had two remarkably good 
 eyes in her head — and who not only assigned 
 us a roomy bed-chamber, which we lost no time 
 in taking possession of, but during the whole 
 time we staid in her house was uniformly obli- 
 ging to us. Mr. Stevenson had been one of the 
 earliest settlers in Arkansas, had travelled in 
 every part of it, and had occasionally officiatet^ 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 in the remote parts as a missionary : as he cul- 
 tivated a piece of land somewhere near the 
 town, whenever he visited it he was in the hahit 
 of taking his rifle with him, and this accounted 
 for my having seen him armed. 
 
 At the supper-table we first met the rest of 
 his family, which consisted of several small 
 children, three other boarders, two of whom 
 were tradesmen of the place, and a very intelli- 
 gent person from Switzerland of the name of 
 T . This gentleman's conversation inter- 
 ested me very much, and when I had become 
 sufficiently acquainted with him' to learn his 
 history and adventures, I could not help taking 
 great interest in his welfare. He was of a good 
 family in Switzerland, had been well educated, 
 and had been officially employed in one of the 
 bureaux of the national government. In the 
 revolution that overthrew the aristocratic fami- 
 lies, he and others determined to abandon their 
 country and found a colony in America. Form- 
 ing their plans upon little other evidence than 
 what a map furnished them, they came to the 
 conclusion that the most desirable situations 
 were to be found betwixt the 34th and 35th de- 
 grees of North latitude, and Mr. T and a 
 
 colleague were sent to explore and report. They 
 had arrived at New Orleans, and proceeded from 
 thence immediately into the interior of Arkan- 
 sas, where they had resided for several months ; 
 here their funds became exhausted, and, re- 
 ceiving no remittances nor communications of 
 any sort from their friends at home, they fell 
 into a perfect state of destitution, and led a most 
 miserable life for a long time in the woods. At 
 length they separated, each to provide for him- 
 self, and Mr. T arriving pennyless at Little 
 
 Rock, had succeeded in getting some sort of 
 employment in the Land Office, where his talent 
 as a draughtsman made him very useful. When 
 I met him he was half broken-hearted, longing 
 to return to his native country, but with no 
 prospect before him of ever getting out of Little 
 Hock, where the emoluments of his daily labour 
 barely sufficed to keep him alive. 
 
 Having thus cast anchor for a few days in a 
 <iuiet and safe harbour, I began to look about 
 me and collect information. The town of Lit- 
 tle Rock receives its name from being built upon 
 the first rock, — a slate which underlies the sand- 
 stone and dips S.E. at a great inclination — which 
 juts out into the Arkansa, in coming up the river 
 from its mouth in the Mississippi; it is tolera- 
 bly well laid out, has a few brick houses, and a 
 greater number of indifferently built wooden 
 ones, generally in straggling situations, which 
 admit of their having a piece of ground attached 
 to them. The population was at this time be- 
 twixt 500 and 600 inhabitants, a great propor- 
 tion of them mechanics; lawyers and doctors 
 \vithout number, and abundance of tradesmen 
 going by the name of merchants. Americans 
 of a certain class, to whatever distant point they 
 go, carry the passion for newspaper reading 
 ■with them, as if it were the grand end of educa- 
 tion. A town in England with a population of 
 8000 souls will have a few of the lower classes 
 ■who do not know how to read at all, but those 
 ■who are not of the educated classes, and who 
 do read, generally apply that noble art, when 
 proper occasions present themselves, to reading 
 the Bible and religious and moral books. 
 
 Newspapers are too expensive for the poorer 
 classes in England, and therefore the minds of 
 by far the greater part of them are not distract- 
 ed, enfeebled, and corrupted by cheap newspa- 
 pers ; and although the exceptions are painfully 
 obvious, still it is true that there is not a passion 
 in England for reading low newspapers as there 
 is in America. Now the only newspapers that 
 deserve to be read in England pay a great tax 
 to the government, and are only within the 
 reach of the opulent classes, those who are at 
 ease in their circumstances, and men of busi- 
 ness ; but these being conducted by men of ap- 
 proved talents and fair character, reflect to the 
 public all the intelligence that the inquiring spi- 
 rit of a great nation requires, and assist to keep 
 down corruption rather than cherish it.* How 
 could a town of 8000 inhabitants in England 
 support a newspaper printed in the place T 
 Where would its useful or instructive matter 
 come from 1 Why, from those quarters which 
 have already supplied it to those alone who want 
 it. If such a town had a newspaper it could not 
 be supported, and therefore it remains without 
 one. But in Little Rock, with a population of 
 600 people, there are no less than three cheap 
 newspapers, which are not read but devoured 
 by everybody ; for what pleasure can be equal 
 to that which, — through the blessings of univer- 
 sal suffrage, — those free and enlightened citi- 
 zens called the "sovereign people" are made 
 partakers of once a day, or at least three times 
 a week, on finding that the political party which 
 has omitted to purchase their support is compo- 
 sed of scoundrels and liars, and men who want 
 to get into power for no other purpose but to 
 ruin their country"! It seeins impossible that 
 there should be any time or inclination for Bible 
 reading where this kind of cheap poison gets 
 into the minds of human beings; you might as 
 well expect to find a confirm.ed Chinese opium 
 smoker engaged in the solution of the problems 
 of Euclid. In this part of the country it has 
 struck me as the worst of all signs, that I have 
 never seen a Bible in the hands of any indivi- 
 dual, even on a Sunday. 
 
 I have not, however, been in every body's 
 house, nor would I infer that every individual in 
 Little Rock is to be included in this irreligious 
 category. What I have said I would apply ex- 
 clusively to what are called the " sovereign peo- 
 ple," that mass which it is the business and in- 
 terest of political demagogues to mislead and 
 debase, for the purpose of directing it — as they 
 have too successfully done in many parts of the 
 United States — against the virtuous and praise- 
 worthy efforts of good men and their families in 
 every part of this extensive government ; men 
 who struggle to bring their country back to the 
 honourable principles that illustrated the period 
 of George Washington, but whose long struggle 
 will be made in vain until the evil consequences 
 of universal suffrage present themselves in such 
 an appalling form, that the people, rendered wise 
 by great suflfering and experience, will consent 
 to surrender to the guidance of men of character 
 and property that governing power which is now 
 both cause and effect of their blind passions. 
 
 * The " National Intelligenger" of the City ef Wasliing- 
 ton well deserves the high character it has everywhere 
 acquired. 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 97 
 
 It was my good fortune to become acquainted 
 with a lew respectable and agreeable individuals 
 here. Governor Pope, the governor of the ter- 
 ritory, is an unaffected, worthy person : lie was 
 once a conspicuous politician in Kentucky, and 
 by some accident has lost one of his arms. 
 This gentleman has been of great service here 
 in various ways, especially in the judicious use 
 he has made of the funds entrusted to him by the 
 general government for the erection of a legis- 
 lative hall, which is a very handsome building, 
 placed in an advantageous situation, on the brink 
 of the river, and one of the neatest public build- 
 ings I have seen in North America. The Gov- 
 ernor showed it tome with great exultation, and 
 I complimented him sincerely on the taste he 
 had shown. 
 
 He lives amongst the inhabitants in an unpre- 
 tending and plain manner, encouraging them to 
 use no ceremony in talking to him, and appear- 
 ing to me to carry his affability and familiarity 
 ■with them quite as far as it was expedient to do. 
 Ceremony and circumlocution seem to have 
 found no resting-place amongst the inhabitants 
 of Little Rock ; if they have anything to say to 
 you, they come to the point {■pynt as they pro- 
 nounce It) at once, and are not very shy of their 
 expletives. Soon after my arrival I went to call 
 upon his Excellency the Governor, and being 
 told that he lived in a small house in a particu- 
 lar quarter of the town, I went in that direction, 
 and seeing a house which I supposed might be 
 the one I was in search of, I knocked at the 
 door, upon which an odd-looking man enough 
 came to me. Not knowing, after my experience 
 of the Reverend Mr. Stevenson, what might be 
 trumps here, I touched my hat and said, "Will 
 you be so obhging as tell me whether the Gov- 
 ernor is in the house T' I fancy this fellow had 
 never lived in Belgrave-square, for his answer 
 was, " No, I'm — if he is." He told me, howev- 
 €r, very obligingly, where the house was, and at 
 last I found it, and knocking with my knuckles 
 against the door, a dame came, who, as I found 
 afterwards, was the Governor's lady. She was 
 a strange-looking person for one of her rank, 
 and I had been so tickled with the last answer 
 I got, that I could not help cherishing the hope 
 that she, too, would say something very extra- 
 ordinary. With the most winning politeness, 
 therefore, I inquired, "If his Excellency the 
 Governor was at homel" Upon which, with- 
 out mincing the matter, she very frankly told 
 me that " he was gone to the woods to hunt for 
 a sow and pigs belonging to her that were miss- 
 ing." Now this might very reasonably happen 
 to a territorial governor in such a practical way 
 of life as he was, and still be, as it really was, 
 creditable to him. Sows and pigs wilt stroll 
 into the woods, and the wolves will pick them 
 up if they meet with them. Mrs. Pope had sent 
 one of her " negui-s" to the woods upon a pre- 
 vious occasion, and the fellow had neglected his 
 duty and gone somewhere else ; this time, there- 
 fore, she sent the Governor, who, being a man of 
 sense, and knowing how little dependence was 
 to be placed upon his " negur," and perhaps 
 wanting a walk, had undertaken the task of 
 driving piggies home. 
 
 Besides the Governor there were other agree- 
 able persons with whom I became acquainted ; 
 a Colonel a*****, a clever good-tempered law- 
 N 
 
 I yer. Mr. Woodruff, the editor of the principal 
 ' Gazette of the place, and postmaster, was al- 
 1 ways obliging, and is one of the most indefatiga- 
 i biy industrious men of the territory. At his 
 i store we used to call to hear the news of the 
 day, which were various and exciting enough ; 
 for, with some honourable exceptions, perhaps 
 there never such another population assembled 
 — broken tradesman, refugees from justice, trav- 
 elling gamblers, and some young bucks and 
 bloods, who, never having had the advantage of 
 good examples for imitation, had set up a stand- 
 ard of manners consisting of everything that 
 was extravagantly and outrageously bad. Quar- 
 relling seemed to be their principal occupation, 
 and these puppies, without family, education, or 
 refinement of any kind, were continually resort- 
 ing to what they called the " Laws of Honour," 
 a part of the code of which, in Lfttle Rock, is to 
 administer justice with your own hand the first 
 convenient opportunity. A common practice 
 with these fellows was to fire at each other with 
 a rifle across the street, and then dodge behind 
 a door : every day groups were to be seen 
 gathered round these wordy bullies, who were 
 holding knives in their hands, and daring each 
 other to strike, but cherishing the secret hope 
 that the spectators would interfere. At one 
 time they were so numerous and overbearing 
 that they would probably have overpowered the 
 town, but for the catastrophe which befel one 
 of their leaders, and checked the rest for awhile. 
 Mr. Woodruff, like most of the postmasters, 
 kept a store, and thither these desperadoes used 
 to resort ; but it became so great a nuisance at 
 last as to be intolerable, and being a firm man 
 he determined to put a stop to it. The young 
 fellow in question dared him to interfere, threat- 
 ened him more than once, and coming to the 
 store one evening provoked the postmaster so 
 much by his insolent violence, that a scuffle en- 
 sued, in which the bully got a mortal wound. 
 Mr. Woodruff described the scene to me, and 
 showed me the place where he fell, but said 
 that he got his death by the awkward use of his 
 own weapon. The public opinion sided with 
 the postmaster, who was very popular at the 
 period of our visit. 
 
 One of the most respectable inhabitants told 
 me, that he did not suppose there were twelve 
 inhabitants of the place who ever went into the 
 streets without — from some motive or other — 
 being armed with pistols or large hunting- 
 knives about a foot long and an inch and a half 
 broad, originally intended to skin and cut up an- 
 imals, but which are now made and ornamented 
 with great care, and kept exceedingly sharp for 
 the purpose of slashing and sticking human be- 
 ings. These formidable instruments, with their 
 sheaths mounted in silver, are the pride of an 
 Arkansas blood, and got tlieir name of Bowie 
 knives* from a conspicuous person of this fiery 
 climate. 
 
 A large brick building was pointed out to me 
 that had been erected for stores and ware- 
 
 * Some of these blonds are fellows of great animal 
 courage, if we may judge from the following accoimt of 
 an affair which took place on this frontier, and which is 
 taken from a published account. 
 
 A specimen of the very first water came on horseback 
 to a tavern, and entered a room where some other persons 
 were assembled. Throwing his cloak on one side, the 
 usual pistols and Bowie knife appeared ; and as nobody 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 houses, but the owner thinking he could do bet- 
 ter by applying it to the uses of a more steady 
 line of business, rented the large store on the 
 ground floor as a drinking shop, commonly 
 called here a "groggery ;" here it was the cus- 
 tom of the bloods to convene and discuss the 
 last quarrel, and to tell how such a one " drew 
 his pistol," and then how such a one " whipped 
 out his knife ;" adjourning when they had drunk 
 to the warehouse up stairs, which they called 
 "the college," and which was converted into a 
 gambling-room for faro and rouge et noir. I 
 had a description given me of some of the 
 scenes that took place here by persons who 
 were present, which would appear incredible to 
 even any gamblers who were not familiar with 
 this den of infamy. To this place it was the 
 practice to inveigle all the young men they 
 could, who had any property or any credit, 
 make them mad witli drink (the youth of these 
 climes become frantic, not stupid, with the fiery 
 potations they use), and then ruin them with 
 the most atrocious foul play. Out of this class 
 they recruit their infamous gang, and teach 
 them how to decoy and ruin others. When 
 they have nobody to fleece, they play amongst 
 themselves — having no idea of any other mode 
 of occupymg the time. Many stories were re- 
 lated to me of a trader at the mouth of White 
 River, named Montgomery, a finished sportsman 
 in every sense, passionately fond of gambling, 
 excessively addicted to whiskey, and who al- 
 ways used to sit down to the faro table with his 
 Bowie knife unsheathed by his side, to insure 
 fair play. This man, with some others, suc- 
 ceeded in effecting the ruin of a promising young 
 officer in the United States service, a Lieuten- 
 ant , who was an acting quarter-master. 
 
 He had had the weakness to permit himself to 
 become acquainted with some of these wretch- 
 es, and although he was a married man, and 
 had liis wife with him, became at length their 
 familiar companion. Having government drafts 
 in his possession, they contrived to defraud him. 
 when drunk, of them, to the amount of ten 
 
 seemed particularly overjoyed to see him, he soon broke 
 silence by looking at them scornfully and saying, "1 don't 
 know whether you are the very lieginning of men or not, 
 but I've got 3000 acres of prime land, two sugar planta- 
 tions, 150 negurs, and I reckon I can chaw up the best 
 man in this room !" 
 
 No one venturing to dispute any part of this statement, 
 he proceeded to open his mind a little further. 
 
 " I've killed eleven Indians, three while men, and seven 
 painters ; and it's my candid opinion you are all a set of 
 cowards !" 
 
 Having thus unbosomed himself, he observed that one 
 of the company kept a steady eye upon him, and walking 
 up to him, jostled him. 'I'his, as he found out after- 
 wards, was carrying it a leetle too tar, for the person he 
 was evidently seeking a quarrel with was a doctor, who 
 had gone through a variety of adventures, and had been 
 on the "pynt of bursting his bylcr" ever since tliis wor- 
 thy " begin to carry on." The doctor immediately rolled 
 him off, when out came the Bowie knife, which, but for 
 the timely interference of the rest of the company, would 
 have l)een lodged in the doctor's heart. Now came mu- 
 tual defiance, and an instantaneous agieement to '• fiiiht 
 it out." The terms proposed by the intiuding swaggerer 
 were rather novel, even for courts of lionnur in that coun- 
 try ; but the doctor wan not a flinching man, his sieam 
 was up, and he told his second to agree to anything that 
 was fair for both. There was a room in the house totally 
 dark, into which not a cranny of light came, and this was 
 tixed upon tor the scene of the mortal combat. The p-Tr- 
 ties were novveTicli snipped to the skin, e.xcept liieirtrow- 
 sers, their anns and shoulders well greased with Im-d, 
 and a brace of loaded pistols and a Bowie knife given to 
 each. Thus were they put Into the dark room, with the 
 
 thousand dollars. Such was the infatuation of 
 this young man, that finding that he was ruined 
 for ever in his profession, he went off with 
 Montgomery and a party of the sharpers to New 
 (Orleans, to get the drafts cashed that he had 
 parted with, together with others that he had 
 still left. But it so happened that an active of- 
 ficer, who was acting in the commissariat ser- 
 vice, heard of this movement, and pushing 
 across the country, reached the banks of the 
 .Mississippi, far to the south of the Arkansa and 
 White River, where the gamblers were to em- 
 bark. He had scarce been there an hour when 
 a steamer heaving in sight he went on board, 
 and to his great surprise found his brother of-- 
 ficer and the whole gang of villains on the deck. 
 They were thus frustrated in their nefarious 
 plans, for on their arrival at New Orleans, he- 
 immediately stopped the payment of the drafts, 
 and the party returned to White River, where 
 the unhappy victim of these scoundrels after- 
 wards died of delirium tremens. 
 
 So general is the propensity to gambling in 
 this territory, that a very respectable person as- 
 sured me he had seen the judges of their high- 
 est court playing publicly at faro, at some races. 
 The senators and members of the territorial 
 legislature do the same thing ; in fact, the great- 
 er part of these men get elected to the legisla- 
 ture, not to assist in transacting public business, 
 but to get the wages they are entitled to per 
 diem, and to gratify their passion for gambling. 
 A traveller, whom I met with at Little Rock, 
 told me that he was lodging at an indifferent 
 tavern there, and had been put into a room with 
 four beds in it. There he had slept quietly 
 alone two nights, when on the third, the day be- 
 fore the legislature convened, the house became- 
 suddenly filled with senators and members, 
 several of whom, having come up into his room 
 with their saddlebags, got out a table, ordered 
 some whiskey, and produced cards they had- 
 brought with them. The most amusing part 
 of ihe incident was that they asked him to lend 
 them five dollars until they could get some of 
 
 understanding that the butchery was not to begin before 
 a signal was made by the seconds outside. For near 
 a quarter of an hoiu' after the signal had been given, the 
 seconds heard no noise whatever, and were disposed to- 
 think the affair would end as it began, in words, when sud- 
 denly a pistol went off, and then another. The survivor of 
 this .strange duel afterwards stated, that scarce a tread or 
 a breath could be heard in the room after tiiey had cocked 
 their pistols : he saw, or thought he saw, for an instant, 
 the cat-eyes of his antagonist glistening, but they changed 
 their place so quickly that he was uncertain, and did not 
 venture to fire. At length, however, he fired, and re- 
 ceived a shot instantly in return, tlie ball of which lodged 
 in his shoulder. Being in great pain, and fe.-uing he 
 should faint, he fired a second pistol, when instantly he 
 received a second ball in the fleshy part of his thigh. 
 He soon became very faint from loss of blood, and after 
 trying in vain to support himself against the wall, felt 
 on the floor. Silently and slowly the other now ap- 
 proached his intended victim, with the knife in his hand 
 ready to despatch him. The prostrate man, perceiving 
 the wary chiiracter of his adversary, and aware of his 
 e.'Jtreme danger, had summoned all his presence of mind; 
 grasping his knife firmly, and raising himself cautiously 
 up a little, he listened, but could hear nothing approach. 
 Moving his upraised arm around, he endeavoured to 
 pierce with his eyns mto the darkness that enveloped him, 
 when suddenly he saw the same gray eyes glistening in 
 front of him, and striking with all his might, he plunged 
 his knife through his incautious assailant's heart, who fell 
 to the ground. The successHM duellist now called out to 
 the seconds to open the door, and entering they found the 
 doctor weltering in his blood, but still holding his knife 
 up to the hilt in the dead man's body. 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 99 
 
 their legislative " wages." Not liking tins pro- 
 position very much, he told them that he was as 
 hard up as themselves. They therefore pro- 
 ceeded to play on ticiv, sat up almost the whole 
 night smol<ing, spitting, drinking, swearing and 
 gambling; and at about five in the morning two 
 of them threw off their clothes, and came to 
 bed to him. 
 
 JVo«f.— This specimen of the legislative qualifications 
 peculiar to such a state of society mxy appear strange to 
 some persons. Those philosophers, however, who see no 
 mockery in giving to wild colonial conmiunities the forms 
 of (lovernment which are necessary only to old civilized 
 couiitiief, may learn from the following narrative, which 
 is strictly true, how the dignity of representative govern- 
 ment isexposed to be outniged and degraded by the animal 
 man before religion and education liave made him a ra- 
 
 the Legislature of Arkan.sas at Little Rock, one John 
 Wilson being Speaker of the House of Representatives, a 
 bill came to the House from the Senate, called the fVolf 
 Bill. The object of this bill was to give a bounty for the 
 destruction of wolves ; and it provided that when any cit- 
 izen went before a justice of the peace in a particular dis- 
 trict with the scalp of a wolf, he was to receive a certifi- 
 cate of the fact, which was to entitle him to a pecuniary 
 bouniy from the funds of the territory. By many persons 
 this bill was considered to be a job, it being very well 
 known, from the experience of previous occasions, that 
 when wolves became scarce in the district intended to be 
 protected, parties would go out of the territory, even into 
 Texas, to hunt for them ; and it was not an unusual thing, 
 when wolves were " uncommon scarce," for patriotic in- 
 dividuals to cut the .scalp of a wolf into a great many val- 
 uable slips, and, fastening a slip to the scalp of a sheep, a 
 little disguised, and holding the slip between their fingers, 
 to take a solemn oath before the magistrate that this was 
 the scalp of a wolf, and that it was killed in the district 
 designated by law ; an oath of convenient latiside, for the 
 slip held on by was part of the scalp of a wolf, and the 
 rest had belonged to a sheep killed in the district. If the 
 justice of the peace was an obliging person, and it was 
 made worth his while to continue so, the operation was 
 a good one, and such a bill as the Wolf Bill was sure 
 therefore to have a great many friends. 
 
 Haviiig passed the Senate, the bill was sent to the 
 House, where a party, from various motives, being formpil 
 against it, it was assailed by all sorts of ridicule. It had 
 so happened that another job-law had been passed, called 
 the Real Estate Bank. This was a sort of bank the capi 
 tal of which was to consist of land, and enabled those en- 
 terprising persons who had interest enough to become 
 stockholders, to offer land, as a part of the capital of the 
 bank, that could not be sold for a penny an acre, or even 
 sold at all, with as much success as those that held lands 
 ot a good quality, and that were convertible in the mar- 
 ket, always, however, provided the commissioners ap- 
 pointed to scrutinise into the title and quality of the real 
 estate were good-natured. The law, for this reason, be- 
 came obno.vious to the suspicion of being a job, concocted 
 Jor the purpose of enabling these ingenious individuals to 
 convert their titles for land into evidences of bank stock ; 
 the conversion of which into money, even at only tweniv- 
 five per cent, of its nominal value, was what is called "'.'i 
 splendid operation." Amongst the amendments offered 
 to embarrass the passage of the bill was one proposed by a 
 Major Anthony, that the " signature of the president "of 
 the Real Estate Bank should be attached to the certifica-.«- 
 of the wolf scalp." At this, the Honourable Colonel .John 
 IVilson, the Speaker, t(K)k fire; he was the head and life 
 and soul of the Real Estate Bank, and immediately railed 
 out to Anthony to ask if he meant to be personal, wlm 
 answered that he did not, and going on to explain, u;is 
 ordered to sit down. Anthony refu.^ed to take his seat, 
 saying that he had a right to the floor for the purpose of 
 explaining. But the Speaker, thrusting his hand into hi,-^ 
 bosom, drew forth a huge Bowie knife, and brandishinir il 
 aloft, called out, with a voice almost inarticulate wit!. 
 rage, " Ht down, or I'll make you." Anthony, continniii" 
 to keep the floor, now beheld the extraordinary spert.iclr 
 of the officer appointed to keep order in the Hoiisp, .Ic 
 liberately descending from the Speaker's chair his ri"lit 
 liand wielding a glittering blade, and keeping an ev'of 
 fixe steadily fixed upon him. As the Speaker advanccH 
 with determination inflexibly imprinted on everv feature 
 Anthony put his own chair a little on one side, stepped 
 back a few paces, and drew his Bowie knife also, Citcli 
 ing up the chair to serve as a shield to himself, the S/,enk'r 
 rushed upon Anthony, and a fight now began betwixt 
 r^^em over the chair, Wilson being stabbed in each arm by 
 
 his adversary, who in the scuffle lost his knife. Anthony 
 now iKisiily snatched up another chair to defend himself, 
 but the Spciker, peiceivin^' liis advantage, pressed upon 
 liim, (laslied the chair up u illi liis left haiid, and, uncover- 
 ing Anthony's breast, delilioralely murdered him, by 
 thrusting his knife up to llie hill in his heart. As he i 
 witliilrew (he knife, the untbituiiale man, without uttering 
 a word, fell down dead on the floor, in the presence of his J 
 colleagues, not one of whom had interfered to stop this 
 atrocious carnage. The ruflian Wilson, having perpetrated 
 this deed, looked at his knife, and wiping the blood from 
 it with his thumb and finger, retired back to the Speaker's 
 desk. 
 
 The proceedings subsequent to thjs murder in a House 
 of Representatives were of a piece with the foul transac- 
 tion. The House adjourned, and three days elapsed be- 
 fore any of the constituted authorities took any notice of 
 it. A relative, however, of the murderer having asked 
 for a warrant for Wilson's apprehension, a legal inquiry- 
 was instituted, to which he came, at the end of some 
 days, with four horses harnessed to a sort of carriage, as 
 suitable to the dignity of the Speaker, and accompanied by 
 numerous friends. All the circumstances of the murder 
 were distinctly proved, and although the public prosecu- 
 tor proposed to adduce a particular law showing that it 
 was not a bailable offence, the Court refused to hear him, 
 and admitted the murderer to bail. Agreeably to his. 
 recognizance, lie appeared at the session appointed fo/r jjii 
 trial, when a motion was made to remove the tfial twaiv 
 other county, founded upon the atiidavit of Wilson him 
 self and two of his friends, one of whom swore that "from 
 the repeated occurrence of similar acts vvithin the last j. 
 four or five years in this county the people were disposed \ 
 to «cl rigidly," and that therefore it would be unsafe for .'! 
 Wilson to be tried there. The Court, upon this, removed 
 the cause to another county, and ordered the murderer to 
 be delivered to the sheriff of that county ; a mere fiumality, 
 for no restraint whatever was laid upon him, and he went 
 wherever he please<l, treating people at the dram-shops to 
 whatever they liked, and entering into all their debauch- 
 eries and extravagance. 
 
 The time for his trial in Saline County being arrived, he 
 lodged at the same house, .and ate three limes a day at the 
 same table, with the judge appointed to try him ; and, as 
 if the law were to be treated upon this occasion with yet 
 unheard-of indignities, when the prosecuting counsel, after 
 witnesses had been heard, attempted to address the jury,, ' 
 a mob was collected at the door of the courthouse, where. . 
 a pretended affray was got up, and such a tumult raised; \ 
 that not a word could be heard. During the whole of this 
 proceeding the judge never interposed his authority to pre- 
 serve order, and, when the jury brought in their verdict, 
 ordered Wilson instantly to be discharged, who, in the 
 open court, told the sheriff " to take the jury to a dram- ; 
 shop, and that he would pay for all that was dranle by j 
 them and everybody else." Upon this a loud cry of exul- ,{i 
 tation was raised, all ran up and shook hands with the ' 
 acquitted murderer, and, to complete their outrageous con- 
 duct, many of them, accompanied by a majority of the 
 jury, when they had finished their orgies, having collected 
 Jiorns, trumpets, and all sorts of noisy instruments, paraded 
 the streets till daylight, continually assembling at the lod- 
 gings of the relatives of the murdered legislator to shout 
 and scream and yell, as in triumph over them and over the 
 law. 
 
 This account is taken from a narrative of the affair pub^ 
 lished at Little Rock. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIL 
 
 Apology for the Manners of Arkansas— Manner of living 
 at Little Rock— Aversion to shutting the Doors— Tertiary 
 Deposit— Alluvial Bottoms, and the Species of Plants 
 growing there— Visit to the Maminelles— German Emi- 
 grants—Geology of the Mammelle Mountain— Enter au i 
 immense swampy Plain— Danger of traveUing without a \ 
 Guide— Some apprehension of being obUged to treat the ^ 
 Wolves— Reach a House. | 
 
 Disgraceful as these manners and practices I 
 
 must appear to Europeans, a.s well as to respect- ' 
 
 able Americans in the older states, it is also true ' 
 that although the few individuals in Arkansas, 
 vixih whom a stranger is happy to associate, 
 
 sometimes expres.s f.trongly their abhorrence of ; 
 
 them, yet the.se things at present are so much \ 
 
 beyond their control, and pa.ss so constantly be- [ 
 
 fore their eyes, that although they do noi cease * 
 
 to be offensive, yet you perceive' that they lose \ 
 with them that peculiar character of enormity ia 
 
100 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 •which they appear to men trained in well-order- 
 ed communities. They tell you, and not with- 
 out some reason, that the rigorous criticisms 
 •which are fitted to older states of society are not 
 strictly applicable here; that this is a frontier 
 territory A'hich, not long ago, was only inhabit- 
 ed by the hunter, the man who had no depend- 
 ence for his existence but by killing wild ani- 
 mals; that the class which succeeded to this 
 ■was composed of outlaws, who sought refuge 
 here from the power of the laws they had offend- 
 ed ; that where ah absolute majority in a com- 
 munity consisted of criminals, gamblers, specu- 
 lators, and men of broken fortunes, with no law 
 to restrain them, no obligation to conceal their 
 vices, no motive to induce them to appear de- 
 vout or to act with sobriety, it was not surpris- 
 ing that such men should indulge openly in their 
 propensities, or that public opinion — which, in 
 fact, was constituted by themselves — should be 
 decidedly on their side, and opposed to every 
 thing that would seek to control them ; that their 
 consolation, however, was, that the worst of the 
 black period had passed, that the territory was 
 now under the government of the United States, 
 and that a municipal magistracy was established 
 in the town. 
 
 Certainly, it is pleasing to hope that society, 
 even here, is in a favourable state of transition ; 
 yet, although the benign influence of the general 
 government is strikingly manifested, Arkansas 
 ■will have longer to struggle with the disadvan- 
 tages which attend it than Ohio, Kentucky, and 
 other frontier States of the Union have had, the 
 settlers of which came from a respectable pa- 
 rentage, and with industrious views. These 
 -communities were never corrupted by the man- 
 ners of the Gulf of Mexico, and their territories 
 ■were never the refuge of outlaws. Amendment, 
 therefore, will develope itself slowly in Arkan- 
 sas, and society there will, for a longtime, require 
 a strong arm and a -/igilant eye, like the way- 
 ■ward and spoiled child, who is compelled to con- 
 form to the hard conditions imposed upon him, 
 until the natural love of order and justice is 
 awakened in his heart. As far as public morals 
 are concerned, things will probably go on for a 
 long time in their old course. Demagogues are 
 already as busy here as they are in other parts 
 of the United States : all the oflices in the terri- 
 tory, except the few which are in the gift jaf the 
 President of the United States, are elective ; and 
 candidates, if they will not wink at the vicious 
 habits of the people, have little chance of suc- 
 cess. At present, therefore, a great deal must 
 be tolerated by the magistrates, for the truth is, 
 they are only tolerated themselves upon that 
 condition. In time, it is to be hoped that the 
 settlement of the territory will bring accessions 
 of population from a healthier stock; that ex- 
 amples of religion, probity, and sobriety of life, 
 •will increase in number ; that new generations 
 ■will respect and copy them; and that, in the 
 end, public opinion will effect a regeneration of 
 habits. 
 
 As to the manner of living here, 1 must con- 
 fess, that although my stomach appeared to be 
 broken in to any sort of fare before my arrival, 
 yet I had encouraged the hope that in the capital 
 of the territory 1 should find an agreeable change. 
 What must forcibly strike a stranger here, is 
 the apparent total indifference of everybody to 
 ■what we call personal comforts. No one seems 
 to think that there is any thing better in the 
 ■«'orld than little square bits of pork fried in lard, 
 
 bad coffee, and very indifferent bread. To this, 
 without almost any variety, they go regularly 
 three times a day to be fed, just as horses are 
 fed at livery. Venison, it is true, is abundant, 
 but it is no better than any thing else. A man 
 goes into the woods, kills a deer twenty miles 
 off. skins it, cuts the haunches, or "hams," as 
 they are called, off, hangs one on each side of 
 his saddle, leaves the rest behind him lor thr 
 turkey-buzzard {Catharlcs Aura, Cuv.), or wolf 
 and rides into town. Those who buy the ham: 
 know but one way of using them ; they cut sli 
 ces from them, Iry them in lard, and send them t.< 
 table, hard and tough, and swimming in grease 
 I once, and only once, saw part of a saddle o* 
 venison brought to table; it had been killed that 
 day, and was fat, but the room was cold, the 
 plates were cold, and the meat was underdone 
 and scarcely warm. Everybody knows that a 
 worse state of things than this for venison can- 
 not be imagined. My hostess took it very ill in 
 me that I would not eat of it. She had "telled 
 the man to bring the saddle in for me, and he 
 had chopped part of it off with an axe, and had 
 left the thin part behind: she had put it in the 
 oven instead of frying it, and I wouldn't eat it so 
 not no more than I would when it was fried — if 
 I didn't beat all !" As to the a^remens of the ta- 
 ble, there seemed to me to be only this differ- 
 ence betwixt the woods and the town, that when 
 you were eating in this last you had bread and 
 vegetables, and a roof over your head. Those 
 at table with me seemed, however, to enjoy their 
 repast as much as if it had been prepared by an 
 artist of the first talent. They ate heartily, and 
 appeared to be cheerful and contented ; so true 
 is it that we are the creatures of education and 
 habit, and that the slovenliness and dirt, which 
 are so revolting to those who are not accustom- 
 ed to them, are not even seen by others. An- 
 other confirmed habit ol the country is never to 
 shut the doors; during the long summer they 
 have this is unnecessary, and they never do any- 
 thing that they are not compelled to do ; so that 
 when the winter season comes, the family hud- 
 dles round the fire with the door wide open, and 
 generally five or six pains of glass broken in the 
 window, which no one thinks of mending any 
 more than of shutting the door. In the interior, 
 where you stop for the night, they usually have 
 nothing but shutters to exclude the air, glazed 
 windows being too expensive and inconvenient. 
 In stormy weather, therefore, you are often obli- 
 ged to eat your meals by the light of a nasty 
 candle of grease, and to get over the day, if you 
 are detained, as well as you can by the light of 
 the fire. But wherever you go, it is in vain you 
 tell the blacks to shut the doors after them : they 
 are eternally coming in and going out, big and 
 little; so that, at length, you give it up, and try 
 to get out of the draft of cold air as much as 
 you can. 
 
 The town of Little Rock is surrounded by ex- 
 tremely poof land, and from a variety of concur- 
 ring causes can never be very populous. The 
 river upon which it is situated is hardly navi- 
 gable four months in the year, and the sandbars 
 upon it are annually becoming more obstructive. 
 As a place of deposit for the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood, and in virtue of its being the seat of 
 government, it may in time become a respect- 
 able small town, have good seminaries of edu- 
 cation for the youth of the territory, and afford 
 agi'eeable society ; but in a commercial point of 
 view it can only have a limited share of trade. 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 101 
 
 White River will hereafter be made navigable 
 for steamers 200 miles above Big Black River, 
 and will be the avenue for trade to the northern 
 districts, whilst Red River will be the same lor 
 the southern. The resources, too, of the terri- 
 tory itself appear to me, from all I learn, to have 
 been ver}' much exaggerated. Mountains and 
 soils of inferior quality form two thirds of the 
 whole area, and the rich bottoms which commu- 
 nicate with the Arkansas, the Mississippi, Big 
 Black, White River, and other streams, will in 
 most places require a great capital to be laid out 
 in embankments, or levees, as they are called, to 
 secure the cotton crops from inundation. Cot- 
 ton will always be the staple production of Ar- 
 kansas, which is therefore destined to ihe curse 
 of being a slave-holding state. 
 
 The town, as has been before stated, is built 
 upon a slate traversed by broad bands of quartz, 
 and no sandstone is superincumbent in the im- 
 mediate vicinity; but near the ferry I found a 
 partial bed of tertiary limestone, containing os- 
 trea, turritella, calyptrea, cerithium, and other 
 marine shells ; and about three jniles from Lit- 
 tle Rock the same deposit reappears in consid- 
 erable quantities, and is quarried for the purpose 
 of making lime. About three miles and a half 
 S.E. from Little Rock there is an independent 
 ridge of hard siliceous matter which is ten miles 
 long, and lies'on tlie south side of the bayou call- 
 ed Fourche, where are some exceedingly rich 
 alluvial bottoms filled with trees of great magni- 
 tude, and which presented a very curious ap- 
 pearance. 
 
 The periodical inundations of the Arkansas 
 are sometimes of a terrible character, rising to 
 the height of thirty and even forty feet. During 
 one of these, in June, 1833, the backwater of the 
 river rushed up the bayou, and very soon filled 
 the extensive alluvial bottom : the river being 
 highly charged with red argillaceous matter col- 
 lected in its course from the Rocky Mountains, 
 left, on its subsidence, all the trees painted with 
 a chocolate-red colour at a great distance from 
 the ground, so that the height of the inundation 
 could be accurately measured. Many trees at- 
 tain a surprising elevation and girth in bottoms 
 of this kind in these low latitudes. Amongst 
 them I observed Deciduous Cypress (^Cupressa 
 disticha), Cotton-Wood-Poplar {Populus angula- 
 ta), Populus Tiionillfera, Hackberry {Cdtis inte- 
 grifolia), Over-Cup-White-Oak {Quercus macro- 
 carpa), Cofiee-Bean Tree (^Gijnmodadus Canaden- 
 sis), Sweet-Gum Tree (^Liqaidambar slyracijiua), 
 One-seeded L.oc\ist. {Glcditsia monospcrma), Trip- 
 le-thorned Acacia (Acacia triacantkos), Ogee- 
 chee Lime {Ni/ssa pubcscens), and many others. 
 These bottoms are so grown up with vegetable 
 matter, and are in some parts so dilRcult to move 
 through, on account of those vegetable pests the 
 Saw Briar (Schrankia horridula), Green Briar 
 {Smilax), and Supple Jacks {^Eiwplia volubiUs), 
 all of which, especially the Saw Briar, catch and 
 tear your clothes, that an individual not familiar 
 with these endless and gloomy swamps is not 
 much tempted to wander far into them. Any 
 one who should lose himself and be exposed to 
 remaining there all night, would have to climb 
 a tree, for those places are the favourite resort of 
 numerous troops of wolves at that period. Noth- 
 ing can exceed the fertility of these bottoms, but 
 they will not be reclaimed soon, for the embank- 
 ments necessary to keep out the inundations 
 ■would require to be of the most formidable and 
 expensive character. 
 
 During our stay here we made various excur- 
 sions into the neighbourhood. I had heard of 
 the Mammelles, and was desirous of seeing them 
 and the adjacent country, as they were only 
 about twenty miles oft' up the Arkansas River; 
 accordingly, on the 22nd of November, having 
 procured an additional horse, we took to the 
 woods again. We kept the slate for a few miles, 
 and then rose upon ridges of sandstone of the 
 same mineral character as those we had travel- 
 led upon on the north side of the valley, on our 
 way to Little Rock, and whicii I have supposed 
 to be the equivalent of the old red sandstone of 
 Europe. 'I'he veins of quartz were here also of 
 great breadth and still more frequent. We saw 
 numerous beautiful deer on the way, bounding 
 and skipping about with great agility, and then 
 showing us their snow-white tails and haunches; 
 but as we make war only on fossils, except when 
 we are obliged to supply ourselves with provis- 
 ions, we are content with admiring them. The 
 ridges here run nearly east and west for about 
 twelve miles from Little Rock, when the country 
 becomes more level, with small bottoms of land 
 and narrow streams running through them. 
 Here we found some German emigrants tempo- 
 rarily hutted, who had gone through a variety of 
 adventures since they left their native fader- 
 land : they had been sick with the malaria and 
 were now recovering, but all their enthusiasna 
 for liberty and America had evajJoiaied ; their 
 resources, too, were nearly exhausted, and, en- 
 feebled and disheartened, they seemed not to look 
 forward with pleasure any more, but rather to 
 revert to what they had left behind. This is too 
 frequently the fate of emigrants who are discon- 
 tented with their native country; they render 
 themselves unhappy at home by believing that 
 everything at a distance from it is paradise ; and 
 when, after having sacrificed all their means and 
 encountered continual privations and sickness, 
 they have put an impassable barrier betwixt 
 themselves and the soil they still love and the 
 friends of their youth, they find they have ac- 
 complished nothing but expatriation, that they 
 are in a foreign land of whicli they do not know 
 the language, where everything appears barba- 
 rous to them, where no one takes the least inter- 
 est in them, and that the sunshine they once in- 
 considerately thought belonged to the future, 
 now, when they have paid the uttermost price 
 for it, only beams in their sorrowful imagina- 
 tions upon the past. 
 
 These poor people were delighted to converse 
 with me, and to find that we took an interest in 
 them. I gave them a little money, of which 
 they stood in great need to purchase meal, and 
 advised them not to settle upon the bottom lands 
 where the malaria would constantly persecute 
 them ; but rather to seek an undulating country 
 where there was abundance of limestone and de- 
 ciduous timber, and where the slopes of the hills 
 would yield them grain and pasturage, and good 
 springs. Leaving these worthy people, we no'w 
 entered upon an extensive bottom with numer- 
 ous streams running through it, one of which, 
 about fifteen miles from Little Rock, is called 
 Petite Mammelle ; and here, in the immediate 
 vicinity of this stream, is that magnificent rocky 
 cone called the Mammelle Mmmtain, an outlier of 
 the red sandstone, so often mentioned, of a very 
 precipitous kind. Its south-west aspect is ex- 
 tremely fine, and resembles a pyramid, the height 
 of which is about 700 feet from its base. 
 
 Having ridden our horses through the pine- 
 
102 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 trees which extend two-thirds of the way up the 
 mountain, and wiiich was as I'ar as we thought it 
 expedient lo take them, we dismounted and se- 
 cured them in order to accomplish the rest of the 
 ascent, which is naked, steep, and rugged, on 
 foot. On the S.W. edge of the pyramid, the 
 sandstone beds were lying at an angle of 70° to 
 75°, and in some places they were vertical, be- 
 ing completely set on end. Many acres of the 
 ■western face were covered with huge blocks and 
 fragments of the rock, without a plant or a blade 
 of grass to relieve the rugged and desolate aspect 
 it presented. After a fatiguing ascent we gained 
 the top, from whence we saw the river Arkansas 
 at a distance of about two miles, and all the sur- 
 rounding country at our feet. The rich bottoms 
 were plainly indicated by the deciduous trees 
 with which they were covered, and stood in 
 strong contrast to the pine timber growing on the 
 ridges. The horizon was bounded by ridges 
 bearing S.W. and W. from us, and we saw dis- 
 tinctly several high cones to the N.W., which I 
 took to be the elevations called Magazine and 
 Mount Ceriie. To the N. was the interminable 
 wilderness of gray leafless forests we had so late- 
 ly passed over, on our journey to Little Rock. 
 The waving line of the Arkansas, and the exten- 
 sive bottoms into which it rushes when its chan- 
 nel is full, were all before us. 1 had no concep- 
 tion before of the great extent of these bottoms, 
 which can never be made available for human 
 purposes until they are protected by levees from 
 the intrusion of the river. The view from this 
 mountain is extremely characteristic of the wilds 
 of America, and would make a fine panorama. 
 But we had scarcely made a shetch of it before 
 it was time to descend, for evening was ap- 
 proaching, and we had yet to find our way to a 
 person to whom we had an introduction, and 
 who had built a sawmill somewhere in the vi- 
 cinity of the river for the purpose of sawing the 
 logs of the cypress trees. 
 
 Regaining our horses we pursued our journey, 
 and soon entered one of those vast dark bottoms, 
 filled with thick and lofty trees, all of which, to 
 the height of about fifteen feet, were painted a 
 chocolate colour, as accurately as if it had been 
 done by hand, with the red mud of the Arkansas. 
 In this immense bed of silt, produced by the an- 
 cient overflowings of the river — which rose thir- 
 ty feet in June, 1833— we came to a serious ob- 
 stacle in a broad and deep bayou, called the 
 Grande Mammelle. Its banks were exceeding- 
 ly difiicult both of access and egress, and the 
 mud appeared so deep that we were not a little 
 embarrassed what to do. Happily a tree had 
 fallen across, so getting upon it, and sounding 
 the bayou, we determined to try it. My son en- 
 tered the water first, mounted on our friend Mis- 
 souri, for we knew he was to be relied upon at 
 a pinch, and to be sure he swam over gallantly 
 to the other side; but there the bog was so deep 
 and plastic, that he stuck fast, and could not ex- 
 tricate himself. My son was therefore obliged 
 to jump off" into the bayou to relieve him of his 
 weight, and by the aid of some twigs got on the 
 bank. After a great many violent plunges the 
 , horse at length got out covered from top to bot- 
 tom with mud. I now unsaddled my horse, and 
 my son crossing over to my side on the tree led 
 him by the bridle; but my horse in his turn got 
 completely bogged, and wanting the spirit of the 
 other, he seemed to give it up, and turned his 
 eyes up to us in such a comical and reproachful 
 way, that we simultaneously burst out a laugh- 
 
 ing. After a while collecting his energies he 
 made a fortunate plunge, and got to the bank 
 also. 
 
 Having scraped our nags a little, we re-sad- 
 dled and proceeded on amidst those never-ending 
 painted trees, that were continually reminding us 
 of the wild power of the Arkansas, to which, as 
 when men are walking upon the crater of an 
 abated volcano, we i'elt as if we were too near. 
 We had no path to guide us, no marked trees to 
 assure us that we were in the right track, and we 
 were not much encouraged at discovering, as we 
 advanced, an endless succession of stagnant pools 
 on our left, showing that we were in the lowest 
 part of the swamp. Guided alone by the com- 
 pass, we pursued our way, hoping that this be- 
 ing the lowest part of the bottom it might be con- 
 nected with the stream upon which the saw-mill 
 was built. We had been told that this mill was 
 about three or four miles from the mouth of the 
 Grande Mammelle, but whereabouts this mouth 
 was it was impossible for us to surmise ; a very 
 cold night was coming on, my son was wet 
 through, if we did not extricate ourselves from 
 this horrid place before it became dark, it would 
 be impossible to proceed. I became very anx- 
 ious, and regretted a thousand times that 1 had 
 not engaged a guide. What made my reflections 
 still more unpleasant was, that I had seen the 
 extent of this frightful swamp from the top of the 
 mountain, and knew that it extended several 
 miles (I afterwards learnt that it contained from 
 30,000 to 40,000 acres); it was evident, therefore, 
 that if we were benighted, we might find it very 
 difiicult to provide for our safety against the 
 countless gangs of savage wolves that range 
 about by night. Leaving the pools, we now in- 
 clined more to the right, and the forest being 
 somewhat more dry and open, put on in the di- 
 rection of the Arkansas, thinking we should be 
 more safe there than in the swamp. Steadily 
 Ibllowing this course for some time, we came at 
 length upon a cowpath, and felt amazingly cheer- 
 ed by it. I knew that it was the custom in these 
 wilds to turn the cows out during the day to pro- 
 vide for themselves, and to shut the calves up to 
 entice their mothers back. Now the cow that 
 made that path must have some place to go to, 
 and something in the shape of man would prob- 
 ably be there. On we went, losing and finding 
 the path twenty times, and at length came to 
 where the ground was more beaten, and several 
 other paths appeared. A little embarrassed at 
 this, we, in the end, preferred the most beaten of 
 them, and put our willing horses — who seemed 
 as much comforted as ourselves by these signs — 
 upon it. 
 
 Night had fallen, when suddenly we heard the 
 comforting sound of the lowing of cattle. Never 
 did that sweet line — 
 
 Aut ill reducta valle mugientiura — 
 please me so much as those rural and friendly 
 sounds; guided by them we came to a small 
 house on the river, and were there directed to 
 proceed half a mile to a settlement where the 
 mill was, and to the proprieto- of which we had 
 an introduction. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIIL 
 
 A Concert of Wolves — Aneient bed of the Arkansas — An 
 Arkansas Honeymnnn — Mettiod of crossing a Bayou — De- 
 part from Little Rock fnr the Hot Springs of the Washita 
 — Explanation of a " Turn-out" — Stop at the best Hotel 
 on the Road—" Nisby" and her " Missus"— Stump Han- 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 103 
 
 • die and Company— A fastidious Judge— Governor Shan- 
 non's Hotel— A Jury de circumstautibus 
 
 The owner of the mill, Mr. Starbuck, was 
 from home with his wire, but his father-in-law, a 
 Mr. Elliot from Virginia, and his Indy, were 
 there, and received us in a very friendly manner. 
 Here we supped and slept, if being awake al- 
 most the whole night can be called sleeping, for 
 which there were various causes; Fahrenheit's 
 thermometer fell before midnight to 24°, a point 
 which is sensibly felt in this latitude, and our 
 room, although not out of doors, felt very much 
 like it. Then came the yelling and howling of 
 the wolves, who made an incredible noise, es- 
 pecially towards morning, some barking in one 
 tone, some screaming and howling in another, 
 as if each one had his tail in a pair of pincers; 
 an uproar which appears intended as a signal 
 for stragglers to come into the swamp, where 
 they crouch during the day. A third cause of 
 -our wakefulness was some strong green tea that 
 good Mrs. Elliot treated us to; an excellent bev- 
 erage, if it is wanted to dragoon nature into sit- 
 ting up all night, but which upon this occasion 
 did not fail to give me abundant opportunities of 
 thinking about a great many things, and especi- 
 ally of the very pretty night we should have had 
 of ir, what with the weather and the wolves, if 
 we had been obliged to stay in the swamp. 
 
 ]n the morning I was glad to get out of doors 
 at the break of day, in order to gratify myself by 
 looking round, and to restore the circulation by a 
 ■good long walk before breakfast. Mr. Starbuck 
 is a man of great resolution and enterprise, and 
 has built a grist and saw mill at the edge of this 
 great swamp; the pools we had seen formed a 
 chain of small lakes, which extended several 
 miles, and the timber on each side of them, and 
 on theiredges, being almost all killed by the water, 
 formed as perfect a picture of desolation as a for- 
 est of innumerable dead ragged bare poles can 
 do. The Cyprus {C. disticka), which is the tim- 
 ber they principally saw, flourishes greatly in 
 such situations, and attains a prodigious size. 
 As to the lakes, such immense quantities of wild 
 fowl resort there that some of them were almost 
 covered with wild geese and ducks, and at cer- 
 tain seasons swans come there also. 
 
 During the day I had an opportunity of more 
 minutely examining this curious locality, and 
 saw very clearly that the long chain of pools and 
 lakes was upon the line of an ancient channel of 
 the Arkansas, having traced it through the swamp 
 to the river again. A small circumstance will 
 lead to the deflection of one of these mighty 
 streams, when flowing through an alluvial coun- 
 try. The lodgement of a tree in a low state of 
 the water will, when the stream becomes still 
 lower, turn it from its course, and produce also 
 what is called a sandbar. The current having a 
 new direction given to it, wears its way in time 
 through some low and weak part of the opposite 
 bank, makes a new and circituous channel, and 
 forms an island, which in this part of the coun- 
 try is usually called a -'cut off;" the old bed 
 now becomes converted into a chain of pools 
 and lakes, and is gradually filled up again by the 
 silt deposited by the annual inundations. I have 
 heard of the channel of the Mississippi at the 
 south being changed in this way, a sandbar hav- 
 ing first turned the current through a new and 
 weak part of the bank, and the whole flood, in a 
 period of inundation, coming through in such 
 force as to efi^ect, in 24 hours, a new channel fit- 
 ted for a steamer to pass through. 
 
 In the course of the day a small skiff coming 
 to the mill from below for some grist, i prevail- 
 ed upon the boys who paddled it to put us over 
 to the other side of the river, where 1 had heard 
 there were some settlements. Having landed 
 upon an immense sandbar,* we pur'jued it (oc- 
 casionally diverging into the interior) lor several 
 miles, observing the workings of this powerful 
 flood, and I became so interested with what I 
 saw, and received .so much information from this 
 practical lesson, that I determined to follow the 
 river on my return from the Mexican frontier, to 
 its junction with the Mississippi, a distance of 
 about 300 miles. 
 
 From the river we went a short distance into 
 the interior to see a Mr. Piat, an old settler here, 
 who has raised a large family in Arkansas, most 
 of whom have established themselves elsewhere. 
 He seemed to have collected some comforts 
 about him; but a Mr. Graham, who lives in the 
 neighbourhood, has built himself a commodious 
 house, and has a few small fields adjoining to 
 it, with a patch of very promising looking wheat. 
 Many persons in the territory, who have never 
 been accustomed to plant any thing but Indian 
 corn, imagine that wheat will not succeed, and 
 upon no better evidence than that they have 
 never sown any; but the appearance of Mr, 
 Starbuck's grist mill, the want of which had per- 
 haps kept the cultivation of wheat back, is pro- 
 ducing a salutary change. 
 
 We also visited a place we had heard a good 
 deal of wondrous matter about, called Crystal 
 Hill. It is distant from Little Rock about 14 
 miles, and abuts upon the river. It consisted of 
 red sandstone lying upon slaty shale, dipping to 
 the south-east. The shale runs about three- 
 fourths of the distance up the hill, and the sand- 
 stone caps it there at an inclination of about 60''. 
 At the water's edge the shale contains bands and 
 nodules of ironstone, and occasionally pyrites or 
 sulphuret of iron, which many persons, ignorant 
 of minerals, who have landed here, have sup- 
 posed connected with the precious metals, and so 
 have caused the locality to be talked about. In- 
 deed there is another place a few miles lower 
 down, called Miiie i7/y, where some individuals, 
 upon the strength of similar appearances, have 
 actually dug for silver. 
 
 Night coming on, we engaged two men to row 
 us back in a skiflT to a Mr. Henderson's, where 
 we had sent our horses in the morning, and here 
 we were very hospitably entertained. Our host 
 had formerly been a trader with the Indians, and 
 knew this part of America well. On the chim- 
 ney-piece of the room where we slept, I saw a 
 siiigular ornament, a compound mirror, com- 
 posed of near a hundred small ones, all with sep- 
 arate lackered frames, and fancifully arranged 
 into one general frame. He said it was the only 
 remnant of his old stock in trade, and that ha 
 used to exchange these trifles with the Indians 
 for their peltry." After breakfast he was kind 
 enough to accompany us for a few miles from 
 his house, in order "to see us safe across the 
 Grande Mammelle by another ford, where there 
 was less mud. On reaching the ford, I was 
 
 * These sandbars, when the river is low, may be trave- 
 led over for great distances, and are thus used where there 
 are no roads. Some conception may be formed of the diffi- 
 culties which first settlers have to contend with, by stating- 
 that a very respectable person, who resides about 50 miles 
 west of Little Rock, took his bride on horseback, to visit 
 some friends up the Arkansas, for the distance of 200 miles, 
 fording the river from bar to bar, and sleeping every night 
 upon one of them. 
 
104 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 amused at the nonchalance with which he com- 
 menced his operations; merely crossing his own 
 stirrups over the saddle, he led his horse to the 
 stream, and drove him in with a few strokes of 
 the whip, when the animal, partly swimming, 
 and partly walking, soon got over. Then taking 
 the saddles from our horses, and tying the bridles 
 round their necks, he drove our horses across in 
 the same manner, which immediately joined his 
 nag that was cropping the leaves of a cane-brake 
 on the opposite side. With our saddles on our 
 shoulders, we now crossed the bayou, over a tree 
 which had been felled for the purpose, and re- 
 mounting, soon came on the eastern and south 
 fronts ol the Mammelle Mountain, which we 
 found was connected with a low peaked chain 
 that extended to the river, and abutted upon it 
 opposite to the long sandbar. Having taken a 
 friendly leave of our guide, and received his di- 
 rections for our course, we without difficulty got 
 into the old road and reached Little Rock again 
 in the afternoon. 
 
 On the 27th of November we again put our 
 little waggon in motion, and directed our course 
 towards the hot springs of Washita (pronounced 
 Washitaw). For the first eight miles the road 
 was very bad, full of rocks, stumps, and deep 
 mud holes, and wound up one of those sandstone 
 ridges that are so common in this country. We 
 frequently came upon trees that had fallen across 
 the road, and had lain there many years, exhib- 
 iting an indifference on the part of the settlers 
 unknown in the more industrious northern states. 
 When a tree falls on the narrow forest road, the 
 first traveller that passes is obliged to make a 
 circuitous track around it, and the rest follow 
 him for the same reason. I have observed this 
 peculiarity both in Missouri and Arkansas. If 
 a tree is blown down near to a settler's house, 
 and obstructs the road, he never cuts a log out 
 of it to open a passage; it is not in his way, and 
 travellers can do as they please, because nobody 
 would prevent their cutting it. But travellers 
 feeling no inclination to do what they think is 
 not their business, never do it. The settler in 
 these wild countries plants to live, and not to 
 take to market; if he is on horseback he cares 
 little about it, if he is in a light waggon he can 
 get round the tree in less time than it would take 
 to stop and "work for others." Thus the old 
 adage is verified, that " what is every body's 
 business is nobody's business;" but what makes 
 this unjustifiable indolence on the part of the 
 settler — when the obstruction is near his house — 
 sometimes very absurd, is, that often when a 
 track is established round the first fallen tree 
 another obstruction shuts up this track, and so in 
 a long period of time the established track gets 
 removed into the woods, far out of sight of the 
 settler's house. If you ask him why he does not 
 cut a log out of the first fallen tree, he will prob- 
 ably say that " it is not his business to wait upon 
 travellers," and indeed the distances from house 
 to house are sometimes so very great, that it 
 would he unreasonable to require of any par- 
 ticular settler to remove all such obstructions. 
 These circuitous tracks are known by the name 
 of tuTTi-outs, and if you are inquiring towards 
 evening how many miles it is to the next settle- 
 ment, you perhaps will be told, "16 miles and a 
 heap of tuni-outs." We once made a calculation 
 that these turn-outs had added at least five miles 
 to our journey in Missouri and Arkansas. Apro- 
 pos of the pronunciation of this word— which 
 undoubtedly is a Gallo-American corruption of 
 
 an Indian name — the universally adopted one 
 now is Arkunsaw, pronouncing the first syllable 
 as we do in the word arm, and the last as we do 
 saw — a carpenter's tool ; the middle syllable is 
 short. 
 
 Having reached the top of the sandstone ridge, 
 we found a tolerably good table-land, watered by 
 numerous small transparent streams, some of 
 which run into the Arkansas, others into the 
 Bayou Bartholomew, a tributary of the Saline 
 River, before it joins the Washita. As we ad- 
 vanced, the vegetation began to assume more 
 and more a semi-tropical character; several spe- 
 cies of oaks which we had not seen now appear- 
 ed, especially the narrow-leaved varieties; the 
 willow oak {Q'locrcus pAellos) was very abundant; 
 and we found the first plant we had seen of the 
 bow wood {Madura auranliaca), but without 
 any fruit on it. In the evening we came to a 
 sort of tavern, 27 miles from Little Rock, built 
 on a rich bottom of land, at the north fork of the 
 Saline, a violent stream in the season of freshets 
 or floods, which then overflows its banks i30 feet. 
 This place was kept by a sort of she Caliban, 
 and the tenement consisted of one room with a 
 mud floor, in the various corners of which were 
 four cranky beadsteads, upon which were hud- 
 dled what she chose to call bed clothes. But 
 what bed clothes! Then there was a door that 
 would not shut, a window frame with every pane 
 broken, and some benches to sit on before a 
 broken table, to form the sum total of the furni- 
 ture and appliances of this hotel. She told us 
 we might choose our own bed, and after we had 
 put our horse up, she would give us some sup- 
 ser. As it had already begun to rain, we were 
 glad to be housed for the night, and having put 
 Missouri into a hovel, consisting of open logs, 
 with some boards to cover him, and left him 
 with plenty of Indian corn leaves and some grain, 
 we adjourned to the fire-side. The rain now be- 
 gan to pour down in torrents, and before our sup- 
 per was ready four more travellers joined us, os- 
 tensibly on their way to a government sale of 
 land at a distant county. I was glad of this, be- 
 cause one of them was Colonel A*****, of Lit- 
 tle Rock, a v°ry intelligent and agreeable per- 
 son, with whom I was acquainted. 
 
 This accession to her company put our host- 
 ess into a great bustle ; she had to prepare sup- 
 per for six persons, several of whom were law- 
 yers, and of course the great man of Little Rock, 
 and she set about it accordingly. We now dis- 
 covered that she possessed resources we had not 
 suspected the existence of; a kitchen — that cor- 
 responded with every thing else — was attached 
 to the hotel, and communicated with it by a 
 small door, and in that kitchen was her aide de 
 cuisine and factotum, a stunted, big-headed ne- 
 gro girl, that from her size did not appear to be 
 more than twelve, yet was not destined to see 
 her twentieth year again. The grotesque rags 
 this creature was dressed in, and the broken- 
 brimmed man's hat that was cocked on one side 
 of her head, gave such an effect to the general 
 attractions of Nisby— for that was her name — 
 that she put us all into the verj^ best possible hu- 
 mour, and we could not but break out into a 
 chuckle of delight whenever she came into the 
 room. Whenever we became better acquaint- 
 ed, we found that Nisby was an abbreviation of 
 Sophynisby, as our hostess pronounced it, which 
 put me in mind of Thomson's line — 
 " Oh Sophonisba, Sophonisba, Oh 1" 
 
 I know not when I have uttered so many laugh- 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 105 
 
 ing Ohs! as during the early part of this even- 
 ing. The appearance of the girl indicated ex- 
 treme stolidity, vet she did not want for spirit 
 and activity." Her "Missus," who seemed to 
 have a lurking idea that things might possibly be 
 carried on a " leetel" belter than they were at her 
 hotel, always endeavoured to supply deficiencies 
 by a voluble and magniloqdent description of the 
 things she "hadn't jist got at that time;" and 
 whenever she was at a pinch, would draw upon 
 Nisby lo confirm her as.sertions : this the girl 
 was pretty well broken into, but when the " Mis- 
 sus," in the warmth of her generous intentions 
 in our favour, would sometimes call upon Nisby 
 to execute instanter manifest impossibilities, then 
 poor Nisby would be " nonplushed," and, if hard 
 pressed, would betray something that looked like 
 impatience. We had an amusing instance of 
 this whilst the supper vvas preparing. Upon the 
 broken table around which we were to sit, Nis- 
 by had placed certain plates and coffee cups and 
 saucers, most of which had gone through a great 
 many hardships; and having used her talent for 
 display to the best advantage, went to the kitch- 
 en, where her Missus was occupied baking some 
 heavy dough cakes, and frying a quantity of lit- 
 tle bi'ts of fat pork. By and by in came Missus 
 to take a survey before the first entree came in, 
 and affecting a most distressing surprise, com- 
 menced the following dialogue with her aide de 
 cuisine at the top of their voices : 
 
 " Why, how this gal has laid the table 1 Nis- 
 by 1" 
 " What's awanting, Missus?' 
 " You ha-ant laid the table no hay w, you kree- 
 ter, you 1" 
 
 " I reckon I couldn't do it no better." 
 " Why, whar on arth is all the forks'?" 
 " Why, the forks is on the table thar." 
 " If you don't beat all— I mean the new forks." 
 " I niver seen no new forks, you know that, 
 Missus." 
 " Whar has the kreetur put the forks, I say V 
 No answer. 
 
 " Wahl ! if you don't find the forks, I allow I '11 
 give it to you !" 
 
 Enter Nisby, agitata. j^^j 
 
 {Sfltto voce e staccato.) " I ha-ant put no forks 
 nowhar. I niver seen no forks but them ar 
 what's on the table ; thar's five on 'em, and thar's 
 not no more ; thar's Stump Handle, Crooky Prongs, 
 Horny, Big Peicter, and Little Pickey, and that's 
 jist what thar is, and I expec they are all thar to 
 speak for themselves." 
 
 And Nisby was right. Stump Handle was there, 
 and was by far the»most forkable-looking con- 
 cern, for it consisted of one prong of an old fork 
 stuck into a stumpy piece of wood. Crooky 
 Prongs was curled over on each side, adapting 
 itself in an admirable manner to catch cod-fish, 
 but rather foreign to the purpose of sticking into 
 anything. Horny had apparently never been at 
 Sheffield or Birmingham, as it was a sort of im- 
 itation of a fork made out of a cow's horn. Big 
 Pewter was made of the handle of a spoon with 
 the bowl broken off; and LiMk Pickey was a 
 dear interesting looking little thing, something 
 like a cobbler's awl fastened in a thick piece of 
 •wood. 
 
 As my son and myself had our own knives and 
 forks, we did not dispute the choice of the re- 
 markable ones on the table; and the guests, ex- 
 cessively diverted with this dialogue, good na- 
 turedly adapted themselves to the necessity of the 
 O 
 
 case. We contrived to swallow some of the 
 wretched coffee, by putting a great deal of sugar 
 into it ; and we tasted the heavy cakes, one-third 
 of which seemed to be mere dirt. Indeed every- 
 thing was so dirty, that my stomach revolted at 
 what was before us. The old hag sat at the ta- 
 ble to pour out the coffee, and saw well enough 
 that we were disgusted ; but as we said nothing,, 
 she made no remarks. One of the guests, how- 
 ever, told a capital story, which was a fair hit,^ 
 and which she did not relish at all. It was of^ 
 one Judge Dooly, who was obliged to make cer- 
 tain circuits in an unsettled part of the country, 
 and being rather fastidious, did not always sub- 
 mit in silence to the inconvenience he was expo- 
 sed to by the dirt and slovenliness of others. It 
 happened that the landlord of a tavern he was oc- 
 casionally obliged to stop at, had a dispute with 
 another tavern-keeper about the direction of a 
 new road that was going to be laid out, each of 
 them being very anxious to have it brought near to 
 his house : he took the liberty, therefore, of can- 
 vassing the Judge — who was one of the persons 
 that was to determine the course of the road — and 
 endeavoured to convince him that the road ought:, 
 to come to his house, frequently apologizing, 
 however, and saying that " the Judge knew best, 
 what suited him, but he hoped there was no harm 
 in giving a friendly opinion." " Not at all," re- 
 plied the Judge, " and [ will in return offer you 
 some friendly advice, that may perhaps be use- 
 ful to you in regard to your table, if the road 
 should happen to come this way. You know 
 best, but I should think it would be better for you,, 
 when travellers come to your house, to have the 
 dirt put on one dish, and the bar's (bear's) meat 
 on another, for I swear I like to mix such things 
 for myself, and not to let others do it lor me." 
 
 When we had left the table and drew near to 
 the fire, a great many pleasant stories were told. 
 Colonel *****, who for several years attended 
 the circuits to remote and barbarous parts of the 
 territory, said, that although professional men- 
 had still many curious scenes to go through, yet 
 that they now fared much better, and found some- 
 sort of accommodation more frequently than for- 
 merly. He stated that some years ago, after a 
 hard day's ride, there was only one cabin at 
 which they could stop, and that it was very im- 
 portant to reach it in the winter season. This- 
 cabin belonged to an old hunter, a pioneer in 
 that part of the country, to whom the lawyers — 
 in virtue of the extensive jurisdiction he had iti' 
 the wilderness — had given the title of Governcrr 
 Shannon; it consisted of one solitary room with 
 a mud floor, and not a single article of furniture 
 except an old log that he had hollowed out, and 
 that he slept in at night, and sat upon at other 
 times. Upon this mud floor travellers used tO' 
 stretch themselves in their blanket-coats, and 
 j there they pigged with the Governor, an old ne- 
 giess, and a ham of dogs he kept to hunt the bars, 
 j which were numerous around him. As there 
 I had never been a door — or any contrivance ap- 
 { proaching it — to the cabin, the dogs used to come 
 in and go out whenever they pleased : if they 
 were all asleep, the barking of a wolf would 
 rouse them, and out they would rush over the 
 recumbent travellers, without being at all partic- 
 ular where they trod upon them. On their re- 
 turn, wet and covered with dirt, they made no 
 ceremony of who they laid near, nor whom they 
 laid upon, for dogs like to lie warm, and this 
 was the reason why the Governor had made his 
 bed in a log. It happened upon one occasion 
 
106 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 that a judge, who had never made this circuit 
 before, favoured the Governor with his compa- 
 ny, and becoming at length outrageously annoy- 
 ed at the stench and filth of the dogs, one of 
 which had acted very irreverently to his Hon- 
 our, called out to the Governor, that if he did not 
 take a dog away that was upon him, he would 
 kill him on the spot. Upon which his Excellen- 
 cy replied, that he " would be if the 
 
 bl — d judges and lawyers of Arkansas hadn't 
 slept with his dogs for seven years, and that if 
 ^ny man touched one of 'em, he would send him 
 to sleep with the painters, in less than no time." 
 The Governor was well known to be a resolute 
 fellow, and as there was no other settler nearer 
 than 30 miles, and " a pretty considerable .sprink- 
 ling of bars and painters about," the Judge 
 thought it best to put up with this slight upon 
 his authority. 
 
 We had also another very characteristic story. 
 When the Americans first crossed over into Tex- 
 as, they, as usual, scattered themselves about the 
 country, each selecting a suitable situation in a 
 Weil-watered fertile part, not more distant than 
 ten or twenty miles from each other. This was 
 very convenient for the thieves and homicides, 
 whose practices sometimes made it necessary for 
 them to escape even from Little Rock, and to these 
 settlers they upon such occasions resorted. Ere 
 long, however, their evil doings made them as 
 obnoxious to these pioneers in Texas as they 
 had been to others, and the settlers combined to 
 •drive them off. It happened that three fellows 
 of the very worst stamp, two of whom had com- 
 mitted murder, and the other was a notorious 
 horse thief, had broken jail at Little Rock, and 
 were pursued and traced into Texas, where they 
 had eluded their pursuers. At this time the 
 Mexican laws nominally prevailed in that part 
 ■of the country, for the Americans professed to be 
 Mexican citizens, and there being no Mexican 
 authorities to administer justice, one of the 
 American settlers, a man of some resolution, 
 was appointed by his fellow countrymen to act 
 as a magistrate, and was called "Alcalde." 
 There being some reason to believe that the three 
 vagabonds were hid away in an extensive corn- 
 brake, a party was formed to hunt them up, and 
 having found and secured them, they were taken 
 to the Alcalde's house. A court was immedi- 
 ately held, and a narrative entered into of the 
 circumstances under which they had been tra- 
 ced, and finally captured in the corn-brake. But 
 as no evidence was adduced to prove that these 
 men had been guilty of the crimes imputed to 
 them, the Alcalde declared, "I swar I'm non- 
 ■plushed ; these is the right fellows — no doubt of 
 that — but who's to prove it, and who onder arth 
 is to take 'em back to Little Rock I want t-o 
 know." The Alcalde's wife, coming into the 
 council just at this time, looked at the culprits, 
 and in one of them discovered a fellow who had 
 stolen some linen from her cabin when she lived 
 in Arkansas, and who was known to have kill- 
 ed a cow belonging to her brother, for the sake 
 of the skin. " I tell you, old Caldy," said she, 
 "if you don't hang these fellows up right off, 
 you'll never have such another chance, and mind 
 what I tell you, I calculate, if you don't, you 
 ai'nt agoing to have a skin left on a knyw's hack, 
 nor a shift to mine, to all etarnity." This alarm- 
 ing prospect decided the fate of the jail-breakers, 
 and they were all hung up within half an hour. 
 
 But the best story of the evening was related 
 bv a lawyer who had been personally concerned 
 
 in it. Four other culprits had also broh-en jail 
 at Little Rock, where they had been put, prepar- 
 atory to being sent to a distant part of the coun- 
 try to be tried in the district where they had com- 
 mitted their offences. Three of them were char- 
 ged with murder, and the fourth with several ca- 
 ses of horse stealino^^ a crime at the head of all 
 offences there, since there is nothing manly in it, 
 and nothing more inconvenient. 'I'heir counsel, 
 for it was he who related the story to us, said 
 that they had good friends, and that he was well 
 paid for defending them. As soon as he ascer- 
 tained from his clients that they were all guilty, 
 he arranged his plan for their defence. The 
 place where they were to be tried consisted of a 
 single house in the wilderness, which represent- 
 ed the future county town; the witnesses were 
 on the spot, and all the appliances to constitute 
 a Court. Twelve men had been with some dif- 
 ficulty got to leave home, and come to this place 
 to perform the part of a jury. At the critical 
 moment, however, one of these men was not to 
 be found ; and as a panel could not be formed, 
 the judge stated the fact, and asked what step 
 the prosecuting attorney intended to take. The 
 counsel of the accused, after many protestations 
 of their innocence, and their strong desire to 
 prove it without loss of time, now proposed to 
 fill the panel de circumstantibus. It so happen- 
 ed that the only circumstantes were the three 
 murderers and the horse-stealer, so they put one 
 of the murderers into the jury, and first tried the 
 horse-stealer and acquitted him, and then put the 
 horse-stealer into the panel and acquitted the 
 murderer; and by this sort of admirable contri- 
 vance the whole four were honourably acquitted, 
 and returned perfectly whitewashed into the bo- 
 som of society ; the jury and the rest of the court 
 also, having got rid of a tedious and unpleasant 
 business, returned without delay to their respect- 
 ive homes. 
 
 The hour at length came for us to retire to our 
 dingy-looking beds. On examining the extra- 
 ordinary bundle of rags of which mine seemed 
 composed, I found one coarse sheet beneath — 
 they never put more than one sheet to a bed — 
 that had perhaps been slept upon by a score of 
 persons, and a coarse blanket at the top of that: 
 the pillow was a good match to the rest; so, get- 
 ting into a large flannel bag I had made for the 
 purpose, which left my arms free, and tied close 
 round my neck, I covered the pillow with a silk 
 handkerchief, tumbled all the rags on the floor, 
 wrapped myself in a blanket-coat, and laid down, 
 bidding defiance to the myriads of bugs that were 
 confidently expecting their prey. 
 
 The rain was still pouring down when I awoke 
 in the morning, but jumping instantly up, I un- 
 packed myself, and finding a pail of water and a 
 gourd to dip it out with, on a shelf near the door 
 — an excellent custom which obtains here — I 
 hastened to make my ablutions, and having dri- 
 ed my towel at the fire, prepared to depart. But 
 the rain continuing to fall in torrents, we were 
 all compelled to sit down at the table once more 
 with Little Pickey and Company. The break- 
 fast was more disgusting than the supper, be- 
 cause the friendly darkness had concealed much 
 of the filth, and of the sordid appearance of eve- 
 ry thing around us. At length, however, it 
 cleared up, and we got away from this den of 
 rags and nastiness, just in season to ford the Sa- 
 line, which was beginning to rise. 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 107 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Arrive at Magnet Cove— An interesting Mineral Locality- 
 Strange effects of a Hurricane— Reach the Hot Springs— 
 Whittingtmi without his Cat— Rare accommodations— 
 Description of the Springs— Fishes in Hot Water— Tem- 
 perature anJ Gaseous Contents of the Hot Springs— The 
 Travertine presents different Constituents below the 
 Surface. 
 
 Colonel Conway, the surveyor-general of 
 the territory of Arkansas, was at this lime build- 
 ing a coitage for his family to escape to, during 
 the season of malaria at his plantation on Red 
 River; and had been kind enough to give me a 
 letter of introduction to his lady, desiring her to 
 receive us hospitably for the night, if we found 
 it convenient to stay there. This coitage, which 
 ■was in a secluded place called Magnet Cnvc, we 
 determined to reach if we coulJ. Passing over 
 the same kind of country we had seen the day 
 before, pine limber prevailing, and the holly 
 {Jlex opaca) beginning to be "abundant, we at 
 length, after crossing some streams that were 
 extremely swelled, reached Trammels, another 
 miserable looking cabin, and here we left the 
 road to Texas and turned into an obscure track 
 that led to Magnet Cove and the Hot Springs. 
 For the first three miles the country rose, and 
 the road became exceedingly rocky and difticult; 
 added to which the mountain streams were be- 
 ginning to assume a fierce character that rendered 
 them dangerous; frequently covering the track, 
 so that we could not see it, and concealing rocks 
 which often were on the point of overturning us. 
 
 At length the country became more open, and 
 as night was approaching we looked about with 
 some an.xiety for Magnet Cove. What it was 
 like no one had told me; I had intended to have 
 got more particular directions from Colonel Con- 
 way, but an engagement prevented our meeting 
 at my departure from Little Rock, and he had 
 sent the letter to my lodgings. The nature of 
 the country did not promise anything like a cove, 
 but always hoping that we should discover it, 
 •we pushed on, and at length descended from the 
 table-land into a gloomy looking lowland very 
 densely timbered. Here we found two or three 
 tracks, and were doubtful which to take. One 
 i3f them probably led to the Hot Springs and the 
 other to the cottage : seing some twigs lately bro- 
 ken on the left-hand track we turned into it, and 
 soon after saw a still fresher track on our left in 
 the woods. Driving on as quick as we could we 
 came at length to where we perceived that the 
 lowland was encircled by lofty hills, and now it 
 occurred to me that this was one of those roman- 
 tic places such as we had seen in Virginia 
 and Tennessee, and which are there also called 
 coves, and perceiving a clearing, and lookins 
 back through it we saw a cottage to which the 
 track we had last passed eviriently led ; so turn- 
 ing back we followed this track, and at last came 
 to the cottage. Mrs. Conway received us very 
 politely, and unprepared for visiters as she was, 
 with carpenters and labourers to provide for, had 
 some supper got for us. Seeing that we were 
 very much in the way, we retired to rest in a 
 room which was not yet enclosed, and was still 
 open to the weather on the side where the chim- 
 ney was hereafter to be built, an inconvenience 
 which was remedied as well as circumstances 
 admitted of, by hanging up some counterpanes; 
 but everything was very clean and we rested 
 well. 
 
 In Ji^rnorning, at dawn of day, I sallied out 
 to vi^^B|@ place, and having walked through 
 
 In Ji^rnoi 
 
 w 
 
 the bottom, made my way up the lofty elevation 
 with which it was surrounded, and looked down 
 into the interior, which was in fact a deep basin 
 containing about 1200 acres of the richest land, 
 and thickly wooded. What struck me very 
 much was, that the whole area — which rather 
 affects a spheroidal than a circular form— com- 
 prehending this cove both outside and in, was 
 covered with deciduous trees, whilst without its 
 limits the trees were all evergreens and pines. 
 Upon examining the rocks upon which these de- 
 ciduous trees grew, I Ibund they were constituted 
 of a decomposing and very ancient greenstone, 
 that had intruded itself into ihe general strata of 
 sandstone of the surrounding country, whilst the 
 evergreens grew only upon the sandstone out- 
 side. Having returned to the house, and made 
 a very comlortable breakfast, I sallied out again 
 to look at some localities where Colonel Con- 
 way had told me I should find some curious min- 
 erals. 
 
 He had informed me that on surveying the 
 country the needle M'ould not iraverse on ap- 
 proaching this locality, and the cause was here 
 apparent from a mound in the Cove, covered 
 with pebbles of magnetic micaceous oxide of 
 iron from one ounce to four pounds weight. 
 These pebbles, like those of the vein in Missou- 
 ri which goes by the name of Iron Mountain, 
 overlie masses of the metal of prodigious extent, 
 which, from their great magnetic force, probably 
 influence the country around for a great dis- 
 tance. Some of the specimens which I brought 
 away — especially one which contained a portion 
 of a large crystal of iron — possess an intensity of 
 magnetic power which is truly surprising. In 
 other parts of the bottom I found large masses of 
 decomposing felspar, studded with black tour- 
 malines, some of which were in long prisms, 
 whilst others were in stellated groups, with beau- 
 tifully delicate acicular rays. In some of these 
 felspathic rocks were amorphous pieces of white 
 sulphuret of iron, believed nere to be silver. Oc- 
 casionallv the rock in the bottom was a coarse- 
 grained kind of syenite, composed of red felspar, 
 hornblende, mica, and some quartz. In a small 
 field, not far from the house, which had been re- 
 cently ploughed — and where there was no tim- 
 ber growing when Colonel Conway first took the 
 possession of this place — I found a great many 
 Indian arrow heads made of a beautiful semi- 
 transparent kind of novaculite ; and in one place 
 an immense number of chips and broken arrow 
 heads, all of this stone, were lying together. 
 This had been evidently a favourite retreat for 
 the Indians, but I looked in vain for the rock 
 from which the novaculite had been taken. 
 
 Upon considering all the circumstances con- 
 nected with this cove, the intrusive character of 
 its rocks, their distinct origin and separation from 
 the sandstone, its minerals, the quasi-crateri form 
 of the cove, and the immense deposit of magnetic 
 iron, I could not but be impressed with the opin- 
 ion that Magnet Cove ows its origin to an an- 
 cient volcanic action, and that it is one of those 
 extinct craters that may have preceded that class 
 where basalt and lava are the principal products. 
 I left this rare place full of admiration ; if it 
 were in social respects a desirable situation for a 
 residence, the proprietor would certainly possess 
 one of the most enviable estates in America. 
 
 We had proceeded over the sandstone about 
 six miles — always going parallel with the Wash- 
 ita, -which flowed about a mile from us— -whea 
 wd.came to a part of the country where all the 
 
108 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 forest trees — without exception — were standing 
 for at least a thousand acres around, dead and 
 bare, with the bark peeled off them, but without 
 any marks whatever of fire having been in the 
 country. This was a phenomenon we were at 
 a loss to account for, but at the next settler's it 
 was explained to us. About six years ago a 
 hurricane passed over the country in the month 
 of May, and desolated everything it came near. 
 The sky, when passing over this place, was 
 frighlfuUy black, and dipping down, discharged 
 such fierce streams of hail against the northern 
 side of the forest trees, that all the bark was de- 
 stroyed down to the wood, and the circulation of 
 the sap being destroyed, every one of the trees 
 died. The house where we received this infor- 
 mation—and which had several sick persons in 
 it at the time, for the sake of being near the Hot 
 Springs — was unroofed in an instant; all the 
 poultry that were out of doors were killed on the 
 spot, the rooms were filled with rain and hail as 
 if a river had been pouring into it, and when the 
 hurricane passed away there, the hail was two 
 feet deep on the ground. These hurricanes, like 
 those in the West Indies, sometimes assume a 
 fearful character. I have never been caught in 
 one of the worst of them, but their track in the 
 forest which I have sometimes fallen in with, 
 presents a singular picture of destruction. I 
 have come upon an avenue of trees 200 yards 
 wide, torn up by the roots, and going in a straight 
 line through the country for a short distance, 
 with the tops of the trees laid uniformly in one 
 direction ; then a larger area would be seen with 
 the trees twisted in a strange manner, broken, 
 and laid in every direction, as if a whirlwind 
 of immeasurable force had been expending itself 
 upon them, and had clashed the trees against 
 each other. 
 
 From this place we had nine miles to go to 
 the Hot Springs over the sandstone ; the road was 
 bad, and we had to cross some violent streams, 
 especially one called the Gulfer, which we 
 achieved with some difficulty; at length, com- 
 ing near a ridge, we turned into a narrow pas- 
 sage or vale between two lofty hills, and saw from 
 the appearance of things that we had reached the 
 Hot Springs of the Washita, so much the object 
 of curiosity to men of science, and so little known 
 to the world. 
 
 Four wretched-looking log cabins, in one of 
 which was a small store, contained all the ac- 
 commodations that these springs offered to trav- 
 ellers. We had never seen anything worse or 
 more unpromising than they were, but driving 
 up to the store, a Mr. Whittington, who pur- 
 chases bear skins and other skins of wild animals 
 of the hunters, paying for them in the commodi- 
 ties he gets from Little Rock, and who did not 
 seem in a very promising way to the Lord Mayor- 
 alty of London, was obliging enough to say we 
 might take possession of one of the log cabins. 
 Having taken care of our horse we accordingly 
 moved into the first that we had passed on our 
 arrival. It had a roof to it as well as a little por- 
 tico, as a defence against the rays of the sun, but 
 this was literally all that it had, for not an arti- 
 cle of furniture was there either in the shape of 
 table or chair. The floor was formed of boards 
 roughly and unevenly hewn, and, unfortunately, 
 some of them were wanting. Being reckoned, 
 however, the best lodgings in the place, we made 
 the best of it, and through our new friend got 
 skins, blankets, and other appliances to serve as 
 bedding. We next laid in some firewood and 
 
 constructed a kind of table, so that when we had 
 succeeded in borrowing two old chairs, we look- 
 ed with some satisfaction upon our new attempt 
 at housekeeping. We were sure at any rate of 
 being alone, and of being out of the reach of filth 
 of every kind ; in fact it was almost as desirable 
 as being in the woods, and had the advantage 
 of shelter. How invalids contrive to be com- 
 fortable, who come to this ragged place, I cannot 
 imagine, yet I understand that ten or a dozen 
 people are often crammed into this room, which 
 my son and myself found much too small for 
 'wo. Persons who resort to these springs in the 
 autumn might do very well if they brought with, 
 them their own tents and a sack or two of flour, 
 for meat in the latter part of the year is abun- 
 dant and of good quality, which it is not at other 
 times when animals are breeding and suckling 
 their young. 
 
 Being impatient to see the springs we sallied 
 out, and continued making our observations un- 
 til night fell. The narrow vale in which these 
 huts are built, and which does not exceed 50 
 yards in breadth, extends about 800 yards nearly 
 north and south, and then turns to the west. On 
 each side of it is a lofty ridge of sandstone, and 
 other ridges close in the view to the north. At 
 the base of the ridge to the east is a bed of clay- 
 slate, upon which flows a pretty little murmur- 
 ing stream, that takes its rise in the hills to the 
 N.E., and into which immense sheets of traver- 
 tine descend, indicating sufficiently the near 
 neighbourhood of the springs. The ridge from 
 its base to the top is very ferruginous, is about 
 450 feet high, with a steep inclination, and in 
 the upper part has a good growth of pine and 
 oak timber. The greater number of the springs 
 — which are very numerous — ri.se in the side of 
 the ridge, at about one third of the distance from 
 its base, and are found at various points below, 
 and even in the bed of the stream, but there are 
 some near 300 feet above it. There is this pe- 
 culiarity in the situation of these Hot Springs, 
 that if ever a town should be built in the narrow 
 vale — which is only 100 feet below the most co- 
 pious of them — the hot water, which perhaps has 
 a mean temperature of 145° Fah., could be con- 
 veyed in spouts supported by frame-s into all the 
 houses below, to be used either as baths or for 
 domestic purposes. As these hot waters flow 
 down the side of the hill, they deposit their cal- 
 careous matter, which can be traced down to the 
 edge of the rivulet. The vale has perhaps been 
 wider at some remote period, for the travertine 
 extends back east from the stream about 150 
 yards before it leans upon the acclivity of the 
 hill, and is occasionally 100 feet high, continuing- 
 along the east bank of the stream— with some in- 
 terruption at intervals — a distance of 400 yards; 
 sometimes presenting abrupt vertical faces froin 
 15 to 25 feet high, and at other times showing" 
 itself in curtains with stalactitic rods, and pre- 
 senting points and coves advancing into and re- 
 ceding from the stream. 
 
 Having gratified myself with these preliminary^ 
 observations, we returned to Mr. Whittington's 
 to make the very important inquiry of how and 
 where we were to get something to eat, and here 
 we learnt that a Mr. Percival, who lived in an- 
 other of the log cabins, was the general enter- 
 tainer of all visitors to this place. He had been 
 a hunter, and having seen the place as early as 
 1807, had in some year subsequent to that built: 
 a cabin in the vale : this fact, as he conceived, 
 gave him a pre-emption claim of right^|^>ro- 
 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 prietor of the waters, and finding some advantage 
 m supplying the invalids who had now for some 
 years resorted to them, he had set up a monop- 
 oly as general provider to all strangers who had 
 any money in their pockets. To Mr. Percival's 
 cabin therefore we hied, and presenting ourselves 
 at his supper-table, found a quantity of little 
 pieces of pork swimming in hog's grease, some 
 very badly made bread, and much worse coffee, 
 ■waiting for us. They knew very well that we 
 had no other place to go to, and had prepared 
 accordingly. 
 
 Nothing could be less tempting and more rude 
 than the lare we got; and if it had not been for 
 the supply of tea and sugar we had laid in at 
 Little Rock our stomachs would have gone to 
 bed very discontentedly. Percival, however, 
 •was a good-natured man, could talk about things 
 that interested us, and promised to look up some 
 venison for another time, so we adjourned to our 
 cabin, got up a good fire, and laid down. In the 
 night we were awoke by the weather, which had 
 set in excessively stormy, and we found that our 
 portico, whatever its use might be in the sum- 
 mer, was not upon duty at this season of the 
 year, for the wind came in with such force that 
 •we could scarce keep any of the covering upon 
 ns, and I discovered that the rain had been pour- 
 ing upon me for some time before I awoke. We 
 "were also mistaken in our calculation of being 
 -alone, for it seems our cabin being placed upon 
 a loo^e wall raised about a foot and a half from 
 the ground, offered a good shelter to the various 
 hogs belonging to the place, all of which had 
 congregated immediately beneath us, and there 
 they were to be sure, grunting, and appearing 
 excessively distressed, as hogs always are in 
 stormy weather, and having every opportunity — 
 if they were so disposed — of seeing what we 
 •were doing through the hiatus valde firflmdus, 
 •which separated every plank upon which we 
 trod. This was our first n ight at the Hot Springs 
 of the Washita, but happily we were not inva- 
 lids. 
 
 In the morning the weather had cleared up, 
 and the sun broke out in great force, so having 
 lighted our fire, and dried our effects, my son 
 "went to the stream lor a pail of water to make 
 our ablutions. We now found out that we were 
 really at the Hot Springs, for there was a very 
 great difiiculty in procuring cold water, the 
 springs occupying a breadth equal to 400 yards 
 of the base of the ridge, and all of them — at least 
 thirty-five in number — falling into the brook, 
 raised its temperature to that of a warm-bath, 
 especially in places where springs of hot water 
 came through the clay slate. Finding this to be 
 the case, I thought t might as well go to the 
 ■water as have the water brought to me; so ta- 
 king my brushes and towels I sallied out, and was 
 exceedingly pleased wii,h the picturesque effect 
 produced upon the slope of the ridge by the vol- 
 umes of vapour proceeding from so many fu- 
 meroles. A gentle smoke seemed to emerge 
 from an immense thicket of arbusta and young 
 plants, all of which, in full leaf of a brilliant 
 green, made a fine contrast to the naked oaks 
 already stripped of their leaves. The water in 
 the brook was pleasantly tepid, and having no 
 one to intrude upon my privacv, I made a^pro- 
 fuse use of it, and wading about found that the 
 hot water came through the slate in an immense 
 number of places; yet mingling v/ith the water 
 of the brook it did not burn my feet, although 
 on the shore I found that if I insinuated mv fin- 
 
 gers a few inches below the gravel, I was obliged 
 to withdraw them instantly. Fishes are never 
 found in this stream when the waters are low, 
 but when it is much raised by floods from the 
 mountains, then trout, perch, and other fish are 
 taken in all parts of it. One of the inhabitants 
 told me that towards the northern end of the trav- 
 ertine, where there was a considerable pool, he 
 had often seen the fish gliding below, and that 
 upon such occasions when he would throw a 
 lew crumbs of bread in, they would darl up- 
 wards, and getting their noses into the stratum 
 of hot water at the top, would instantly wheel 
 about and disappear. Frogs and snakes, too, 
 when they fall into it inadvertently, stretch them- 
 selves out and die. 
 
 We were so charmed with the novelty of every 
 thing around us, that we got some corn bread 
 and a little milk from Mrs. Percival, and sitting 
 down by one of the springs— the temperature of 
 which was 148* Fahr. — we made our breakfast 
 there, the "water being sufficiently hot for the 
 purpose, and enjoyed ourselves very much. In 
 fact this day, December 30th, 1834, was a memo- 
 rable one in our journey, for attractive as were 
 the terrestrial rarities we were surrounded wiih, 
 they were literally eclipsed by a celestial phe- 
 nomenon of the highest degree of grandeur, an 
 almost total solar eclipse diverting for a while 
 our attention from every thing else. The eclipse 
 here was not total, for at the period of the great- 
 est obscuration there was still the appearance of 
 a slight luminous streak of the sun's body, which 
 gave a pale light equal perhaps in amount to 
 that of two full moons ; the shadow of the clouds 
 waved on the ground in a singular manner, and 
 the thermometer fell 4° during the ten minutes 
 preceding the greatest obscuration : the planet 
 Venus, too, -was visible for near an hour, al- 
 though the occultation took place in the middle 
 of the day. Take it altogether, it was a very 
 solemn scene. 
 
 As soon as this had passed away, we contin- 
 ued our observations upon every thing around 
 us, and were not a little amused with the uses 
 the settlers made of these waters: the lacility of 
 obtaining hot water was fully appreciated by 
 them, for they never seemed to boil any water 
 for any purpose, nor to drink any cold water : a 
 tree, smoothed off on the upper side, was laid 
 across the stream at a narrow part, so that they 
 could easily cross and supply themselves for the 
 purpose of washing their clothes, and on a shelf, 
 near the door of each cabin, was always a pail 
 of mineral water with a gourd to drink it from. 
 Some of the springs are quite tasteless, others 
 have a slight chalybeate flavour, but certainly 
 the first neither communicated a foreign taste to 
 tea or coffee. The highest temperature of these 
 springs at the time I was there, did not exceed 
 148°, but there had been a good deal of rain 
 which had no doubt lowered it. If there was no 
 admixture of atmospheric waters, it is probable 
 they would mark a few degrees more ; indeed 
 an individual here with whom I becaine ac- 
 quainted, showed me a memorandum which a 
 visitor had given him during a period of long 
 drought, where a particular spring was noted at 
 156« Fahr. 
 
 Around the sources of these hot waters the 
 confervce flourish remarkably, but my attention 
 was particularly drawn to an enamelled lichen- 
 looking substance of a brilliant green colour 
 which was exceedingly mucilaginous ; it was 
 not, however, a lichen, for I observed that it be- 
 
110 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 gan at first by a filament, and that it went on 
 spreading and thickening until it became half an 
 inch thick. In some places it was six inches 
 broad. The settlers finding that this substance 
 keeps warm a long time, and that it feels soft 
 and comfortable like a new poultice, apply it 
 successfully to suppurate wounds. Where the 
 travertine Ibrms so rapidly as to impede the pas- 
 sage of the water, and compels it to take another 
 channel down the hill, which it frequently does, 
 this glairy-looking substance, abandoned by the 
 hot water, entirely loses its colour, and dries up 
 into a crisp, thin film, always, however, preserv- 
 ing the appearance of lichen I examined it in 
 this state with a strong glass, and found the centre 
 of it to be calcareous matter of a whitish grey 
 colour, deposited around a slight filament of 
 grass, or any other accidental substance ; the 
 side next the atmosphere being of a dark colour 
 and in a state of decomposition, whilst the under 
 side still preserved a deadish green appearance. 
 I made some observations upon the gaseous 
 contents of these waters, and put some bottles of 
 them up, to have their solid contents ascertain- 
 ed by some competent person in the Atlantic 
 States, but the bottles got broke before they 
 reached their destination.* I observed very lit- 
 tle gas escape from these waters and their solid 
 contents were carbonate of lime, sulphate of 
 lime, and a very little iron in some of the springs. 
 There are, however, reasons for supposing that 
 in ancient times the mineral constituents of 
 these springs have not been exactly what they 
 are now. Being desirous of satisfying myseM 
 whether the travertine was of an uniform qual- 
 ity, I commenced digging into it about 25 feet 
 from the level of the brook, and having got into 
 it somewhat more than a foot, I found a great 
 increase of sulphate of lime, and much lower 
 down I came to a dark red oxide of iron in nodu- 
 lar reniform masses, taking a botryoidal form. 
 The sulphate of lime was deposited in layers 
 from a line to two inches thick. Beneath these 
 were masses of ferruginous sandstone belonging 
 to the ridge, which seemed to have been at some 
 time loose, and were now re-cemented by the 
 mineral deposits from the water, which had fill- 
 ed up all the interstices. I took out one of the 
 largest of these nodules, the circumferential crust 
 of which in some parts was two and a half inch- 
 es thick, of rich hematite ore, whilst its interior 
 was almost filled with gypsum. From all the 
 circumstances connected with these nodules, I 
 was inclined to think that they had been depos- 
 ited in ancient times by strong chalybeate wa- 
 ters, and that they had become aggregated by 
 molecular attraction. It was very evident that 
 where the greatest quantities of red oxide were, 
 a stream of water had passed for a long period 
 of time, holding iron and sulphate of lime in so- 
 lution, and anterior to the period of the present 
 waters, whose deposits of travertine now cover 
 the ferruginous deposits below. Nor is it im- 
 probable that spiings of a similar kind may yet 
 exist, for in a low cavity close to the brook I 
 perceived a stream of hot water with red oxide 
 neai it, and upon examining it minutely I foimd 
 
 * Dr. Daubeny having in 1837 visited this place and ex- 
 iruniT ed the g-aseous contents of these waters nn the spot, I 
 quote from hira, as better authority than myself for an anal- 
 ysis: 
 
 Carbonic acid . . . 4.0 
 Nitrogen .... 92.4 
 Oxygen . . . .7.6 
 
 104 
 
 the same process going on, iron depositing on 
 the sides, and soft seams of sulphate of lime al- 
 ready establishing themselves. Whether this 
 chalybeate* character in the hot water of the cav- 
 ity last spoken of be not acquired— as thermal 
 waters may acquire some of their properties, in 
 transitu — is a fact I would not pretend to speak 
 positively upon; many springs that rise through 
 beds of decomposed shale and coal loaded with 
 sulphuret of iron, undoubtedly are often atTected 
 as they pass through them, and become sulphu- 
 retted ; but the carbonate of lime, and the pro- 
 digious quantity of caloric which has for such 
 immense periods of time raised the temperature 
 of these springs, must have their origin in those 
 depths whence the intrusive rocks, the veins of 
 micaceous iron, and various other mineral phe- 
 nomena in this region, are derived. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 Curious and beautiful Mineral structure of the adjacent 
 Country— Locality whence the Indians procured the Min- 
 eral for their Arrow Heads— An unsophisticated "Bar- 
 hunter"' — Panthersfondof Buffalo Tongues— Strange sin- 
 gle Combat betwixt a Hunter and a male Buffalo— Rea- 
 soning power of the Animal — State of the Hunter's Nerves 
 after the battle. 
 
 Some person having shown me specimens of 
 a kind of novaculite which they used as hones 
 for their razors, I took a guide to the locality 
 whence they were procured, and after clamber- 
 ing over a very rugged country for three miles, 
 we came to one of the wildest regions imagina- 
 ble and singularly curious. It was altogether' 
 broken up into short ridges and isolated cones, 
 from 300 to 500 feet above'the level of the streams 
 that meandered amongst their bases in contract- 
 ed gorges from 15 to 40 yards wide. I had con- 
 stantly observed in all the rocks west of the Mis- 
 sissippi a strong tendency to a siliceous charac- 
 ter associated with iron. In Missouri the sub- 
 stitution of siliceous for calcareous matter was 
 very striking, and it was not less so in the north- 
 ern parts of Arkansas. Ever since we left Lit- 
 tle Red River we had been upon a quartzose 
 sandstone reposing on a clayey slate, and from 
 a pentramite which Mr. Hetiderson assured me 
 he had taken out of this sandstone near the 
 Mammelles (the only fossil I saw), and from 
 other considerations, I was disposed to consider 
 this sandstone as the equivalent of the old red 
 sandstone of Europe. The curious gradations 
 of this siliceous matter, in the forms of old red 
 sandstone, flint, hornstone, and quartzose rock, 
 had interested me much : but my admiration was 
 unbounded when I discoverod that all the ridges 
 and coves of the broken country I was now wan- 
 dering in, were composed of a beautiful novacu- 
 lite of a pearly semitransparent nature, indeed 
 quite opalescent in places, lying in vertical lam- 
 ina so brittle and so closely packed together, that 
 it was very difl^cult to detach a piece even six 
 inches long without the aid of proper tools; but 
 when detached, the rock presented singularly pure 
 glossy natural faces, and was occasionally tin- 
 ged, in a very pleasing manner, with metallic 
 solutions. As far as my own experience and 
 information goes, the mineral structure of this 
 part of the country is as curious and rare as 
 anything that has yet been seen. 
 
 * In the last moments of my stay at the Hot Springs I 
 found nodules of iron, similar to that spoken of. on the west 
 side of the hill where the springs are, and some conglom- 
 erate firmly held together by ferruginous cement. 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 ii: 
 
 Ascending a very lofty hill composed entirely 
 of this mineral, we found several large pits, re- 
 sembling inverted cones, some of which were 
 from 20 to 30 feet deep and as many in diameter, 
 the insides and bottoms of which were covered 
 with chips of this beautiful mineral, some white, 
 some carmine, some blue, and many quite opal- 
 escent. In and near these pits round and lung 
 pieces of hard greenstone— which I had seen in 
 place about 18 miles distant — were scattered 
 about, but none of them too large lor the hand. 
 These were undoubtedly the quarries from 
 whence the Indians, when they possessed the 
 country, obtained the materials for making their 
 arrow 'heads and spears, for those which I had 
 found in the ploughed field in Magnet Cove 
 were made of this mineral. The pieces of hard 
 greenstone were the tools the Indians worked 
 with, and the rough mineral when procured was 
 taken to their villages to be manufactured: I 
 had many opportunities subsequently of feeling 
 assured of this, upon finding, amidst the circu- 
 lar holes and mounds where their now fallen 
 lodges once stood, prodigious quantities of these 
 chips and arrow heads that had been broken in 
 the act of making them. 
 
 From this place we scrambled to the top of 
 the loftiest cone we could see, and had a very 
 fine view of the country. From the summit of 
 the elevation where we stood, looking south, an 
 extensive pine plain appeared, perhaps eight 
 miles wide, whilst on our right to the S.S.W., 
 about fifteen miles distant, was a ridge where 
 one of the branches of the Washita rises, and 
 which circled round to the E.S.E., having the 
 Washita on its north flank. Most of the ridges 
 seemed to curve, and, after running a distance 
 of from two to fifteen miles, would terminate. 
 To the east we thought we recognised the high- 
 lands about the Mammelle, which were near for- 
 ty miles in a straight line from us. 
 
 Having made our observations in this part of 
 the country, I endeavoured to procure a guide to 
 cross the country with us to cantonment Tow- 
 son, a military post of the United States on the 
 Mexican frontier, distant in a straight line about 
 120 miles. All roads of every kind terminate at 
 the Hot Springs; beyond them there is nothing 
 but the unbroken wilderness, the trails and fords 
 of which are only known to a few hunters. We 
 accordingly entered into a negotiation with a 
 backwoodsman, who was highly recommended 
 for his resolution and knowledge of the country ; 
 but he was far from being eager to engage in our 
 service, objecting that this was the season when 
 bear-hunting commences ; and although he ad- 
 mitted that I ofl^ered him more money than he 
 could earn, yet, he said, if he was to go, " he 
 couldn't stand it, 'case the bars was so fat this 
 year." As I could not hope to compensate this 
 Nimrod of the woods for the enjoyment he would 
 have at his annual sport — a feeling I could ap- 
 preciate—I was obliged, though with great reluc- 
 tance, to change my plan, for I was exceedingly 
 anxious to continue the examination of these 
 siliceous ridges to the south-west. This man 
 was a very singular fellow, who shunned socie- 
 ty, was dressed altogether in the skins of ani- 
 mals he had killed, and seemed never to have 
 been washed, and to have no beard. He lived 
 in the woods many miles from the Springs, and 
 onlv visited them when he had bear and deer 
 skins to sell. He appeared, however, to take an 
 iniere-t in us, and advised us strongly not to at- 
 tempt the excursion alone, for he said that the 
 
 ordinary fords could not be passed at this season 
 without swimming the now swollen rivers, and 
 that to get through the country we should be obli- 
 ged to go round the heads of the streams, which 
 would make the distance equal to at least 200 
 miles. Adding to these circumstances the cold- 
 ness of the weather and the extreme dilliculty we 
 should most probably find in subsisting ourselves^ 
 we thought the attempt would not be justifiable, 
 and turned our attention to a more Irequented. 
 and practicable route. The account this maa 
 gave me of the manner in which the bear is pur- 
 sued by sxiuie of the professed and more opulent 
 hunters was curious. He said that some of 
 them, who had great numbers of cattle roaming 
 at large in the forests around them, were so pas- 
 sionately fond of the sport, that they maintained 
 stout teams of dogs until the hunting season com- 
 menced, by slaying beeves for them. 
 
 In summer, when there is no mast. Bruin is 
 thin and hungry, and boldly intrudes upon the 
 settlements, where there are any, to devour the 
 hogs. If the settler catches him on his grounds 
 he kills him, but he is too meagre and his skia 
 is to light to tempt him far from home ; he choos- 
 es another season for that, when the bears are. 
 fat, can surrender a good skin and from twenty 
 to twenty-five gallons of oil, and have retired ta 
 the rich bottoms where the cane-brakes are- 
 Then out he sallies, prepared for an absence of 
 several weeks, dressed in a jacket and leggings- 
 of buckskin, for garments of any other material 
 would soon be torn from his back by the briars. 
 When he gets to the scene of operations he kills 
 two or three buffaloes, if he can, for their skins,, 
 which he hangs up on poles in the form of a 
 tent, leaving one side open in front of his fire, to- 
 wards which his feet are placed when he sleeps. 
 This is also his storehouse : his skins, his meat,, 
 his oil, are all deposited here, until their accu- 
 mulation induces him either to take them home 
 or send them by an assistant. As to what is 
 called bear's meat, it is literally nothing but the 
 fat of the omentuin. The fleshy part is all given 
 to the dogs. Of this fat, which the hunters call 
 the fleece, they are ravenously fond, preferring it 
 to everything else on account of its sweet taste, 
 and because they can eat a great deal without 
 incommoding themselves. Occasionally the 
 hunter regales himself with venison when he is 
 in a country where the deer abound, but pleasure 
 with him is made subordinate to business, and. 
 it will take him as much time to kill and flay a 
 deer of the value of one dollar, as it will to se- 
 cure a bear worth twenty. But bears, deer, and. 
 buffallo do not comprehend all the animals he 
 has to deal with ; he has to protect his stores, 
 during his absence from his skin-lodge in the. 
 daytime from wolves and panthers, and is not 
 always able to do it even when he is there, as- 
 the following anecdote, so illustrative of the hunt- 
 er's life, and which I had directly from the per- 
 son it relates to, will show: — 
 
 This man had amassed a great many spoils 
 in his tent, and had put about twenty bufiEala 
 tongues in a trough which stood inside, but. 
 near to the entrance. One night returning ex- 
 ceedingly fatigued, he slept very soundly, andoa 
 awakening discovered that all his buffalo tongues 
 were gone. He was vexed at his negligence, 
 and imputed the theft lo some wolves that he 
 knew were prowling abort. Having taken 
 something to eat, he went to a cane-break in the 
 vicinity, and had not gone far when he heard a 
 low whining cry, and, looking in that direction. 
 
112 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 he saw something through the thick canes play- 
 ing about like a cat's tail, and immediately knew 
 it was a panther. Stealing forward and care- 
 fully looking he distinguished a head and ears, 
 and concluded the animal was stretched upon a 
 log, a posture they are very fond of when they 
 are not hunting. Raising his gun, he fired, and 
 the beast, mortally wounded, made a prodigious 
 jump and attempted to run, but fell and died in 
 a few minutes. He immediately skinned it, and 
 curious to learn whether this panther had been 
 the midnight depredator, he slit his paunch open, 
 and there found his buffalo tongues, but by no 
 means in a stale to be sent to the London mar- 
 ket. This man told me that the panther when 
 3iot hungry flies from man, and takes to a tree if 
 the smallest dog pursues him, but when he is 
 gaunt and voracious he is dangerous, springing 
 upon his prey from a log or branch, and even 
 darting through the fire of the bivouac upon the 
 hunter himseif, who then takes to his knife. He 
 said it was a good plan to put the entrails of a 
 bear near the lodge at night to " compliment" 
 any panther that might be prowling nigh, a piece 
 of politeness that no doubt would appear very 
 refined to poor Bruin, if he could be made.to un- 
 derstand it. 
 
 But the most interesting hunter's story I have 
 ever heard was told me by our host, Mr. Per- 
 cival, who has followed the forest chase from 
 his youth. In 1807 he was on a trapping expe- 
 dition with two companions on the Washita, 
 when they left him to kill buffalo, bear, and the 
 larger game ; and he remained to trap the streams 
 for beaver. He had not met with very good suc- 
 cess, and had been without meat about twenty- 
 f6ur hours, when, turning a small bend of the 
 river, he espied a noble-looking old male buffalo 
 lying down on the beach. Having secured his j 
 canoe, hecreptsoftly through acorn-brake, which I 
 lay between the animal and himself, and fired. \ 
 The shot was an indifferent one, and only 
 •wounded the animal in the side, but it roused 
 him, and having crossed the river he soon laid 
 down again. This was about noon, when the 
 animal, having grazed, was resting himself in a 
 cool place. Percival now crossed the river also 
 in his canoe, and got into the woods, which were 
 there very open, and somewhat broken by little 
 patches of prairie land, a very frequent occur- 
 rence in these parts of Arkansas, where forest 
 and prairie often seem to be contending for the 
 mastery. But the bull being suspicious, rose 
 before the hunter came near enough to him, and 
 took to the open woods. Percival was an ex- 
 perienced hunter; he had killed several hundred 
 buffaloes, and knew their tempers in every sort 
 of situation. He knew that the animal, when 
 in large herds, was easily mastered, and was 
 well aware that when alone he was sometimes 
 dogged and even dangerous ; he therefore fol- 
 lowed his prey cautiously for about a mile,- 
 knowing that he would lie down again ere long. 
 The buffalo now stopped, and Percival got 
 ■within fifty yards of him, watching an oppor- 
 tunity to strike him mortally; but the beast, see- 
 inghisenemy so near, wheeled completely round, 
 •put his huge shag^gy head close to the ground be- 
 fore his fore feet, as is their custom when they 
 attack each other, and rapidly advanced upon 
 the hunter, who instantly fired, and put his ball 
 through the bull's nose; but seeing the temper 
 the beast was in, and knowing what a serious 
 antagonist he was when on the offensive, he also 
 immediately turned and fled. 
 
 In running down a short hill some briars threw 
 him down, and he dropped his gun. There was 
 a tree not far from him of about eighteen inches 
 diameter, and every thing seemed to depend upon 
 his reaching it; but as he rose to make a push 
 for it, the buffalo struck him on the fleshy part 
 of the hip with his horn, and slightly wounded 
 him. Before the beast, however, could wheel 
 round upon him again, he gained the tree, upon 
 which all the chance he had of preserving his 
 life rested. A very few feet from this tree grew 
 a sapling, about four or five inches in diameter, 
 a most fortunate circumstance for the hunter, as 
 it contributed materially to save his life. The 
 buffalo now doggedly followed up his purpose 
 of destroying his adversary, and a system of 
 attack and defence commenced that, perhaps, is 
 without a parallel. The buffalo went round and 
 round the tree pursuing the man, jumping at 
 him in the peculiar manner of that animal, every 
 time he thought there was a chance of hitting 
 him; whilst Percival, grasping the tree with his 
 arms, swung himself round it with greater ra- 
 pidity than the animal could follow him. In 
 this manner the buffalo harassed him ynorc than 
 four hours, until his hands became so sore with 
 rubbing against the rough bark of the oak tree, 
 and his limbs so fatigued, that he began to be 
 disheartened. 
 
 In going round the tree, the buffalo would 
 sometimes pass between it and the sapling; but 
 the distance between them was so narrow, that 
 it inconvenienced him, especially when he want- 
 ed to make his jumps; he therefore frequently 
 went round the sapling instead of going inside 
 of it. The time thus consumed was precious to 
 Percival; it enabld him to breathe, and to con- 
 sider how he should defend himself 
 
 After so many hours' fruitless labour, the bull 
 seemed to have lost his pristine vigour, and be- 
 came slower in his motions: he would now 
 make his short start, preparatory to his jump, 
 only at intervals; and even then he jumped 
 doubtingly, as if he saw that Percival would 
 avoid his" blow by swinging to the other side. 
 It was evident he was baffled, and was consid- 
 ering what he should do. Still continuing in 
 his course round the tree, but in this slow man- 
 ner, he at length made an extraordinary feint 
 that does honour to the reasoning powers of the 
 buffalo family. He made his little start as 
 usual, and when Percival swung himself round, 
 the bull, instead of aiming his blow in the direc- 
 tion he had been accustomed to do, suddenly 
 turned to that side of the tree where Percival 
 would be brought when he had swung himself 
 round, and struck with all his might. The feint 
 had almost succeeded: Percival only just saved 
 his head, and received a severe contusion on his 
 arm, which was paralyzed for an instant. He 
 now began to despair of saving his life, his limbs 
 trembled under him, he thought the buffalo would 
 wear him out, and it was so inexpressibly pain- 
 ful to him to carry on this singular defence, that 
 at one time he entertained the idea of leaving 
 the tree, and permitting the anirnnl to destroy 
 him, as a mode of saving himself from pain and 
 anxiety that were intolerable. 
 
 But the buffalo, just at that time giving de- 
 cided symptoms of being as tired as himself, 
 now stopped for a few minutes, and Percival 
 took courage. Remembering that he had his 
 butcher's knife in his breast he took it out, and 
 began to contrive plans of offence; and when 
 the bull, having rested awhile, recommenced his 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 113 
 
 old rounds, Percival took advantage of the slow- 
 ness of his moiions, and using a great deal of 
 address and managemenc, contrived in the course 
 of hal'f an hour to stab and cut him in a dozen 
 different places. The animal now became weak 
 from loss of blood, and although he continued to 
 walk round the tree made no more jumps, con- 
 tenting himself with keeping his head and neck 
 close w it. This closed the conflict, for it en- 
 abled Percival to extend his right arm, and give 
 him two deadly stabs in the eyes. Nothing 
 could exceed the frantic rage of the unwieldy 
 animal when he had lost his sight; he bellowed, 
 he groaned, he pawed the ground, and gave out 
 every sign of conscious ruin and immitigable 
 fury; he leaned against the sapling for support, 
 and twice knocked himself down by rushmg 
 with his head at the large tree. The scond 
 fall terminated this strange tragic combat, which 
 had now lasted nearly six hours. The buflalo 
 had not strength to rise, and the conqueror, step- 
 ping up to him, and lifting up his nigh shoulder, 
 cut all the flesh and ligaments loose, and turned 
 it over his back. He then, after resting himself 
 a few minutes, skinned the beast, took a part of 
 the meat to his canoe, made a fire, broiled and 
 ate it. 
 
 Of the intense anxiety of mind produced in 
 the hunter by this conflict, an idea may be form- 
 ed from the fact that when he joined his com- 
 panions after a separation of forty days, they 
 asked why he looked so pale and emaciated, and 
 inquired "if he had been down with the fever." 
 He then related to them his adventure with the 
 buffalo, adding that from that very evening when 
 he prevailed over the animal, he had never got 
 any quiet rest; and so severely had his nervous 
 system been shaken, that as soon as the occu- 
 pations of the day were over and he had lain 
 down to rest, the image of the resolute and pow- 
 erlul animal always came before him, putting his 
 life in jeopardy in a thousand ways, and cre- 
 ating in him such a desperate agitation of mind, 
 that he was constantly jumping up from the 
 ground to defend himself; such was his state, 
 that he who had been formerly proverbial for his 
 daring and resolution, now trembled with appre- 
 hension, even when a covey of quails unexpect- 
 edly flushed before him. Mr. Percival told me 
 that three months had elapsed after this adven- 
 ture before his sleep became tranquil, and that, 
 although twenty-seven years had now passed 
 away, every sudden noise would disconcert him, 
 even if it were the crowing of a cock. Ten 
 )-ears ago he had the curiosity to visit the place 
 where so memorable a passage in his life oc- 
 curred, and he found the bark of the tree sufli- 
 ciently torn and abraided to have identified it, 
 even if th? bones of his ancient adversary had 
 not been there. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 Leave the ITnt Spring-s— Regain the " Military Rond," and 
 cross the Washita— How to ilriuk coffee made of Acorns— 
 The Cado River — Mrs. Barknian, her extraordinary ac- 
 complishments — A Hnnter's House and Family — Tertiary 
 Dep'jsits — A Travelling Court-house — A Knot of Gani- 
 
 WpTR A I'nddv croincr In XfiYriQ 
 
 jjep'JSiTs — A 1 ravelling <,ourt-i 
 biers — A Paddy going to Texas. 
 
 The preparations for our departure having 
 been made, we took leave of Mr. Percival and 
 our acquaintances here on the Gth of December 
 Humble as the lodgings assigned to ourselves 
 and the hogs had been, and rude as was our fare. 
 
 yet noihing could be more obliging than the con- 
 duct ofevery body to us. None of ihe cavalieros 
 of Littlft Rock were here, we led veiy quiet lives, 
 and we left the place with our sincere good wishes 
 for the welfare of its inhabitants. On reaching 
 the Gulfer* we found it very much swelled and 
 too diflicult to cross at the usual (brd. We 
 therefore went a little lower down and sounded 
 wilh a long pole. The bank was two feet from 
 the water, and it was evident that we must either 
 both of us sit in the waggon and make Missouri 
 drop into the flood, which was roaring furiously, 
 at the risk of all tumbling over together, or one 
 of us must first get into the river to encourage 
 the horse. My son, therefore, went into the 
 stream, and I drove up to the edge of the bank. 
 Our nag, though very docile, had not nerve 
 euough for the noise the water made, and all we 
 could prevail upon him to do was to slide dowa 
 wilh his fore-feet and lie down in the shafts, 
 leaving me in the waggon on the bank at the 
 mercy of any of his side-jerks, the least of which 
 would have overturned the \yaggon. As this 
 would most probably have been attended wilh the 
 loss of everything we had, I felt very anxious; 
 but my son coaxing him in front and the whip 
 coaxing him in the rear, he suddenly sprang up, 
 dragged the waggon into the river, and, taking 
 care to keep him on the stretch in the shallow- 
 est part of the rapid, we happily succeeded in 
 getting to the opposite bank without breaking 
 anything. Here we stopped to change our 
 clothes, and then pursued our journey. 
 
 When we had proceeded eight miles from the 
 Hot Springs, I lelt the vehicle, and walked about 
 a mile to take a look at the Washita, which is 
 here a broad muddy stream flowing over the slate 
 through a very picturesque country. Four miles 
 farther on, in attempting to cross another stream 
 near one Turner's, we fairly upset our concern 
 amongst the hidden rocks, but. happily broke no- 
 thing, though it took us sometime to make afire 
 and put our persons into a comfortable state 
 again. The traveller upon an excursion of this 
 kind finds it the greatest of all evils to be put 
 hors de combat as to proceeding on. As long as 
 everything is new he is delighted; but he has to 
 endure so much privation when unexpectedly de- 
 tained — perhaps in a wilderness which pre.^ents 
 no novelty — that he is ready to bear any incon- 
 venience rather than remain stationary. 
 
 In the evening we took up our old quarters at 
 Mrs. Conway's, in Magnet Cove, who received 
 us in a very friendly manner. When we rose in 
 the morning we had the pleasure of meeting her 
 husband, who had arrived during the night, r nd 
 of breakfasting with him ; after which, having 
 received his direction for a short cut to the 
 Washita, we made our bows, and, going about 
 two miles through Ihe open pine-woods at the 
 foot of the exterior part of the cove, which was 
 entirely covered with deciduous trees, got into a 
 track which led us for eight miles through a wild 
 romantic flinty country, aboundinsr in knobs and 
 little valesadmirably watered. Outof this track 
 we emerged upon tlie Military Road, a mile and 
 
 * In .Tune, 18.S3, when the preat rise of the Arkaii.'^as took 
 plaee, the backwater of the Mississippi pressed upon Red 
 River and its tributaries so much, that the waters of the 
 Washita covered all the low country through which the 
 Gulfer flows. I was informed by some settlers in the neigh- 
 bourhood that for near three weeks *hey were completely 
 isolated ; the cows had to swim backwards and forwards 
 from the uplands where they grazed to suckle their calves, 
 the lower floors of the cabins were in the water, and th 
 settlers went to the woods in canoes. 
 
114 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA 
 
 a half from the ferry at the Washita. This fine 
 river, at the point where we reached it, is about 
 200 yards broad, and the view to the west is very 
 beautiful, a graceful little island presenting it- 
 self in the centre of the. stream, which terminates 
 in a lofty hill of sandstone covered with pines 
 and oaks. Having crossed the river in a ferry- 
 boat, we found that the road for a considerable 
 distance ran parallel with it, and was e.xceeding- 
 ly wet and springy. At the end of four miles 
 we left this wet ground, and got again upon a 
 sandstone country with high knolls, and continu- 
 ed on it lor five miles, until we descended into a 
 bottom through which a stream called Prairie 
 Baijoit runs, and here we stopped at a settler's 
 called Mitchell. 
 
 This was one of the most wretched places we 
 had yet met with in our journey. The supper con- 
 sisted of some pieces of dirty-looking fried pork, 
 corn-bread eight days old, mixed up with lumps 
 of dirt, and coffee made of burnt acorns and 
 maize ; they had neither milk, sugar, nor butter. 
 Just as we were sitting down to it two hours al'ter 
 dark, Colonel Conway rode up: he laughed at 
 our lastidiousness, and advised us to drink .some 
 of the 6Wft-coffee, which he had often done with 
 success when he could get nothing else; and he 
 showed us how to get through the operation, by 
 nipping his nose with his fingers and swallowing 
 it exactly as if it had been castor-oil. He left 
 us soon afterwards, saying that he was obliged 
 to ride the greatest part of the night to the place 
 where the sale of government lands was taking 
 place. We passed a wretched night on the hard 
 boards of a sort of barrack, into which the wind 
 freely entered, and were glad when morning 
 dawned to creep to the fire. 
 
 We now discovered that our waggon was in 
 want of serious repairs, and that if we advanced 
 any farther with it we should probably break 
 down where we could obtain no assistance. 
 This was, indeed, a dilemma, as we had only 
 one horse and no saddle; upon consultation, 
 however, with our host, he engaged to let us have 
 a horse and an old saddle, and sent to his next 
 neighbour to borrow another, upon securing 
 which we determined to leave the waggon with 
 our trunks as a deposit until we returned the 
 horse. Our breakfast was in keeping with every- 
 thing we had found here; so after putting a few 
 things up in a bag, we started for the Caddo 
 River, about seventeen miles off. For fourteen 
 miles of this distance our route lay amongst 
 sandstone hills and isolated knolls of petro-sili- 
 ceous matter, many of which approached in their 
 structure to the novaculite of the Hot Springs. 
 The streams were numerous, and some of them 
 very much swelled. The Candleberry Myrtle 
 {Mi/rica ccrifcra) was exceedingly abundant on 
 these knolls, amongst which we had constantly 
 some deer in sight, besides numerous flocks of 
 well-grown wild turkeys; these often came strut- 
 ting across the road showing their beautiful glossy 
 plumage to the greatest advantage, and on per- 
 ceiving us would take flight with as strong a 
 wing as the wild-goose, wheeling around and 
 then alighting upon the tallest pine trees. It was 
 altogether a fine wild romantic ride, changing 
 from broken hills to numerous streams — some 
 of which were very much swollen — that flowed 
 through limited bottoms of great tertility. 
 
 Three miles before we reached the Caddo, the 
 country began to descend, and a change soon 
 took place in the aspect of nature, and of every- 
 thing around us. Having crossed the ferry 
 
 where the river is about 100 yards wide, we en- 
 tered upon an extensive rich bottom of cane- 
 brake, and not long after came to a no less ex- 
 traordinary thing than a brick house, belonging 
 to a person of the name of Barkman. This 
 man, whose father was a German, came into the 
 country many years ago in the character of a 
 pedlar, and having married the daughter of one 
 Davis, a famous hunter, settled here, became a 
 trader, and was now very well to do in the world. 
 In the mean time old Davis and his sons — all of 
 whom were brought up without any other school- 
 master than the rifle — continued their favourite 
 wandering vocation, looking up to the opulent 
 Barkman as the great man of the family. Mr. 
 Barkman we did not see, but 1 shall certain ly 
 not forget his lady soon, as I have never seen 
 any one, as far as manners and exterior went, 
 with less pretensions to be classed with the fem- 
 inine gender. All her accomplishments seem- 
 ed to me to have a decided learning the other 
 way. She chewed tobacco, she smoked a pipe, 
 she drank whiskey, and cursed and swore as 
 heartily as any backwoodsman, all at the same 
 time; doing quite as much vulgarity as (bur 
 male blackguards could do, and with as much~ 
 ease as if she had been an automaton set to do 
 it with clockwork machinery. She must have 
 been a person of surprising powers in her youth, 
 for I was infoimed that she was now compara- 
 tively refined to what she had been before her 
 marriage ; at that period, so full of interest to a 
 lover, she was commonly known by the name 
 of old Davis's "She Bar." 
 
 We had an opportunity of seeing one of her 
 extraordinary brothers, a genuine hunter, dress- 
 ed in leather prepared by himself from the skins 
 of animals he had killed, as he was going with 
 his rifle on his shoulder, and his dogs, some 
 twenty miles off" to hunt bears. This man, al- 
 though between thirty and forty years old, had . 
 never been out of this neighbourhood, and had 
 no iciea of the world beyond his own pursuits, 
 and that which he saw going on around him. 
 His brother-in-law Barkman he considered to 
 be the first man in the whole country; people 
 that came from Little Rock he had not a strong 
 predilection lor, not because they were unworthy, 
 but because so many lawyers lived there; the 
 government of the United States he looked upon 
 with horror, because they sold the lands and 
 broke up the cane-brakes : but Texa-s he appro- 
 ved of highly, saying that he had " heern there 
 was no sich thing as a government there, and 
 not one varmint of^a lawyer in the hull place." 
 .'Vs his house was not very far from Barkman's, 
 I accompanied this worthy there to see it, and 
 on our way had a good deal of curious conver- 
 sation with him, learning from him amongst 
 other things that he had "been raised on fat bar's 
 meat," as all his family had been, and that he- 
 loved it better than anything. The cabin of this 
 fellow corresponded with his manners, and was 
 a sort of permanent camping out of doors; the 
 logs of it were at least six inches apart, the in- 
 terstices, without any filling in, staring wide, 
 open; one of the gable ends was entirely want- 
 ing, the roof was only closed at one end, atid at 
 the other some bed clothes were heaped togeth- 
 er in a corner upon a rough floor, and his <"ami- 
 ]y, consisting of a wife and several young chil- 
 dren, were warming themselves at a fire — nM in- 
 the hmise, but out of doors. How they managed 
 during long periods of cold wet weather may he 
 imagined, but they all seemed contented, and 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 115 
 
 even cheerful. As to himself, he seemed quite 
 indifferent about this alfresco style oC living: his 
 happiness was found only in the cane-brake, 
 "driving the bars about," "as he said, anu sleep- 
 ing near a good fire. Mrs. Barkman, notwith- 
 standing her habits, was not deficient in good 
 nature to us: they had killed a young steer the 
 day before our arrival, and a dish of fat boiled 
 rilis was set before us, with good bread, of which 
 we made an excellent meal, having been with- 
 out (iiod ever since we left Mrs. Conway's the 
 morning before. 
 
 Til is place is the site of an ancient village of 
 the Caddo Indians; a large mound with trees 
 growing on it, and other indications of their res- 
 idence, still exist there; and a sweet sequester- 
 ed situation it must have been to them, for the 
 liver contains good fish, the country abounds in 
 game, and the sandstone, with its pines, is here 
 exchanged for a loose soil of the greatest fertili- 
 ty, and deciduous trees peculiar to these latitudes. 
 On sallying out, afier our good cheer, we were 
 exceedingly pleased with the scene around us; 
 the sun was shining brilliantly, flocks of parro- 
 quets were wheeling and screaming around, and 
 the trumpet tone of the ivory-billed woodpecker 
 was frequenily heard. 
 
 On examining the bed of the Caddo, I found 
 it consisted of tertiary limestone, exactly the 
 same as that I had seen at Little Rock, and pro- 
 cured some good specimens of turritella and oth- 
 er fossils. The Caddo empties into the Washita, 
 two miles below Barkman's, and about four 
 utiles ftrther down I was informed there were 
 yome suit wells trom which he annually makes 
 a good deal of salt. The wells are dug through 
 a black soil, but whether the brine comes through 
 a lower rock, or they have had to bore into one, 
 no one could explain to me: the process of ma- 
 king it, however, seems to be a very rough one, 
 and the salt produced is dirty and imperfect. 
 From the account they gave me, the brine in the 
 wells is so diluted with the water from the 
 Washita, that it takes 150 gallons of water to 
 make one bushel of bad salt. There is also said 
 to be gypsum about six miles off, near one Will- 
 iams's, in the "rotten limestone" which they 
 said overlaid the whole country. 
 
 From Barkman's we proceeded to the Tour- 
 noise Creek, said to be 15 iniles off, always upon 
 flat good land, occasionally sandv, with heavy 
 b«ds of a bluish green calcareous clay in all the 
 ravines; and from the description J obtained of 
 the country farther to the south, I thought it 
 probable we should keep upon the tertiary beds 
 all the way to the Mexican frontier. We found 
 no fossils nor casts of .shells in the blue clay, 
 which strongly resembles some of the beds ex- 
 tending from Richmond, in Virginia, down to 
 Shirley, on James River, where the clay con- 
 tains lumps of calcareous matter with traces of 
 sulphate of lime. We crossed several large 
 creeks during the afternoon, and at night put up 
 at a famous hunter's called Hi.f^nitr, who lived 
 in a solitary log cabin that had once been the 
 court-house for the county of Clark. From the 
 conspicuous manner in which the word " Crit- 
 tenden" appeared upon our maps as the princi- 
 pal county town, I had formed some slight ex- 
 pectations of seeing something a liitle out of the 
 way, and of getting .some sort of lodgings for a 
 day or two to look at the country: all this after- 
 noon we had been expecting to arrive at Crit 
 tenden in vain, and indeed thought of inquiring 
 at an old cabin we passed, how far it was ahead I 
 
 of us, but not wishing to lose time, we drove on 
 until we came to Hignite's. Our first quesiion 
 was, "How far is it to Crittenden 1" The an- 
 swer we received was, that tlie old cabin we had 
 passed five miles back was Crittenden, that it 
 had been once at his house, but that he believed', 
 it was going to be at Greenville. Finding that 
 Crittenden, like the house of Loretto, was anon- 
 resident, we determined to stop where we were, 
 especially when we found we were at a hunter^^ 
 whose name had already reached us. ^" 
 
 This bandying about of court-houses is insep- 
 arable from such a state of the settlements in 
 this new country as requires some administra- 
 tion of law. The counties are t«n times as large 
 as they are eventually destined to be, and every- 
 thing is a matter of expediency until populatioa 
 fills up the space a little. Before there are any 
 county towns or court-houses, the cabin of some 
 settler is made temporarily the court-hotise, which, 
 is changed from place to place to accommodate 
 those at a distance; and as the population in- 
 creases, new counties are set off from the old 
 one, into territories sufficiently compact to con- 
 stitute a county where every man can live con- 
 tentedly, bearing his share of the taxes and the 
 public duties. 
 
 On entering Hignite's we found several smarts- 
 men there — not powder-and-shot sportsmen, but 
 knights of the/«ro and rouge et noir tables. The 
 principal person was the Mr. Tunstall whose 
 house we had passed a little south of White 
 River. My host, old Meriwether, had let us a 
 liitle into his character, which had been confirm- 
 ed to me by others. He was said to be a very 
 enterprising man, to possess some property, but 
 to indulge excessively in horse-racing and cards. 
 We had heard also that he generally travelled 
 with some persons who passed for travellers like 
 himself, but who, in fact, were in his pay, for 
 the purpose of inciting others to play and to pro- 
 cure him bets. The moment, therefore, our host 
 told me that " Tunstall was in his house," I was 
 fully prepared for the scene that followed. 
 
 Whilst supper was preparing, Mr. Tunstall 
 entered into conversation with me, stating that 
 he had been at some races where the sale for 
 government lands on Red River was in prog- 
 ress, but that it "was dull times," for people 
 seemed to be thinking of nothing but going to 
 Texa.s. His conversation was sensible and en- 
 tertaining, and he evidently wanted to inspire 
 me with a favourable opinion of himself: the 
 other men in the house kept themselves silent, 
 and appeared to know as little about him as they 
 did about us. This was rather over-acting their 
 part, and I began to su.spect their intentions. As 
 soon as we had supped, and drew near to the 
 fire, one of the company, who had all the marks 
 of a broken-down swell abC"! I^iIiTj ""^"' ^° ^ 
 box, and taking out some cards, "laid them ve."^" 
 artistically down on the table. Upon which 
 alter awhile, two others went to the table one 
 ol them , -saving in a drawling tone, "I reckon I'll 
 take a hand." But Mr. Tunstall .seeing that we 
 did not even look at the partv, remained with us 
 at the fire, and it was .some time before he turn- 
 r, Jr°,!^'^' f"^ '" ^ ^^^y winning manner vnid 
 T y^fhJ '^" ' ''^'■^ '''^ f^*^'^ ^ hand, if you do '' 
 T told Mr. Tuns^tall that we were both very much 
 fatigued and should go to bed as soon as we 
 knew where we were to sleep. One of the fel- 
 lows at the (able now said, "Mister, if you pre- 
 f7.r roulette, I'll take one out of the box what I've 
 got here." Tunstall, perceiving '^at this was 
 
116 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA 
 
 letting the cat out of the bag too early, said no 
 more to me about playing, but sat down to faro 
 ■with the rest, and they all pretended to be play- 
 ing very earnestly. They had not played off, 
 however, their last coup upon me, and in about 
 a quarter of an hour Mr. Tunstall went to a box 
 belonging to himself, and took out a runlet con- 
 taining brandy: pouring some of it out, he very 
 courteously otiered it to myself and my son. I 
 made him" my acknowledgments, but said that 
 we were not in the habit of drinking brandy or 
 any kind of spirituous liquors; that we were al- 
 ways happy when we could get milk, and never 
 wanted anything else. After this milksop dec- 
 laration, Mr. Tunstall seemed to thmk us worth 
 BO further attention ; he poured the brandy back 
 into the runlet, without offering any to the other 
 genllemen travellers, and they put their cards 
 back again into the box, for it seemed somehow 
 as if the galne could not proceed unless we join- 
 ed in it. 
 
 Such a coarse trap, and set in such a coarse 
 manner, was fitted for such low gamblers as 
 these, who have an idea — perhaps justified by 
 their success — that no man can resist cards and 
 brandy. We passed the night miserably, stretch- 
 ed on some wretched boards in the same room 
 with the.se fellow.s, but taking especial care of 
 our purses and bag. The voice and language 
 of one of these men, who was called Smith — 
 pel haps an assumed name — were those of a 
 northern man; I was, therefore, disposed to be- 
 lieve him when he said he was a New Yorker: 
 he had a haa:£;ar(l anrl very unhappy app'c'arance, 
 with a ^i^li^Il•|■l^\-|l^ ■ssinn.and seemed altogether 
 devoted i:i Mr. 'rimsiall, in whose base service 
 perhaps he had cuuscKiusly reached the lowest 
 stage of human degiadatiou. 
 
 In the morning, these contemptible wretches 
 sat down at the same table with us to breakfast; 
 their conversation was infamous, and accorded 
 well with their degraded condiiion. They had 
 evidently been engaged in all sorts of frauds and 
 villanies, and seemed to glory in their infamy. 
 A kind of waggon, belonging to Tunstall, now 
 came to the door, with two negro boys belonging 
 to him, who had acted as jockeys at the races. 
 Into this they all got, and Mr. Tunstall— who 
 had pretended the preceding evening that he was 
 a stranger to the other men — could not avoid 
 seeing that I was aware he was the head of a 
 travelling gang of sharpers. A short time before 
 they drove from the door, a foolish Irishman, 
 who was going to Texas, rode up on a neat 
 sprightly pony that had a great many good 
 points. ' Tunstall offered to swap a huge raw- 
 boned anin>al, which one of his negro boys rode, 
 for this pony, telling the Irishman "it was worth 
 \}i.K(i times as much, but he somehow liked the 
 appearance of the ponv." Taking Paddy into 
 the house, they plied hi "ith brandv until his 
 discretioi ecame endan; d hv the dimensions 
 of the horse : it was evi when he came out, 
 that to he at the top of s....i " a baste" was run- 
 m-R-y in his head. Hignite endeavoured to make 
 hinr prudent, and told him if his ponv was a 
 good ;>ne he had better stick to him. The poor 
 silly fellow hesitated for a moment, and just 
 when we were hoping he would be wise, brandy 
 and ambition got the better of him, and he said, 
 "Well, I'll just take ye at your word." No 
 time was lost ; saddles were exchanged, and the 
 gamblers drove off with a horse laugh. Within 
 tweniv minutes after ihe.'r departure, the brandy 
 having evaporated a iitile, Hignite had perfectly 
 
 persuaded Paddy that the " big baste" was foun- 
 dered all to nothing, and was not worth more 
 than six dollars. I should certainly have inter- 
 fered, a'.d perhaps have prevented this piece of 
 knavery, if I had not found out, by the conver- 
 sation of Paddy, that he was a " no-government" 
 man, and was sure to do something more absurd 
 if any body would take the trouble to make him 
 drunk again. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 Bear-hunting— Approach a subcretacenus Country— Judge 
 Cross— Disputed Territory betwixt Mexico and the Uni- 
 ted States — A Prairie Country and subcretaceous Fossils 
 — General Houston — Plot to wrest Texas from Meiico — 
 Beauty of the Country. 
 
 This morning had been appointed by Hignite, 
 our host, to go on his great annual bear-hunt; he 
 was a well-known hunter, and we had found 
 him an honest, soberly-disposed person. We 
 had witnessed his preparations, and saw with, 
 adiniration how perfectly he was prepared to 
 supply all his wants during his absence, without 
 assistance from any one. His dress consisted of 
 a hunting jacket and leggings, made of skins 
 tanned by himself, and secured by strings formed 
 either of ihe same materials or the integuments 
 of animals. He had a close cap on made of 
 skin, a girdle round his waist, in which were 
 stuck his liatchet and his butcher's knife, and a 
 heavy rifle weighing sixteen pounds on his 
 shoulder. He had two pack-horses to carry In- 
 dian corn fur their sulisistence, some necessary 
 articles for himself, and to bring back the returns 
 of his hunting. The most important part of his 
 retinue consisted of eight dogs, which he valued 
 very highly, esjiecially the old ones, on account 
 of their great sagacity and prudence. This kind 
 of sport is so captivating that we would willingly 
 have accompanied him, if it would not have oc- 
 casioned such a deviation from our plans, and 
 have taken up so much time. As Hignite was 
 going part of our road, I was, therefore, obliged 
 lo content myself with drawing from him a de- 
 tailed account of the nature of one of these ex- 
 peditions. 
 
 The Washita, in its course to the south-east 
 to join Ped River, has in many places an im- 
 mense margin of cane-brakes, six or more miles 
 broad on each side, and which, before it reaches 
 the point of junction, are of much greater mag- 
 nitude. These rich bottoms, which are covered 
 with stout-jointed canes twenty feet high, as 
 thick as they can stand, can never be reclaimed 
 until a system of levees or embankments is es- 
 tablished to keep them from being inundated. 
 Into these brakes the bears {Ursin Amerimnus), 
 being now excessively fat with the mast they 
 have been livin? upon the whole autumn, retire 
 in the month of December, making huge beds for 
 then)selves of the cane, and lying there four or 
 five months. The hunters, however, assert that 
 in this climate that animal does not doze away 
 the whole of this long period, but that he walks 
 out in fine weather, although he does not eat. 
 Some of them had ceased to eat even when I 
 was on the Caddo, for Mrs. Barkman's brother 
 told me that he had killed a barren she-bear with 
 clean intestines, and that he knew thereby that the 
 season had arrived for their going into the cane- 
 brakes. 
 
 When the hunter arrives near the scene oi his 
 operations and has fixed his camp, he generally 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 117 
 
 first tries the higher woodlands in the neighbour- 
 hood of the l)ralces, not far from some place 
 where a hurricane has uprooted the trees, and 
 where brambles, shmbs, and other plants are 
 growing amongst them, these being situations 
 which the bears love to resort to. Having col- 
 lected wood for fuel, he malces a lodge with 
 poles and bushes suificient to keep the weather 
 out, hopples his horses to prevent their straying 
 far,' and puts a bell round the neck of one of 
 them. B^ing perfectly prepared he enters upon 
 his ground, the breeze comes tainted with the 
 scent, the dogs holding up their heads snuff it in, 
 and the old ones warily take the lead. They 
 find Master Bruin, ponderous with acorns, more 
 di>posed to lie still than to run ; but the hunter, 
 soon hearing by the voices of his dogs that they 
 are closely engaged, hurries on. He finds the 
 angry brute hastening away from his assailants, 
 after perhaps putting more than one of the young 
 ones Iwrs de cmnbai -, but the old dogs seize him 
 by the haunch behind, and leave and head him 
 the moment he turns round to avenge himself 
 His enemies now encircle him ; wherever his 
 rear is, it is sure to he bit: he can no longer fly, 
 and furious with rage he dashes at the most for- 
 ward, seizes him, grasps him with his muscular 
 fore-jiaw, gives him the fraternal hug, and fin- 
 ishes him sometimes by applying his powerful 
 tusks. The rest of the dogs now throw him 
 down, jump upon him, and the hunter, to save 
 his dogs from being killed, watches his moment, 
 goes rapidly behind the bear, grasps a handful of' 
 his fur with his left hand to prevent his turning 
 to bite him, and "sarves him home" with his 
 sharp butcher's knife. After a short struggle, the 
 beast dies. 
 
 At other times the hunter waits until the dogs 
 have got him into a good position, and lodges a 
 rifle-ball under his fore-arm. The bears are im- 
 mediately skinned, and the fleece, consisting of 
 the lard from which the oil is extracted, is se- 
 cured. The lean parts are kept for the dogs, and 
 the hunter himself if he likes them, every thing 
 being secured from the wolves by hoisting the 
 meat into some tree, if the animal'has been kill- 
 ed too far from camp to get it there by daylight. 
 Such is the account I received from one of the 
 most experienced bear-hunters, who frequents 
 the brakes of the Washita. 
 
 From Hignite's we pursued our journey in a 
 south-west direction, over good bottom land, with 
 a great abundance of holly and laurel growing in 
 every direction, occasionally coming upon hills 
 of rnoderate elevation of sandstone, with pine 
 trees, all the streams being transparent, and hav- 
 ing gravelly bottoms. At the end of a ride of 
 eighteen miles the country descended again, and 
 we perc'-^d that we were approaching the Lit- 
 tle Misf'i 1 considerable stream which rises 
 to the N.Yv ., ' npties into the Washita, and has 
 received its in me from its waters being of a 
 dusky red muddy colour, like those of the great 
 Missouri. 
 
 We cros.^ed the river in a ferry boat, the wa- 
 ters being high, and then entered upon a close 
 low bottom, densely covered with cane, laurel, 
 holly, and swamp timber of every kind, which 
 lasted for three miles. If was intersected by nu- 
 merous bavous, over which, it being the military 
 road, nine bridges had been erected, five of which 
 ■were inpnssable owing to the 2:reater part of the 
 thick planks, which formed theirfloors, not bav- 
 ins: been secured by pegs or tree-nails, so that 
 they had floated away the very first inundation. 
 
 It was evident that this had been purposely neg- 
 lected by the contractors who built the bridges, 
 that they might make a second job out of iL 
 In this, however, they appearto have been dis- 
 appointed, and the consequence has been, that 
 the persons who have emigrated to Texas by 
 this route have taken that part of the flooring off 
 which remained, and put it in the shallowest 
 part of the bayous, to enable them to cross the 
 bayous in safety with their heavy waggons. 
 Thus have the provident cares of the United 
 States government been frustrated, travellersj 
 placed in great danger, and a state of things pro- 
 duced which in a short time will render this 
 route impracticable ; for although this military 
 road, opened at so great an expense by the gov- 
 ernment, has been made the county road in the 
 counties it passes through, the overseers of the 
 road pay no attention to it, and far from repair- 
 ing the floors of the bridges, will not even cut a 
 tree out when one falls across the road. This 
 low bottom lasted three miles, and on emerging 
 from it, the country began to rise a little again. 
 As we advanced, a new kind of soil appeared of 
 a singularly waxy nature, and a dark black car- 
 bonaceous colour, such as I had not seen before, 
 except on the surface of the travertin, at the hot 
 springs, where it abounds ; and here the soil was 
 like that, accompanied with a profusion of dead 
 land shells. 
 
 Late in the afternoon we made the unpleasant 
 discovery that the horse we had obtained of our 
 host, Mitchell, was foundered, and that it would 
 be impossible to pi-oceed on with him. This was 
 rather a distressing affair, for he was a dead 
 weight upon our hands, and the farther we went 
 with him, the greater would be our difficulty ia 
 returning him to his owner. His lameness, too, 
 was evidently chronic;- so that, in fact, we had. 
 no security whatever for our waggon and lug- 
 gage, which was not a pleasant reflection. • After 
 some deliberation, my son proposed returning 
 with him, and letting me proceed on, trusting to 
 be able to make some other arrangement to joia 
 me again. Mitchell, too, having told him that 
 he was going out on a panther hunt to a place 
 frequented by several of these animals, he was 
 not sorry to have an opportunity of accompany- 
 ing him, as he had a strong desire to see a little 
 ofthat kind of sport before we left this part of the 
 country ; so after sharing each other's privations 
 and being most faithful and inseparable compan- 
 ions to each other for four months, we shook 
 hands. My son, with his rifle on his shoulder, 
 and leading the lame horse, took one way, and I 
 the other. 
 
 After riding about seven miles through a pretty 
 good country, I turned off to the left to a gentle- 
 man's of the name of Judge Cross, to whom I 
 had a letter of introduction. He was a judge 
 under the United States government, and had 
 federal jurisdiction as far as the Mexian frontier. 
 The house was on a knoll about half a mile fiom 
 the road, and I reached it a little after darif. 
 
 Fastening my horse to a paling which sur- 
 rounded a neat-tooking wooden house, built upoa 
 the double cabin plan, I entered the courtyard, 
 and then the open space that separates the two 
 cabins. There was a cheerful light in the room 
 to the right, and, knocking at the door with a 
 pilgrim's feeling, I modestly entered a neat par- 
 lour, and saw a lady and two gentlemen sitting 
 near a blazing fire. Pleasing as the aspect of all 
 this was, that which really astonished me was a 
 piece of furniture my wondering eyes could 
 
118 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 scarce give credit to — a real carpet. I now felt 
 doubly full of respect for everybody and every- 
 Ihing, and, without venturing to intrude upon the 
 carpet, 1 inquired if the Judge was at home. 
 Upon this a gentlemanly-looking person, about 
 thirty-five years old, rose and said he was Judge 
 Cross. 1 now presented my letter, which being 
 read, the most unatfected kind reception was 
 given to me, and in five minutes I had the satis- 
 faction of knowing niy good horse Missouri was 
 taken care of, and of forming one of the family 
 circle. Mrs. Cross was a lady-like and agree- 
 able woman, full of the most amiable attentions 
 to me. The supper was excellent, and the even- 
 ing was concluded by a very instructive conver- 
 sation I had with the Judge on the geography of 
 the country, its mineral resources, and the move- 
 ments which for some time I had not been able 
 to shut my eyes upon, in relation to the Mexican 
 province of Texas. 
 
 The Judge informed me that his jurisdiction 
 extended I'ar to the west, near 200 miles, and 
 even across Red River; for although by a treaty 
 between Mexico and the United States the bound- 
 .ary betwixt the two countries was settled to be 
 by a north line to Red River, from where the 
 S2nd degree of N. lat. intersects the Sabine Riv- 
 er, yet, to the astonishment of the Mexicans, a 
 pretension was setup by the American specula- 
 tors that the river — which from time immemorial 
 had been known as the Sabine, there never hav- 
 ing been any other stream which bore that name 
 — was not the Sabine, but that in fact another 
 stream lying farther to the west, and which was 
 !known by the name of Neches, was the true Sa- 
 bine. Unfortunately for this pretension, the 
 32nd degree did not intersect this Neches; but 
 as the claim had been asserted, this was deemed 
 of no consequence by the speculators, so the ter- 
 ritory involved in the dispute fell under the juris- 
 diction of Judge Cross until the dispute was ad- 
 justed; for the land being valuable, American 
 settlers had flocked into it, and there he was 
 obliged to go to administer justice, traversing 
 the wilderness alone, swimming the rivers upon 
 his horse, and picking up his jurymen here and 
 there, as he went along, to try his causes. I was 
 glad of an opportunity of asking so intelligent a 
 person, and who was so well acquainted with 
 everything that was going on around him, how 
 so preposterous a claim as that of carrying Amer- 
 ican jurisdiction into an acknowledged part of a 
 neighbouring republic could be supported; but 
 I soon found that he was too prudent to say any- 
 thing to a stranger about the merits of the case, 
 and that he rather seemed to consider the dispute 
 decided by the fact of American citizen.-; having 
 taken possession of the territory. I could per- 
 ceive that this gentleman, who appeared in ev- 
 erything else to be a man of candour, entertain- 
 ed, in common with his countrymen, the opinion 
 that the United States were always in the right, 
 and that all countries that differed with them 
 Avere necessarily in the wrong. 
 
 When the hour for retiring arrived, I was 
 conducted to a bed-room, where I found a good 
 fire, nicely plastered walls, and not a space in 
 any part of them through which you could put 
 your head to see what it was the hogs were 
 making such a noise about. The bed looked 
 nice and clean, but there was one thing I did not 
 like about it, and that was a pillow too much, for 
 there were two on the bolster. And there was 
 somethingelse in the room 1 liked still less, in the 
 form of a not very agreeable-looking person, ex- 
 
 ceedingly out of health, who took his seat near 
 the tire after the Judge had retired, and whose 
 attitude created a .strong suspicion and misgiving 
 in me that he had a deliberate intention of laying 
 his long thin head upon one of the pillows, a 
 privilege he was at least as much entitled as my- 
 self to exercise, being the Judge's brother. I was 
 contriving various plans how to avoid this un- 
 welcome association, when he suddenly relieved 
 my anxiety by bidding me good night and leav- 
 ing the room. 
 
 Of all the distressing situations in which I 
 could be placed, the keenest of all would be to be 
 compelled to pass the night on the same bed with 
 another man, and that man a stranger, a tobacco 
 eater, and perpetual expectorator. Much as I 
 dreaded my worthy friend whilst these fears were 
 operating upon me, I felt quite amiably disposed 
 towards him as soon as he had left the room, 
 and approached the bed and examined it. Cer- 
 tainlv never did man feel more delighted at 
 drawing the highest prize in the lottery than I 
 did at beholding two fine white linen sheets, it 
 being the first time I had seen such a phenome- 
 non for several months. Having satisfied my- 
 self that I was to have the undisputed possession 
 of this luxury and performed my rapid ablutions, 
 I hastened to the perfect enjoyment of all this 
 comfort that the kind Mrs. Cross had provided 
 for me. 
 
 As soon as the dawn appeared — and the first 
 ray of light always awakens me as if some for- 
 eign body impinged upon my eyes — I rose and 
 dressed myself, and, being perfectly refreshed 
 with a sweet night's rest, walked out to look at 
 one of the most lovely countries I had ever seen. 
 Everything had become changed since the pre- 
 ceding day, the sandstone and its constant con- 
 comitants, the pine-trees, had been left behind, 
 and I had now got to a fine, gentle, undulating 
 country, usually called rolling here, which ap- 
 peared to consist of a chain of prairies running 
 westward and parallel with Red River for a 
 great distance, until the whole country becomes 
 one vast prairie, devoid of trees, except those 
 which grow immediately upon the water-courses. 
 Some of these prairies were mere bald spots of 
 half an acre and more, whilst others contained 
 several hundred acres, in every instance sur- 
 rounded with a belt of timber and plants pecu- 
 liar to the country. 
 
 It seemed doubtful from the first superficial 
 examination whether the trees were gradually 
 gaining upon the prairies or those upon the for- 
 est. The woods and the copses where Judge 
 Cross had erected his neat cabin were very love- 
 ly, and there were from thirty to fifty acres of 
 land attached to the house without being dis- 
 figured by the coarse stumps of American clear- 
 ings. 1 was gratified to find also that the whole 
 soil consisted of the same dark waxy substance 
 I had passed the preceding day; it was as black 
 as charred wood, and had a mucli more inky 
 colour than the rich vegetable mould usually 
 found in low grounds, although it was mild to 
 the taste, and did not appear to owe its colour to 
 sulphate of iron, which is always more or less 
 astringent, especially in the black clayey earths 
 of New .Tersey and other portions of the Atlantic 
 coast. On stooping down to examine the soil in 
 a small corn-field, I perceived it abounded with 
 fine specimens of helices, and whilst I was gath- 
 ering these I saw fragments of the large thick 
 shells of Gryphsea convexa; in the course of 
 half an hour' I had collected besides these some 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 119 
 
 perfect shells of Exogyra costata, both valves 
 adhering, and which had never been disturbed. 
 Returning to the house, I procured a spade and 
 a negro to assist me, and digging in a low part 
 ■where a stream had worn a channel in the soil, 
 I Ibund reasons to believe that this portion of the 
 country, which had the (piasl prairie character, 
 ■was bottomed upon immense beds of rotten lime- 
 stone, probably derived from the testaceous re- 
 mains of the inollusca I have named, since en- 
 tire shells in a soft state are found embedded in 
 the limestone. These mollusca are the charac- 
 teristic fossils of the subcrelaceous* deposits of 
 Monmouth in New Jersey, which are most prob- 
 ably contemporaneous with these in the southern 
 parts of Arkansas. 
 
 At breakfast, having turned the conversation 
 ■upon the fossils which were in such abundance 
 here, the Judge informed me that his corn-field 
 whence I had taken the shells was part of a nat- 
 ural prairie, one of an immense number that ex- 
 tended to the west; and that he believed, from 
 the personal observations he had made, that the 
 black land of which all these prairies consisted, 
 and which in a rainy time was so waxy that it 
 "was difficult to walk or stir in it, was about five 
 miles in breadth, and extended an immense dis- 
 tance. This exceedingly increased my desire to 
 see more of this southern country in company 
 ■w'ith the Judge; so after breakfast he very obli- 
 gingly mounted his horse, and we made an agree- 
 able excursion in the neighbourhood, calling for 
 a short time at the little insignificant wooden vil- 
 lage of Washington, where the government land- 
 sales were holding. 
 
 I was not desirous of remaining long at this 
 place. General Houston was here, leading a 
 mysterious sort of life, shut up in a small tavern, 
 .seeing nobody by day and sitting up all night. 
 The world gave him credit for passing these his 
 ■waking hours in the study of trente el quarante 
 and sept a lever ; but I had been in communica- 
 tion with too many persons of late, and had seen 
 too much passing before my eyes, to be ignorant 
 that this little place was the rendezvous where a 
 much deeper game than faro or rouge-et-noir 
 ■was playing. There were many persons at this 
 lime in the village frotn the States lying adjacent 
 to the Mississippi, under the pretence of pur- 
 chasing government lands, but whose real ob- 
 ject was to encourage the settlers in Texas to 
 throw off their allegiance to the Mexican gov- 
 ernment. Many of these individuals were per- 
 sonally acquainted with me; they knew I was 
 not 'with them, and would naturally conclude I 
 was against them. Having nothing whatever in 
 common with their plans, and no inclination to 
 forward or oppose them, I perceived that the 
 longer I staid the more they would find reason 
 to suppose I was a spy upon their actions, and as 
 soon as the Judge had spoken to a few of his 
 friends we came away. 
 
 On our way back, in crossing the zone of black 
 land, we invariably found grypheous valves, 
 
 * The term " subcrelaceous" is here used in veferrnce 
 to the order of the geological strata in England, chalk, in 
 place, not having yet been seen in America. But as the 
 Gryph!ea couvcxa and Exogyra costata are identically the 
 same in Arkansas as those found in the New Jersey depos- 
 its, and as these confOTm as to succession to the order of 
 doposit of the Engli-sh lieds, and contain numerous mollus- 
 cous and vprlelirated fossils bearing undoubted generic re- 
 lations to the fossi s of the subcrelaceous beds in England, 
 I conceive myself justified in applying tliistenn as anequiv- 
 iilent, especially as I am of o|)inion that there is nut a stra- 
 tum of any kind in North America which does not more or 
 less add to the proofs of a co-e.visteat order of succession. 
 
 sometimes profusely scattered around with their 
 opcrcula separated from them, and at other times 
 wiih their valves closed and a small quantity of 
 calcareous matter lying upon the place of the 
 muscular attachment, which the Judge said his 
 negroes called " petrified oysters." Sometimes, 
 in low situations, ihe black earth gave place to 
 a deep red marie of great fertility, but in this 
 marie I never perceived any shells, and upon 
 considering the situations in which it lay, I saw 
 that it must have been deposited there by fresh 
 water that had passed over these low places pos- 
 terior to the abandonment by the sea of the sub- 
 cretaceous beds. The shells invariably seemed 
 to be most perfect and abundant on the highest 
 part of the knolls on the prairie land, probably 
 from the land draining sooner there and the 
 shells being consequently kept drier. The fer- 
 tility of the soils in this part of the country ren- 
 ders them eminently fitted for cotton, which, as 
 I had many opportunities of observing, succeeds 
 extremely well: the staple is fine, and the pro- 
 duce in good seasons reaches from 1500 to 2000 
 lbs. of cotton in the seed to the acre. Wheal 
 has not yet been fairly tried, but the few experi- 
 mental essays which have been made are en- 
 couraging. Indian corn yields from 40 to CO 
 bushels to the acre. I was told, however, that 
 if these plants were cultivated where the black 
 earth had been very much washed from the sub- 
 jacent limestone, \\\ey pined in dry seasons, the 
 leaves drying up and the stalks gradually dying. 
 In moderately wet seasons this is not the case, 
 the maize then does very well, and cotton does 
 not require so much moisture. 
 
 Take it altogether, this is a very lovely and 
 desirable country; picturesque prairies, charm- 
 ing woods, and lively streams abound every- 
 where. Amongst other plants I remarked the 
 Crab-Apple {Mahis coronaria) and the Bois d'Arc 
 {Madura auranUaca) : the former is in prodigious 
 abundance, a.nd attains an orchard-like growth, 
 some of the trees being twenty feet high and ten 
 inches in diameter, and in the seasons of blos- 
 soms are said to scent the whole country around. 
 The Bois d'Arc, or bow-wood, with its orange- 
 like fruit and leaf, also flourishes here, but is 
 more rare; its w-ood is of a beautiful yellow col- 
 our, something resembling the sumac, and of it 
 the Indians make their best bows, from which it 
 has its trivial name. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 Probable origin of Prairies — Land most attractive when to 
 be obtained without paying for — Mr. Prior— Great abuse 
 of the Government Land Sales— An Oasis in the Wilder- 
 ness—Contrast between the educated and uneducated 
 Classes— Two patriotic Members of the Sovereign People. 
 
 In regard to the origin of prairies, an opinion 
 has been expressed by Mr. Jefferson and others, 
 that all prairies have been produced by the In- 
 dian practice of firing the herbage annually, and 
 thus eventually destroying the grown timber as 
 well as inferior plants. This cause would cer- 
 tainly seem to be a sufficient one in those districts 
 upon which no other could apparently operate; 
 but the geological phenomena ol'this part of the 
 country^sugsest, perhaps, a more probable rea- 
 son why siich extensive areas of country should 
 be without trees. The surface presents broken- 
 down marine shelly matter, accumulated iniu 
 local beds and extensive hill deposits, after the 
 manner in which we know the oyster and some 
 
1^0 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 other testaceous families accumulate their shells 
 in recent times; and tKe general irregularity of 
 the surface is not dissimilar to that which is 
 presented by soundings made upon many marine 
 coasts. These accumulations are more or less 
 covered with a vegeto-animaJ deposit, probably 
 derived from fuel, algse, molluscse, and other 
 vet'etable and animal products of the ocean, that 
 by the constantly acting power of the elements 
 has been partially removed, and carried by rains 
 towards the lowlands and streams. Hence this 
 covering, which originally had been equally de- 
 posited, is now diminished in some places and 
 thickened in others. 
 
 These characteristics of the prairie country, 
 as far as this particular zone of prairies is con- 
 cerned, are common to a vast extent of country. 
 Eastwards from hence, the zone extends from 33° 
 40' to 32° 30' N. lat., in the State of Alabama, 
 where wells have been dug 500 feet deep through 
 this rotten limestone into" slate with quartzose 
 veins; and throughout this extended line, — all of 
 ■which I have personally examined, — the charac- 
 teristic shells of this subcretaceous Ibrmation 
 have been found. In my cabinet I possess gry- 
 phEea, exogyra, and other fossils from localities 
 far up the False Washita, — one of the most im- 
 portant forks of Red River, — from the Kiamesha, 
 200 miles farther east ; from the state of Missis- 
 sippi, from the Prairie Bluffs in the state of Ala- 
 bama, and from the state of New Jersey; ail of 
 them identical with those found in this part of 
 Arkansas. We are warranted, therefore, in con- 
 sidering this zone of prairies as part of an ancient 
 floor of the ocean, and may reasonably expect, 
 when further investigations shall have been 
 made, to trace the littoral bounds of the North 
 American sea during the subcretaceous and ter- 
 tiary periods, parts of which are now clearly 
 marked by all the unequivocal circumstances 
 which I have described. 
 
 When the ocean abandoned these areas, they 
 were of course without plants. Now, by what- 
 ever method plants begin first to take possession 
 of the soil, whether by spontaneous growth or by 
 the agency of seeds transported thither, they are, 
 where the vegetable matter is thin and the sea- 
 son unfavourable, liable to perish; and even 
 where they are not thus exposed it is to be re- 
 membered that these prairies were overrun, as 
 the more distant western prairies still are, with 
 countless herds of roaming buffaloes, which, by 
 their periodical occupation of the country, would 
 assist in exterminating all young plants and 
 plants of a vigorless constitution. These may 
 be enumerated amongst the efficient causes of a 
 prairie or meadow state of extensive tracts of 
 country, a view of the subject which is some- 
 what strengthened by the admitted fact of plants 
 in modern times encroaching on the prairies; 
 for ii is observed, that they now begin to flourish 
 \\here vegetable matter has accumulated, being 
 secured from the devastating teeth and hooffs of 
 the buffalo, all of which haveleft this part of the 
 country, for where man settles that animal never 
 leinahis long. 
 
 The singular contrast tod betwixt so many prai- 
 rie tracts without plants, and those dense and in- 
 terminable forests which cover so large a portion 
 of the continent of North America, 1*^ to be ac- 
 
 Miiited for by geological causes. With the e.x- 
 ■ ■ption of the tertiary and subcretaceous areas 
 I I'lerred to. the other mineral formations in North 
 America appear not to rise higher in the geolo- 
 gical column than the beds of the carboniferous 
 
 series, the entire oolitic series being deficient; 
 and when we consider the immense period of 
 time that must have intervened betwixt the de- 
 posit of the coal series and the subcretaceous 
 beds, we find no difficulty in supposing that when 
 the ocean retired from these last and tliey became 
 terra firma, the dry land which had preceded 
 them was in the forest state. Unless, therefore, 
 we call to our aid spontaneous growth, we have 
 only to choose betwixt prairies destined to remain 
 for ever without plants, or prairies slowly filling 
 up with plants derived from the seeds of those 
 forests which clothed the more ancient forma- 
 tions. The borders of the prairies would be 
 planted first, and thus we can conceive of every 
 new generation of plants giving some of its seeds 
 — their structure being eminently fitted for so 
 great a purpose — to the winds and the waters, 
 and gradually extending the forests ; as the pres- 
 ent members of the human family who now pos- 
 sess the land send forth their generations to ad- 
 vance upon and settle the country for the uses 
 of posterity. 
 
 This seems a more natural and just method 
 of accounting for the immense prairies of the 
 west, and the pampas of the southern portion of 
 the American continent, than conjectural opin- 
 ions founded on a convenient method adopted by 
 the Indians to secure their game ; a method which 
 they have successfully practised at all times, to 
 burn the cane and high grass in the upland 
 forests, and which has somev/hat thinned but 
 has not destroyed them, as we see from the state 
 of the more open woods in Virginia, Tennessee, 
 Kentucky, Indiana, Missouri, and Arkansas ; 
 where, now that the Indians have abandoned tlie 
 country, the undergrowth is rapidly occupying 
 the ground again. It therefore appears to me 
 that those prairies, instead of having been de- 
 nuded by fire, have never, since the ocean aban- 
 doned them, been covered by any vegetables of 
 greater importance than the gramina. 
 
 Fertile and beautiful as the country is where 
 Judge Cross resides, it is singular, that although 
 it is one of the most salubrious parts of Arkan- 
 sas, and enjoys such a temperate climate, j'et 
 American citizens from great distances are con- 
 stantly traversing it, amidst all sorts of priva- 
 tions and difficulties, to seek a precarious exist- 
 ence in the unknown lands of Texas. Hundreds 
 of thousands of acres of the very first quality, 
 and which they could obtain at the insignificant 
 price established by law of a dollar and a quarter 
 an acre, are passed by as if they did not deserve 
 their attention. Put in motion by the insidious 
 arts of the unprincipled adventurers who have 
 for a long period contemplated this great robbery 
 of the Mexican government, and their cupidity 
 awakened by the vision of magnificent forms to 
 be obtained for nothing, they hasten on to a country 
 possessing fewer aavantages, little suspecting 
 that they are but tools employed by their tempt- 
 ers to defend the plunder these have in contem- 
 plation. I never meet with waggons filled with 
 these Texas emigrants, without looking upon the 
 men as victims and the women and children as 
 widows and orphans. 
 
 Having taken leave of the respectable family 
 by whom I had been so agreeably entertained, I 
 pursued my road to Red River, and after pro- 
 ceeding three miles came upon a barren sand 
 whichlasted all the way to the village of Wash- 
 ington, a miserable affair, built on a dry scorch- 
 ing sand-hill, and which has no resource or at- 
 traction whatever. On my previous visit here 
 
TRAVELS IN AINIERICA. 
 
 I had been made acquainted with a Mr. Prior, a 
 VirgiJiian, who had moved into the neighbourhood 
 of Ued River aljout three years before, and had 
 established a cotton plantation in Texas ; but as 
 it was very unhealthy in the autumn on account 
 of malaria, he had built a cabin on the uplands 
 in Arkansas, as a place of refuge for his family. 
 I had the good fortune to meet Mr. Prior again 
 whilst my horse was feeding, and finding that I 
 Avas going in the direction of his cabin, he said 
 that, as lie was returning home, he should be 
 happy to accompany me, and give me lodgings 
 for the night. Gladly accepting this offer, we 
 left the village together, and I soon discovered 
 that my companion was a gentlemanly and in- 
 telligent person, and ivide awake to everything 
 that was passing around him. During our ride, 
 that absorbing topic in this part of the world, the 
 proceedings of the land speculators, was of course 
 adverted to. 
 
 The passion for speculation in almost every 
 part of this country is singularly absorbing, but 
 is intelligible enough. As there is no ranlc in 
 the United States except ofiicial rank, all those 
 who are excluded from it are theoretically upon 
 an equality; but this is a very different thing 
 from f radical equality, which seems to be be- 
 yond the powers of demonstration. The consti- 
 tution of a country may require all men to be 
 equally stupid, may forbid any man to be of a 
 more lofty nature than the rest, and may declare 
 that the top and the bottom are one and the same 
 thing: all these dogmas may be proclaimed on 
 the 4th of July from Dan to Beersheba, but will 
 not deter men an instant from endeavouring to 
 surpass each other in the possession of worldly 
 advantages of every kind. Whilst these theories 
 are brought forward to flatter the people, sub- 
 stantial inequalitij is what every man in Amer- 
 ica is engaged in establishing, and this by the 
 agency of the almighty dollar, a superabundance 
 of which being a substitute for other virtues, 
 stands in the place of all distinction. Wealth, 
 therefore, since it implies virtue of every imagin- 
 able kind, must be had at any cost; and good 
 faith and fair dealing, both public and private, 
 are not to be permitted to stand too inconveni- 
 ently in theway of its acquisition. In America, 
 where so many have no objection to obtain it at 
 this price, there certainly can be no avenue to 
 its possession so tempting as speculating in the 
 public lands; for without denying that the 
 scheme under which they are sold in detail to 
 the public is simple, and ostensibly fair for bonii 
 fide purchasers, yet nothing can be more admi- 
 rably contrived to facilitate the proceedings of 
 unprincipled speculators. 
 
 The country which is to be sold is surveyed 
 into sections, land-offices are established, and a 
 period is appointed by the highest authority in 
 the country when a public sale is to be held, and 
 the sections or their sub-divisions* to be struck 
 off to the highest bidder: any of the sections, 
 however, which remain unsold after the sale for 
 ■want of bidders, being free to be entered at the 
 minimum price established by law, of one dollar 
 and a quarter. Nothing can appear more fair, 
 more moderate, and more encouraging to the in- 
 creasing population of the country than the 
 scheme of this law, which was enacted by the 
 Congress, with the sanction of many honourable 
 andunsuspectingindividuals. But'whatis often 
 the practice under it 1 The future settler leaves 
 
 A section is one square mile, or 640 acres. 
 
 121 
 
 hisfomily, proceeds perhaps one thousand miles, 
 gets a description of the sections at ihe land- 
 ollice of the district, finds a section that suits 
 him, builds a cabin upon it, clears a field, plants 
 corn for the coming winter, and returns to con- 
 duct his family to his future home ; there to await 
 — with the hard dollars prescribed by law for 
 payment of the land — the time to be appointed 
 (or the public sale, when he hopes to obtain a 
 Government title for his land, at a price not ex- 
 ceeding one dollar and a quarter per acre. In 
 the mean time active speculators — who find it 
 convenient to be political partisans — combine 
 with larger views, and form plans which often 
 materially interfere with the industrious and un- 
 suspecting settler. 
 
 First contriving by a little political manage- 
 ment to place one of their number as principal 
 person in the land-ofiice of the district to be oper- 
 ated in, ihey next make themselves well acquaint- 
 ed with the nature of the soil, and other natural 
 advantages appertaining to each of the most 
 valuable sections of land. If one of them lies 
 near a public road, if it has a navigable stream 
 near it, if it is the probable site of a I'uture court- 
 house, and is of the first class for fertility, they 
 send an agent to the settler who is upon it, to tell 
 him that they mean to bid against him at the sale^ 
 and to get a government title to the land at any 
 price whatever. The dismayed settler consults 
 his family, he knows what they are capable of 
 doing, and that if even the section were knocked 
 down to him at a speculating price, he could not 
 obtain the money to pay for it. He has only to 
 choose then between abandoning the land where 
 he has expended so much labour, and to which 
 he and his family have become attached, or to 
 make a ruinous compromise. This is sometimes 
 effected by his consenting to let the speculators 
 purchase the land at the sale, and to take a title 
 from them instead of the government. In many- 
 cases the poor settlers have agreed to pay ten 
 dollars an acre to these rapacious and unfeeling 
 wretches, delivering to them the ready money- 
 they had prepared to pay to the government, and 
 executing a mortgage to them for the remainder. 
 Thus is the once cheerful settler weighed down 
 to the earth with a heavy debt that presses upon 
 him for the remainder of his life, and converted 
 into the slave of a set of unprincipled harpies 
 who make enormous profits by their nefarious 
 transactions, without advancing any capital 
 whatever. 
 
 But this is not the most atrocious thing that 
 takes place. If the settler refuses to compro- 
 mise, the parties attend the sale ; the speculators 
 constantly overbid the settler, even if thev have 
 to bid four times more than the value of the land, 
 and of course it is struck down to them, and the 
 settler has lost his home. Now comes the oper- 
 ation of a regulation of these land-offices, which 
 is of this nature: if the price at which a section, 
 or a half or a quarter section of land has been 
 knocked down to any one, is not all paid within 
 a certain number of hours, the fact is to be sta- 
 ted at the opening of the sale the next morning, 
 and the. sale declared void. The next morning, 
 the clerk of the land-oflrce cominences by read- 
 ing the numbers of the sections the price for 
 which has not been paid, and declares the sales 
 of each of them void. The settler, overjoyed to 
 find his own serlion is amongst the number, 
 goes to the clerk as soon as he is uA \ the register 
 is open, and directs his name to be put down as 
 the purchaser at the minimum price of one dol- 
 
122 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 lar and a quarter an acre. The clerk opens the 
 register and with affected surprise intbrms the 
 applicant that another person has just before en- 
 tered his name for that section. The deluded 
 and unfortunate man now sees that there is no 
 jremedy ; that ihe clerk is a confederate of these 
 speculators, and that the whole has been arran- 
 ..ged in concert with them to defraud him and 
 give them — after the pretended competition at 
 the public sale — a government title at the mini- 
 anum price. These vile transactions have been 
 repealed too often, and in some instances the 
 names of individuals have been coupled with 
 them that ought to have been free from every 
 taint ol suspicion : so true it is that where money 
 is the principal avenue to distinction in a coun- 
 try, every honest principle is too often trampled 
 upon to obtain it. :,,. 
 
 Mr. Prior and myself continued on this sandy 
 j)ine land lor some miles, and then entered upon 
 a dead level of fine black land, underlaid by rot- 
 ten testaceous matter. It continued for a great 
 distance entirely on the same level, so that the 
 water laid upon it as if it were a moss, and made 
 it very unpleasant travelling, being black and ex- 
 ceedingly muddy and plastic : this is so much 
 the case, that in consequence of the pigs coming 
 home with loads of black matter behind them, it 
 is now the custom to cut off their tails. The 
 land at length began to rise, and we got upon a 
 siliceo-calcareous ridge that was a sort of water- 
 shed, sending off streams to the north and south. 
 Here, from the great profusion of those plants 
 Avhich only grow on the most fertile soils, and 
 ■which are an indication of good cotton land, I 
 perceived that we were entering into a produc- 
 tive district. Notwithstanding the abundance 
 of trees, we, however, as usual, saw very few 
 birds except the crow, a cosmopolite that is 
 found everywhere, even in the deepest solitudes 
 of Arkansas; but his presence always gives me 
 pleasure, for the sound of his voice diminishes 
 time and distance, strikes upon the chords of 
 early youth, and carries me back to those care- 
 less days when the crow was amongst the most 
 familiar of my acquaintances. 
 
 As we advanced, lofty pines mixed with oaks 
 covered the ridge, which presented an excellent 
 surface for agricultural purposes. Taking a 
 short cut, Mr. Prior led the way, and we thread- 
 ed the mazes of the pines that now assumed an 
 astonishing hteight and diameter, such as I had 
 never before seen out of Canada. We seemed 
 to be buried in an interminable forest; night had 
 fallen, and I began to think we must necessarily 
 have a still fatiguing ride to perform ere we got 
 out of the woods to this cabin we were in search 
 of; when turning to the left we suddenly came 
 upon it, and I confess I have seldom been more 
 pleasingly surprised. In the midst of a forest of 
 pine trees, few of them less than three feet in di- 
 ameter, a clearing of a few acres had been effect- 
 ed, an admirable fence put round it, and the 
 whole divided into regular compartments. In 
 one of these, consisting perhaps of a couple of 
 acres, were several detached buildings made of 
 hewn logs, but finished in a very neat manner, 
 except those which had been hastily thrown up 
 for the use of the negroes. On entering this pre- 
 cinct, at a distance of perhaps a hundred yards 
 from the buildings, 1 hardly knew how to repress 
 my admiration. I had been forming to myself 
 an idea of a humble cabin hastily got together in 
 the woods, when a villa of. very neat proportions 
 appeared before me, with a quadrangle bordered 
 
 with plants here and there, regularly laid out into 
 broad walks ; whilst the squares between the 
 walks, so far from having been ploughed or dug 
 up, were still filled with the huge stumps of the 
 pines that had grown there only eighteen months 
 before, when Mr. Prior first commenced to cut 
 the pine trees down. Another compartment had 
 been turned into an excellent vegetable garden, 
 where all sorts of good things were growing, and 
 here the stumps had been eradicated. This was 
 truly an oasis in the desert, and I saw at once 
 that Mr. and Mrs. Prior had been accustomed 
 to the refined comforts of life, and had the sense 
 to create them wherever they went. That no- 
 thing might be wanting to complete the evidence 
 my eyes were collecting of this, just as we reach- 
 ed the house I distinctly heard the tones of a pi- 
 ano — a piano in the wilderness, within ten miles 
 of a Mexican province! 
 
 When so many pleasing things come unex- 
 pectedly upon us, the imagination easily enters 
 upon the task of investing them with attractions 
 yet unseen ; and as I had found order, neatness, 
 and music, in a forest, where a short time before 
 I had, at the best, anticipated a rude cabin to 
 shelter me during the night, I came at once to 
 the comfortable conclusion that such things as a 
 good supper and a bed might also be found here, 
 nor was I disappointed. Mrs. Prior received 
 me very politely, and there was no want of the 
 most hospitable attentions during my stay. Mr. 
 Prior had resided a short time on his cotton 
 plantation, south of Red River, but finding it in- 
 salubrious, and having an only daughter,"a nice 
 little girl of ten years old, he sought a healthy 
 situation in the hills at a convenient distance, 
 and selecting a spot where there was an ample 
 spring of fine pellucid water, he commenced his 
 improvements, carrying them on with great spirit 
 and taste. Without the fence which enclosed 
 his buildings, were huge piles of logs from the 
 pine trees which had been cut down, and which 
 had been rolled into large heaps to dry before 
 they could be burnt up. It would have broken 
 the heart of a regular timber-merchant to see 
 hundreds upon hundreds of the finest logs— with- 
 out a single knot in them — deliberately put on 
 one side to be converted into smoke and ashes; 
 a proceeding that justifies the application of the 
 old saw, that -'What is one man's food is an- 
 other man's poison," lor there being no saw mills 
 at present in the country to work up these beau- 
 tiful trees, they are glad to resort to the least in- 
 commodious way of getting rid of them. 
 
 The example of this gentleman, in providing 
 for the health and comfort of his family, is about 
 to be followed, I understand, by other planters: 
 they talk already of building a church, and frora 
 what I hear, they have a cheerful prospect be- 
 fore them of establishing a social and moral col- 
 ony of educated people in this part of Arkansas. 
 How great a contrast is shown in the results 
 produced by settlers of the educated and unedu- 
 cated classes! The individuals of this last, not- 
 withstanding the "sovereign" privileges with 
 which they are dignified, seem, wherever I have 
 had an opportunity of observing them, to have 
 but one object in view, which is the immediate 
 gratification of animal wants. Order, cleanli- 
 ness, propriety, seem never to be thought of; 
 they build a rude cabin, they remain in it till it 
 rots, they patch it up as long as they can, and 
 only when it has begun to tumble down, build 
 another as rude as the first. They live twenty 
 or thirtv years in the same place without dis- 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 123 
 
 covering that they have a single moral want. 
 Eeligion is never spolcen of, and the Sabbath 
 day to them is nothing but a day when it is a 
 custom lor the husband to shave himself, and 
 the wife to go out a visiting. If an individual 
 comes amongst them with higher views, they do 
 not aspire to'"his standard but seek to drag him 
 down to their level, as being exactly the situa- 
 tion they would choose if they were in his place, 
 i'or nothing seems to appear more natural lo de- 
 mocracy than dirt. An anecdote was once re- 
 lated to me which illustrates this well. 
 
 One of the sovereign people, who was return- 
 ing home from a political meeting in New York, 
 where he had been amazingly sublimated vvith 
 magnificent speeches about the exceeding virtu- 
 ous infallibility of the class he belonged to, and 
 uiih just as much whiskey as had materially 
 deranged his centre of gravity, went along, with 
 imcertain steps, and thinking aloud, when sud- 
 denly the street seemed to be so unaccountably 
 steep as to render it necessary to lift his legs as 
 much as if he was getting up stairs. A little 
 giddiness next seizecf him as if he had been on 
 the deck of a vessel in the Bay of Biscay, and 
 opening his eyes wide, he saw a large brick 
 house coming /!(// split at him round the corner; 
 out of the way of this he had but just happily 
 got, when the ground flew up, struck him in the 
 jforehead, ani knocked him into the gutter. Find- 
 ing it a natural and easy position, he remained 
 contentedly there until the inclination to get to a 
 drier place took him, when perceiving the ap- 
 proach of another member of the republican roy- 
 al famil}', pretty much in the same happy state 
 as he had been in, he said, "Won't— you — be — 
 so — 'bliging — as — lend — me a — hand — out — of— 
 the gutter 1" "That's— jist — o?ipossible," cour- 
 teously replied the new comer, " but — if you — 
 like — I'll come — and — lie— down— by you." 
 
 The degraded state of things which prevails 
 amongst the lower classes cannot improve of it- 
 .self, but must grow worse from generation to 
 generation, without the aid of living moral ex- 
 amples; the efforts, therefore, which Mr. Prior 
 and his friends are making to establish a ration- 
 al mode of existence in this part of the country, 
 deserve every encouragement and commenda- 
 tion. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 Mr. Williams ; his adventures— Blunder of the Mexican 
 Government — Reach Red River— Cross into the Mexican 
 Province of Texas— Lost Prairie, a beautiful tract of land 
 ' — Surprising Crop of Cotton in a field of 300 acres — The 
 Abolition of Slavery a hopeless case — The future — Wild 
 Musoadel Grape. 
 
 After breakfast, having made my acknowl- 
 edgments for so much kindness, I took leave, and 
 accompained by a Mr. Williams, who was a vis- 
 itor there, pursued my way to Red River, distant 
 only ten miles, following the southern slope of 
 the pine hills, which show a great many beds of 
 ferruginous sandstone. At the foot of these hills 
 the rich and broad bottom land of Red River 
 commences, which is considered to be of the 
 very first class of cotton lands in this part of 
 North America. A portion of it had just been 
 sold at the public land-sale at Washington, and 
 some of the sections had brought as high a price 
 as ten, and even thirteen dollars an acre. The 
 bottom is about a mile in width on the north side 
 of the river, and is densely covered with lowland 
 timber, such as cotton wooi (^Populus monilifera), 
 
 the huge branches of which are as while a.': snow, 
 other trees of the sycamore kind, deciduous cy- 
 press, and immense canes 20 to 30 feet high. 
 
 I found my companion, Mr. Williams, an in- 
 teresting person. He had passed a very adven- 
 turous life, was a short thin man, looking much 
 older than he was, from the effects of exposure 
 and various hardships, and as he told me, from 
 the great quantity of calomel he had been obliged 
 to take when attacked by fever and ague. He 
 was a native of Connecticut, and had entered 
 into the Mexican service previous to the eleva- 
 tion of Iturbide. Attaching himself to an Ameri- 
 can named Long, a partisan in that service, with 
 the rank of Colonel or General, and who was as- 
 sassinated in the streets of Mexico by daylight, 
 on account, as it was thought, of his too zealous 
 Republicanism — he had been imprisoned with 
 other Americans, obnoxious to Iturbide, and con- 
 demned to be shot. His life, however, was spa- 
 red, and having survived many turbulent adven- 
 tures, he had attached himself to another of his 
 countrymen, a Colonel Milam, who, for services 
 to the Mexican Government, had received a 
 grant of eleven leagues of land on Red River, 
 and on this grant Mr. Williams had resided 
 many years alone, in a small cabin, providing 
 everything for himself, and very seldom even 
 seeing his friend Colonel Milam, whose public 
 duties and private affairs seldom permitted him 
 to visit his grant on Red River. It is probable, 
 too, that the Mexican Government kept a jealous 
 eye upon his movements, this grant being com- 
 prehended in the territorial dispute which has 
 been before mentioned, for it is well known to 
 them that persons occupying land on the frontier 
 consider themselves in the United States or in 
 Texas, just as it suits their interests. They are 
 Mexicans until they get a title from the Mexican 
 Government, but as the Americans are the only 
 settlers who give an intrinsic value to the land 
 by their labour, it becomes the interest of every 
 proprietor to encourage the annexation of the 
 country to the United States, a measure, any se- 
 rious attempt to consummate which, will be a se- 
 vere trial to the Federal Union. Nor can the 
 Mexicans be blind to the movement that is now 
 going on in relation to the province of Texas, or 
 fail to have their doubts about the fidelity of in- 
 dividuals situated as Colonel Milam is. Indeed 
 all the persons who have possessions on the dis- 
 puted line, being native-born citizens of the Uni- 
 ted States, may be considered as pioneers of the 
 advancing Anglo-American population, and to 
 be only waiting for favourable opportunities to 
 indulge in their irresistible propensity to spread 
 themselves over conterminous territories, with 
 or without any title to them. 
 
 In this quarter no obstacle whatever appears 
 to present itself to their advance. The indiscreet 
 legislation of Mexico, by which American citi- 
 zens have been permitted to settle in Texas, upon 
 condition of conforming to its laws, of adopting 
 the Roman Catholic religion, and abolishing 
 slavery, has already put the country into their 
 possession; the conditions will none of them be 
 observed, and when it is too late, Mexico will 
 find that it would have been easier to have kept 
 them out, than it will be to turn them out. Bu- 
 as Mexico is essentially a revolutionary govern- 
 ment, and as no party at the capital will probabl)' 
 for a long lime be strong enough to do more than 
 attend to its own interests, ii is almost self-evi- 
 dent that if ever she has the inclination, she will 
 never have the power to govern — at a distance 
 
124 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 of 1800 miles — a race of active and intrepid men, 
 wlio are hostile to her laws, religion, and manners. 
 It would seem, therefore, that, Mexico, in rela- 
 tion to the settlement of Texas, has made an ir- 
 retrievable false step. 
 
 On reaching the banks of Red River, although 
 I was very much delighted at having successfully 
 penetrated to this extreme frontier of the broad 
 territory of the United States, yet I could not but 
 perceive that nothing could be less beautiful or 
 picturesque than the river and its shores. The 
 stream was here about 200 yards wide, sluggish, 
 muddy, and chocolate coloured ; deriving its col- 
 our from the deep red earth it has in ancient 
 times deposited, and through which it now flows ; 
 and exhibiting on its banks an impenetrable wil- 
 derness of briars, plants of various kinds, and 
 lofty canes of froin 20 to 30 feet high. The next 
 thing was to cross the river at what is called 
 Dooley's Ferry, to the Texas side, where, on ac- 
 count of the present low stage of the water, there 
 was an extensive beach of 200 yards or more. 
 As soon as the ferrj'boat touched the Mexican 
 shore, I hastened to lead my horse over the beach 
 as rapidly as I could, for the ferryman told me 
 that it was very dangerous, would scarcely bear 
 the weight of a horse, and might suck him in, if 
 I loitered. I soon saw this was good advice, for 
 the bog shook in a treacherous manner, and Mis- 
 souri, who did not appear to like this unusual 
 surface, aiding with great agility, we soon reach- 
 ed the hard land, and found ourselves in what 
 the ferryman called " Spain." 
 
 We were now upon an exceedingly fertile bot- 
 tom between three and four miles wide, densely 
 full of plants and trees, amongst which I recog- 
 nised for the first time the palmetto, with its 
 graceful fanlike shape. Having got through it, 
 we came upon drier and blacker land, and then 
 to a locality called Lost Prairie, which is a tract 
 of about 2000 acres of incredible beauty and fer- 
 tility, bearing extraordinary crops of cotton, and 
 gracefully surrounded by picturesque woods. I 
 had never seen the cotton plant growing in 
 perfection before, for in the cotton districts I had 
 already passed through, the plant was a low 
 dwarfed bush not exceeding two feet high : but 
 here the whole country was filled with stately and 
 umbrageous bushes live feet high, covered with 
 innumerable pods resembling large white roses. 
 Having found out where the plantation of a Dr. 
 Jones was, to whom I had a letter of introduc- 
 tion, I rode there, and learned that he was from 
 home, but his family offering to receive me, 1 
 determined to remain at their house for the night, 
 that I might have an opportunity of looking at 
 the immediate neighbourhood. It was a charm- 
 ing sunny day, the thermometer (Dec. 11) stood 
 at 74'^ out of doors, and not a cloud in the 
 sky. 
 
 It had occurred to me, before I crossed Red 
 River, that it would be prudent not to prolong 
 my stay in Texas at this time. All the persons 
 whom I had any intercourse with, appeared to 
 be of one opinion as to the expediency and pro- 
 priety of occupying and detaching this province 
 from the Mexican government, , and it was easy 
 to see that they thought the moment for action 
 was drawing nigh. Upon several occasions, 
 when this important subject was earnestly dis- 
 cussed in my presence, I had remained silent ; 
 and as this was unusual in a quarter where all 
 men had some plan or other to ofl'er to acceler- 
 ate their design, I was by many regarded as a 
 spy upon them. If I had waited here until my 
 
 son joined me, and then advanced larthcr inta 
 the country, some outbreak might take place, 
 and we might become involved in its consequen- 
 ces, or have found it difficult to return. I deter- 
 mined, therefore, as the most prudent course, to 
 defer my examination of the interior of the prov- 
 ince until I could do it with the permission of 
 the Mexican authorities, or until the country 
 had become quiet enough to admit of my moving 
 about without observation. In the mean time' 
 there was something to see here, and I .set about 
 making the best use I could of the time I intend- 
 ed to stay. 
 
 It is impossible to exaggerate the extraordina- 
 ry fertility of the soil of Lost Prairie. I had an 
 opportunity of examining the nature of the de- 
 posit in a well just dug to the depth of thirty feet 
 from the surface ; the first three feet went through 
 a rich black vegetable mould, and the remain- 
 ing twenty-seven through a reddish-coloured 
 argillaceo-calcareous earth, so that it would 
 seem impossible to exhaust a soil of this kind. 
 In favourable seasons they gather from 1500 to 
 2500 lbs. of cotton in the seed to the acre, which 
 when the seed is taken out by the cotton gin, 
 leaves from twenty-five to thirty per cent, in 
 weight of marketable raw cotton. It is consid- 
 ered a fair crop if it produces one bale of 450 lbs. 
 of such cotton to the acre, and where for every 
 working negro on the plantation six or eight 
 bales can be turned out. I observed that it was 
 not the same species of plant I had seen growing^ 
 in Tennessee, and was told that it was the Mex- 
 ican white-seeded cotton, which was preferred in 
 this part of the country, because it yields more 
 to the acre and is much easier gathered. Some 
 of the plants were near six feet high, and sent 
 forth branches in great profusion, covered with 
 large white bolls resembling the Guelder Rose 
 when in full perfection. I counted 300 bolls on 
 one stem, but Dr. Jones's overseer told me that 
 he had counted as many as 360 on one stem this 
 .season. The field these plants were in contain- 
 ed 300 acres, and it was so dazzling white to 
 look upon as to create rather a painful sensation 
 in the eyes. 
 
 Although the climate in this latitude, 33° 40',. 
 is well fitted for the cotton plant, yet I am in- 
 formed that farther to the south, in 31° 30', it 
 flourishes still more ; for when the first set of 
 blossoms of the cotton plant is going to seed, 
 the plant, in congenial climes, puts out "new 
 buds," which also come to maturity ; and where 
 the climate is so propitious as to give the plant 
 all the advantages of a free growth, unchecked 
 by early or late frosts, it can be gathered three 
 times. 
 
 Notwithstanding it was so late in the year, 
 only one half of this field was gathered, and the 
 proprietor was now on a journey to purchase an 
 additional gang of slaves, intending to plant 400 
 acres the next season. 
 
 However lightly these people may hold \.h& 
 Mexicans, whose superiors they undoubtedly 
 are in industry and enterprise, yet the Mexicans 
 stand at a proud moral distance from them in 
 regard to slavery, which is abolished in their 
 republic. What can be more abominable than 
 the hypocritical cant with which these people 
 intrude into a country which does not belong to 
 them 1 To believe them, they have no motive 
 but to establish "free institutions, civil and reli-. 
 gious." Yet, in defiance of human freedom,, 
 just laws, and true religion, they proceed to con- 
 summate their real purpose, which is tO' people- 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 125 
 
 the country with slaves in order to cover it with 
 cotton crops. The poor slaves I saw here did 
 not appear to me to siand any higiier in the scale 
 of animal existence than ihe liorse ; the hor>e 
 does his daily task, eats his changeless proven- 
 der, and at night is driven to his stable to be 
 shut in, until he is again drawn forth at the ear- 
 liest dawn to go through the same unpitied rou- 
 tine until he dies. This is the history of the 
 slave in Texas, differing in nothing from that 
 of the horse, except that instead of piaize and 
 straw he is supplied with a little .salt pork to his 
 maize, day after day, without any change, until 
 death relieves him I'rom his wearisome exist- 
 ence. The occupation of Texas by the Ameri- 
 cans, where there are so many millions of acres 
 of the most lertile cotton lands, will convert the 
 old slave-holding part of the United States into 
 a disgusting nursery for young slaves, because 
 the black crop will produce more money to the 
 proprietors than any other crop they can culti- 
 vate. 
 
 For this reason the insufficiency of the Mexi- 
 can Government for the protection of their own 
 territory appears to me to be one of the greatest 
 misfortunes that could have happened to the hu- 
 man family in our times, when the minds of men, 
 especially in North America, were gradually in- 
 clining to the universal abolition of slavery. In 
 the States of Maryland and Virginia slavery 
 was no longer a pro'fitable state of things: tobac- 
 co had exhausted the best soils, and the planta- 
 tions, with very few exceptions, no longer main- 
 tained even the slaves. As the slaves became 
 gradually a burden to their masters, these last 
 would have got into a calmer slate of mind in 
 regard to slavery, and been more disposed to 
 concur in some humane legislation for its aboli- 
 tion, by declaring all black children to be free 
 who were born alter a prospective period ; so that 
 the change from slavery to freedom being grad- 
 ual would scarcely have been felt, and, as had 
 before occurred in the State of New York by the 
 enactment of a statute which conferred immor- 
 tal honour upon the people of that State, the day 
 of universal emancipation would have arrived 
 undreaded and almost unperceived. 
 
 The examples of two such States as Virginia 
 and Maryland, both of which, and especially the 
 first, have produced such eminent men, would 
 have had great weight with the other slave-hold- 
 ing States, and perhaps have led the way to an 
 universal abolition. But a boundless field is 
 now opened for the extension of slavery to a 
 country that had been happily freed from it; and 
 it is much to be feared that the evil, which al- 
 most seemed as if it were about to cease from 
 self-exhaustion, will, at some not very distant 
 day, present itself with such a fearful aspect as 
 to menace the suppression of all rational civil 
 government where slavery prevails. In the re- 
 cent history of the civil wars of the South Amer- 
 ican States we have seen what desperate uses 
 have been made of the negro race and the mixed 
 breeds called Sambos and by other names pro- 
 ceeding from it; and, as similar causes will 
 produce like effects at opportune seasons, we 
 may well look with apprehension to a future 
 time, when the negro race and its congeners, who 
 already count by millions, may strive, though it 
 is to he hoped in vain, for the mastery over our 
 own descendants. These are opinions that give 
 mortal offence to the existing generation of slave- 
 dealing Americans, but transactions of this kind 
 are pregnant with immense consequences that 
 
 must influence the future late of their country; 
 nor can observers who believe in the respon- 
 sibility of man tor his actions be deterred Irom 
 thinkmgthat their descendants will not be able 
 to escape that retribution which nations as well 
 as individuals owe to the violated laws of hu- 
 manity and justice. This is exactly a case to 
 which the awful words, "I will visit the sins of 
 the lathers upon the children unto the third and 
 fourth generations," most manifestly apply. 
 
 On the edge of this prairie, and in various sit- 
 uations not far distant from the river, is a chain 
 of lakes like that near the Mammelle in Arkan- 
 sas, and which evidently are upon the line of an 
 ancient bed of the river. Five miles south of 
 Lost Prairie is Little Prairie, a small patch of 
 fertile land of about 150 acres; and five miles 
 farther south of it is Fisher's Prairie, consisting 
 of 1500 acres of good land. To the north-west 
 of Lost Prairie are two others of consideiable 
 extent, which go by the name of Elam's Prairie 
 and Hickman's Prairie. The woodland around 
 ihese would in any other country be deemed to 
 be land of the first quality; but the people here 
 are spoiled by the possession of land that mere- 
 ly wants fencing and ploughing; any land that 
 requires to be cleared and drained, whatever its 
 quality may be, they consider a "hard bargain." 
 lam not surprised at this: the land of Lost Prai- 
 rie would spoil any farmer; it not only is surpri- 
 singly fertile, but lies so high and dry that the 
 black mould resembles heaps of ashes, and con- 
 sequently requires no draining. Last year the 
 summer was intensely hot, and one of the lakes, 
 which covered a great area of country, but was 
 not deep, suffered so much by evaporation, that 
 it could not preserve its fish, which all died, and 
 were to be seen floating on the water. The in- 
 habitants, too, sometimes pay dearly for the pos- 
 session of this beautiful.place, and were exceed- 
 ingly sickly last year. 
 
 On the sand-hills, about fourteen miles .south- 
 west of this place, there is a kind of muscadel 
 grape growing, which is very rich and sweet; 
 the plant runs on the ground and bears an am- 
 ber-coloured fruit. The other wild grape-vines 
 in the woodland bottoms climb the loftiest trees, 
 their stems hanging from gieat heights like huge 
 boas, and are frequently nine inches in diameter. 
 I made a collection of such vines as J thought 
 might be cultivated with .success, and put them 
 up with some other things in wet moss, and the 
 last thing I did, after finishing my examination 
 of the neighbourhood, was to cut a fine stick'of 
 the Bois d'Arc; then seating myself upon my 
 faithful Mis.souri, amidst all sorts of bundles and 
 sticks, I turned my back upon the fair and sun- 
 ny fields of Texas, now doomed to the cur.se of 
 slave-labour, and on as serene, beautiful, and 
 soft a December morning as ever was graced by 
 a cloudless sky in Italy, I once more reached the 
 banks of Red River. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV, 
 
 Course and ancient Channels of Red River— The Great 
 Raft— Method adopted of cutting it out— Danger to which 
 New Orleans is exposed — Fight betw.xt a Man and a 
 Panther— Tragical Story of a Hunter— Comical relation 
 of a Solo played by a Negro to a Gang of Wolves— Fossil 
 Oysters in the Saline. 
 
 This important river, the Rio Roxo of the 
 Spanish discoverers, takes its rise in the Rocky 
 
126 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 Mountains, and after flowing to the east through When this intelligent and energetic man came 
 
 immense plains is compelled, when it reaches 
 the mountainous country of Arl\ansas, to deflect 
 a little to the south. On reaching the point 
 where I was now about to cross it, it takes a 
 course a little west of south, as far as the 33rd 
 degree of N. lat. ; when it changes again, and 
 takes up a channel to the E. of S., until it near- 
 ly striljes the 31st degree of N. lat. ; here it in- 
 clines to the north, receives the waters of Black 
 River, and, with its increased volume, forces 
 its way almost due south, and joins the Missis- 
 sippi. In its entire line it is remarkable for a 
 tortuous and serpentine course, and has fre- 
 qnenily abandoned its channel in particular lo- 
 calities, the ancient lines of which can always 
 be traced. From the point where it turns to 
 the east and north, a little north of the 31st de- 
 gree of N. lat., it appears to have once flowed 
 south down the line of the Atchafalaya River 
 into the bay bearing that name in the Gulf of 
 Mexico, and not to have joined the Mississippi. 
 There is a chain of lagoons on that line still 
 choked up with rafts of dead timber, which, 
 when it had accumulated in sufficient quanti- 
 ties, no doubt caused the current to deflect to 
 the east, and gave the river its present direction 
 into the Mississippi. These chains of lagoons, 
 which are invariably upon the line of an ancient 
 channel, abound both on the north and south 
 sides of Red River, and are amongst the imme- 
 diate causes of the insalubrity of the climate 
 during certain months of the year. It was one 
 of those extensive lagoons on the Mexican side 
 of Red River, upon the beautiful tract of land 
 over which I passed, which had lost its fish in 
 consequence of excessive evaporation, the wa- 
 ter having become glairy and incapable of sus- 
 taining them. 
 
 In ihoise remote periods when the False 
 Washita and other tributaries of Red River 
 were working out their channels, the deposits 
 of dead timber must have been immense, not 
 only filling the channel of Red River in the first 
 instance down the line of the Atchafalaya, but 
 subsequently blocking up extensive portions of 
 its existing course to the Mississippi ; and it 
 has frequently happened that, after those rafts 
 have compelled the river to change its course, 
 the same causes operating upon the new line, 
 have turned the river back again into its old 
 channel where it has forced its way througli the 
 raft it had formerly deposited. We have evi- 
 dence of this not far from the junction of Red 
 River with the Mississippi, in the fragments of 
 those rafts which are still to be seen sticking 
 out of the banks of the stream, the main body 
 having rotted away from the point which ter- 
 minates what is called the Great Raft, and pass- 
 ed down with the current into the Mississippi. 
 Similar instances of this kind of operation, but 
 of still greater antiquity, are to be seen in the 
 hanks of the upper part of the Missouri, where 
 the river has cut through beds of lignite. 
 
 Of the extent of these deposits of dead timber 
 something like an adequate idea can be formed 
 by giving some details of the nature and extent 
 of that particular one called the Great Raft, and 
 of those means adopted to remove it, which do 
 so much honour to the Congress that authorised 
 tliem, and to Captain Shreve, the officer to 
 whom the execution of the work was entrusted. 
 
 upon the ground in the spring of 1833, he founds 
 that the raft extended up the bed of the river 
 for one hundred and fifty miles . Not that the' 
 whole channel of the river was blocked up by- 
 it, hut the dead timber occupying one-third of 
 the breadth of the river, the whole stream had 
 consequently become unnavigable, numerous 
 mud islands having been formed everywhere, 
 especially on the surface of the raft, and tree 
 and hushes growing on them all. Not far from 
 the line of the river were numerous lagoons and 
 swamps — once its ancient bed — into which the 
 river passed by bayous and low places ; these 
 he stopped up with timber taken from the raft, 
 and confining the stream to its bed, produced a 
 current of three miles an hour; whereas, be- 
 fore he began his operations, he found the river 
 quite dead, and without current for forty miles 
 below the southern termination of the raft. As 
 soon as a current was established, he, by means 
 of huge floating saw-mills, worked by steam, 
 cut portions of the raft out, and let them float 
 down the stream. At length the current be- 
 came sufficiently lively to wear away the mud- 
 banks and islands, and give an average depth 
 of twenty-five feet to the river. During the 
 first season of his operations he succeede4 in 
 removing about seventy miles of the whole mass 
 of the Great Raft, and it is now confidently be- 
 lieved that a good steamboat navigation will 
 soon be opened to its farthest extent ; so that, 
 not only the salubrity of the country will be 
 much improved, but an immense quantity of 
 fertile lands will be drained and brought to their 
 value, to indemnify the government for the ex- 
 pense. 
 
 The deflection from their courses of those no- 
 ble rivers that flow in the southern portions of 
 the United States, is a matter of the deepest im- 
 portance to the inhabitants of those countries ; 
 both as respects their navigation, their health, 
 the drainage of their lands, and the value of 
 tlieir landed property. Any one who looks at 
 the course of the river Mississippi on the map, 
 will see that, when it reaches the 3Isl degree 
 of N, lat., it deflects east of south, and pursues 
 a S.E. course to the Gulf of Mexico, passing the 
 city of New Orleans on its way. But as nothing 
 is more certain than that the Mississippi once 
 continued its course to the Gulf, from the 31st 
 degree by the line of the Atchafalaya, it is evi- 
 dent that, if ever the river, at the point of con- 
 fluence with the mouth of Red River, should be 
 permitted to regain its ancient channel, the city 
 of New Orleans will be in danger of being left 
 high and dry, and the present bed from the Ba- 
 lize upwards of becoming a line of lagoons and 
 swamps. 
 
 Having crossed the river, I again — after a 
 long ride of 36 miles — reached the hospitable 
 mansion of Judge Cross. In the morning I pur- 
 sued my journey, and, coming to the little Mis- 
 souri, found the waters very much abated, and 
 no ferryman within sight. I remembered that 
 the house was at some distance from the river, . 
 and could not be seen from it, so taking a horn 
 which I found suspended from a tree for the 
 purpose, I blew in vain for at least half an hour. 
 Nobody coming to ferry me across, I was redu- 
 ced to the necessity of attempting to ford the 
 river, which was accomplished with great in- 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 12 7 
 
 convenience ; for Missouri having a great aver- 
 sion to passing deep streams, anil not knowing 
 the direction of the ford, which was in an ob- 
 lique line, I got completely wet. On reaching 
 the house I found two vulgar and very stupid 
 white women, and a negress ; being a little out 
 of humour I immediately began to reproach 
 Ihem with not sending somebody down to point 
 out the ford, when the old negress said she had 
 told Miss Brindley (her mistress, about 51 years 
 old) that it would be best to let her go down 
 and see who was blowing the horn, but that she 
 said, " She reckoned it was no matter, she al- 
 lowed they would find the way across somehow 
 or other." Upon this I said some very severe 
 things to the young lady, and begged she would 
 never be so inconsiderate again, as it might be 
 a child on horseback, or an invalid incapable of 
 assisting himself She seemed sensible of her 
 fault, for she said if I would eat something I 
 should have nothing to pay for it. 
 
 That night I slept at 'Hignite's again, and 
 starting early on a fine cold moonlight morning, 
 rode on to Mrs. Barkman's, where I fed my 
 horse. The old lady, who was standing at the 
 door with her pipe in her left hand, and a com- 
 fortable chew of tobacco in her cheek, shook 
 hands heartily with me, and asked me how I 
 liked Texas, adding before I could give her an 
 answer, " that she could not see what folks was 
 
 sich fools as to go there for." Having 
 
 forded the Caddo without difficulty, I hastened 
 on to Mitchell's, where I arrived at 4 p.m., and 
 found my son, who had been endeavouring to 
 amuse himself with hunting, but was thoroughly 
 tired of the wretched fare Ihey had given him. 
 Not feeling disposed to see any more of it my- 
 self, and my horse appearing fresh, we put him 
 into the waggon again alter half an hour's rest, 
 and shouldering the rifle, I started again on foot 
 for a settler's named Dean, about seven miles 
 oflT, leaving my son to come on with the vehicle. 
 It becam.e very dark when I got to the marshy 
 springy ground, within four miles of the Washi- 
 ta, and the track becoming at length nothing 
 but mud and water, I was compelled to get into 
 the woods, where the thickets and fallen timber 
 not only embarrassed me very much, but now 
 and then, on account of the darkness, obliged 
 me to regain the track, that I might be sure I 
 was in the right direction. Some stories that 
 Hignite had related to me abou-t the panthers in 
 this swamp, intruded themselves also a little 
 into my imagination. He said — what I had be- 
 fore heard — that this animal, when he has had 
 poor hunting during the day, watches at night 
 on a log or o-n the branch of a tree, and when 
 he has an opportunity, will spring upon a man 
 from behind, fasten his horrid claws into his 
 neck and hack, and worry him to death. One 
 unfortunate man, who was traversing the swamp 
 durmg the last autumn at night, had been at- 
 tacked in this way ; the panther succeeded in 
 fastening himself upon the man's neck, who, 
 being rendered desperate, at length, after a hard 
 struggle, got the beast's head under his left arm, 
 so that he could act upon the offensive, and 
 thrust his right hand into its throat. During the 
 conflict, the panther, with his fangs, tore all the 
 veins in the man's face and neck open, and se- 
 verely lacerated his shoulders and back. He 
 s-ucceeded, however, in choking the beast, and 
 
 retained strengt.i enough to reach his home,, 
 where he died soon after. 
 
 Now I was constantly running against branch- 
 es of trees and logs, and had discovered, whea 
 about to enter the swamp, that my rifle was not 
 loaded, and that I had no ammunition with me: 
 besides, there was my son behind, slowly ad- 
 vancing with a lircd horse, and I had also to. 
 think of him, so that this branch of zoology oc- 
 cupied a great deal of my thoughts during this 
 nocturnal walk. I regretted now that I had not 
 provided myself with a Bowie knife. Much as 
 the practice of carrying such a murderous in- 
 strument is to be detested, still it is the most 
 effective weapon in a close contest with one of 
 these ferocious animals; for if, upon such aa 
 occasion, a man has his presence of mind about 
 him, he finds an opportunity of mortally wound- 
 ing an adversary that exposes so large a frame 
 to his knife. After a most tedious tramp in th& 
 dark, through this disagreeable place, I at lengtli 
 savvalight,and walking up found it was Dean's. 
 An hour afterwards my son joined me. a circum- 
 stance that rejoiced me exceedingly, and we 
 proceeded to partake of an indifferent supper. 
 The people of the house said the swamp was 
 much infested with wolves, and related a sin- 
 gular story of a hunter who, some time before, 
 had perished through his own cupidity. The 
 wolves had killed so many calves and pigs be- 
 longing to the settlers, that they at length re- 
 solved to raise a sum of money by subscription, 
 and to give two dollars a head for every wolf 
 scalp. This man, who lived alone in the woods, 
 and was an experienced hunter, built a pen ia 
 the swamp of open logs, ten feet high, without 
 a roof; and having killed a two-year old heifer, 
 look the carcase there as a bait. The neigh- 
 bours knew what he was doing, but as not)ody 
 had seen him for several days some of them 
 went one morning to see what success he had 
 had ; having reached the place they found the 
 bones of the heifer outside, and thirty dead 
 wolves which he had shot lying near them. On 
 looking into the pen they saw one live wolf ia 
 it and the man dead, with most of his flesh torn 
 from him. It appeared from the marks around, 
 from the scratchings upon the bark of the logs, 
 and from the fact of one of the top ones being 
 thrown down, that he had shot thirty from the 
 pen whilst they were devouring the meat, but 
 that the troop had been so numerous and raven- 
 ous that, smelling the man, they had stormed 
 the pen and devoured him. The one in the pen 
 was wounded and had not been able to escape. 
 
 Whilst upon wolf stories I must record a less- 
 tragical one, that was related to me in a differ- 
 ent part of the country. There had been a 
 merry-making at new year amongst some of 
 the settlers, and a black, who had a wife and 
 children about three miles off, and who played 
 on the fiddle, had been sent for to play " Virginia 
 reels" to the young people. It was three in the 
 morning when he took his kit under his arm to 
 return home, and had been snowing for some 
 time, with a high cold wind raging that drifted 
 the snow iiiio heaps wherever he passed the 
 clearings. H(! had got about half the distance, 
 exceedingly fatigued, and wishing he was at 
 home with his black pickanninies, when, hav- 
 ing just lel't an extensive swamp which ran far 
 into the country, he heard a strong pack of 
 
128 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 wolves "singont" as if they had scent of some- 
 thing. The wolf, wtien in a famished state, has 
 a very keen scent, and can detect a change in 
 the air at great distances ; 
 
 " Leva il muso, odorando il vento infido." 
 
 / pomessi Sposi. 
 
 And, in this particular instance, it happened that 
 they scented Mr. Marcus Luffett, (Marquis La 
 Fayette) — for such was the name he was known 
 by— who had rather a strong hide. He had very 
 soon reason to believe that was the case ; the 
 wolves were to leeward of him, and were evi- 
 dently coming in his direction : so, feeling as- 
 sured of this, and despairing of reaching his 
 home in time, he employed all his powers to 
 reach a small abandoned cabin in a clearing by 
 the road-side, which was about a quarter of a 
 mile off; the roof of which was partly destroy- 
 ed, but the door of which was yet hung. On 
 came the ferocious animals, barking and shriek- 
 ing; they were upon his track, and great were 
 his apprehensions of falling into their power : 
 but, on gaining the clearing, he fortunately found 
 the snow was drifted away there, and did not 
 impede him, so that he was just able to rush in 
 season into the cabin and clamber up the logs 
 inside to a rafter that ran across. The door he 
 did not attempt to shut, for the wolves were 
 within ten yards of him when he entered, and 
 he was afraid he could not keep it shut against 
 the pressure of a large body of desperate ani- 
 mals. Great was the rage of the wolves when 
 they entered at being balked of their prey, and, 
 as Mr. IMarcus Luffett observetl, " Dey carried 
 on jist as if de old debhel himself was inside of 
 ebery one of dere cossed troats." The cabin 
 was at one tmie quite filled with them, and he 
 said that they went in and out and round the 
 cabin, to see if there was any place by which 
 they could get at so savoury a joint as that which 
 was hanging up, but rather too high in the larder. 
 Fmding that he was safe, he began to acquire 
 contidence, and watching his opportunity he 
 scrambled along until he got over the door; 
 and there, with a little management, he con- 
 trived with his legs to shut a great number of 
 them in the cabin. Those outside appearing to 
 have gone away to look for other game, and 
 those mside remaining silent with their glaring 
 eyes fixed intently upon him, the Marquis, who 
 bad no small idea of his skill, now thought he 
 would treat them to a " Virginia reel," and 
 forthwith commenced with his kit to astonish 
 the lupine auditory with such a solo as they had 
 never heard before. At first they howled, the 
 performer not appearing to give universal satis- 
 faction, but day beginning to dawn and findin-g 
 they could not get out, they crouched down on 
 the floor of the cabin all together, and remained 
 silent. As soon as he thought the morning was 
 sufficiently advanced to remove all apprehen- 
 sion from those outside, he got through a hole 
 in the roof and hastened to his family. Imme- 
 diately collecting a number of men armed with 
 rifies and axes he returned with them to the 
 cabin, which they all entered by the hole from 
 whence he had escaped. The wolves were 
 crouched together as he had left them, and 
 showed now as sneaking a disposition as it had 
 before been furious. They shot no less than 
 thirty-seven ; all the skins were given to Mr. 
 Marcus Luffett, and the neighbours subscribed 
 
 twenty-five dollars in cash, as some return for 
 the important service he had rendered them by 
 the destruction of so many depredators upon 
 their calves and pigs. 
 
 Pursuing our journey very early in the morn- 
 ing, we re-crossed the Washita, and leaving the 
 road on the left by which we had come from the 
 Hot Springs, we reached Trammel's and stop- 
 ped awhile to feed our horse. Here I saw a 
 number of fine young turkeys that had been 
 hatched by a tame one, from eggs which had 
 been taken from a wild bird. Some domestic 
 turkeys were running with them, but those of 
 the wild breed were easily distinguishable ; they 
 were more dark and glossy in their plumage, 
 and had a very quick and bright eye : their move- 
 ments too were much more lively than those of 
 the tame ones. One of the women in the house 
 told me that they were not tender and difficult 
 to raise like the chicks of the domestic breed, 
 but were as hardy as young chickens. All the 
 wild turkeys that I have yet seen are of a dark 
 glossy plumage, nor do I hear of any person hav- 
 ing seen a wild one which was white or yellow. 
 
 We were now upon our old road again, and 
 the petro-siliceous hills and ferruginous con- 
 glomerates. Towards evening we crossed the 
 Saline, and whilst my son took our vehicle to 
 our old " Little Pickey" quarters, I examined 
 the beach of the Saline, which had fallen very 
 much, and found some fine valves of fossil oys- 
 ters in the rocky bed of the channel. It appears 
 that all the streams from Little Rock to Red 
 River, which run to the south, have tertiary de- 
 posits in them, as well as those which run to 
 the east and empty into the Arkansas. These 
 deposits containing great quantities of marine 
 shells, afford conclusive proof that the ocean at 
 one of the most recent geological periods has 
 flowed up to the base of the highlands from Can- 
 ada to Red River, tertiary deposits existing; on 
 the line of the St. Lawrence, at Martha's Vine- 
 yard, and at innumerable localities from thence 
 southward to Red River. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 Reach Little Rock again — A pleasant Cliristmas Eve — Em- 
 bark in a Steamer for New Orleans — A painful IVIoment 
 — Structure of the banks of the Arkansas— Snags and 
 Sawyers explained — Frequent Change of the Channel of 
 the iliver— Cotton Plantations — Cause of the Variegated 
 Structure of the Banks explained. 
 Early in the morning, with a bright moon- 
 light, we pursued our journey by the old road to 
 Little Rock, and ere we had proceeded three 
 miles the largest and the finest flock of wild tur- 
 keys we had yet seen crossed the road, issuing 
 from the woods one after the other, all full 
 grown and fat, in their richest black and brown 
 plumage. Their extreme beauty and the happi- 
 ness they seemed to enjoy were their protection ; 
 and after admiring them we drove on and reach- 
 ed Little Rock about 4 p.m., after exactly a 
 month's absence. Here we found the same 
 people and the same unvarying occurrences ; 
 we had seen everything in the neighbourhood, 
 and there was nothing now to tempt ns to pro- 
 long our stay. We therefore devoted our re- 
 maining time to packing up our collections, 
 bringing up journals, and preparing for our de- 
 parture ; but we were still desirous of seeing 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 129 
 
 other portions of the southern country, and it 
 was a niatier whicli engaged our earnest atirn- 
 tion Imw we could best accomplish this. The 
 rainy season was about to set in, the roads 
 would be extremely bad, and as the streams 
 would be swollen so as to be impass^able in 
 many places for our vehicle, we determmed to 
 leave it behind. As I'o our horse, both my son 
 and myself had become attached to him ; he 
 was a beautiful animal, was docile, had served 
 us faithfully, and we were unwilling to part with 
 him. After much deliberation, therefore, it was 
 determined that my son should make Missouri 
 Ihe partner of his fortunes, and should follow 
 an entirely new line of country until we met 
 again in the .\tlantic states. As to myself, I 
 determined to carry out the plan I had formed 
 of examining the Arkansas river to its mouth, 
 and proceeding thence down the Mississippi to 
 New Orleans, return by way of Mobile in Ala- 
 bama, the territory of the Creek Indians, the 
 states of Georgia, South Carolina, North Caro- 
 lina, and Virginia. By taking these two distinct 
 lines of country we should have an opportunity 
 of examining 4000 miles more of the surface 
 and the strata south of the Potomac, an amount 
 of observation which, added to the 2000 miles 
 at least which we had already made, would fur- 
 nish a great many data for forming an approxi- 
 mate view of the geology of the southern por- 
 tions of the United States. 
 
 The river Arkansas was at this time so low 
 that the steamers, now on their way, were un- 
 able to reach Little Rock, but the barometer had 
 given decided indications of a change in the 
 weather, and I was sure that rain would fall 
 soon. We therefore held ourselves ready to 
 start as soon as this should take place, for the 
 .steamers, especially if they are bound down the 
 river, sometimes only touch at Little Rock for 
 an hour or two, and if a boat is missed at this 
 time of the year a traveller, who has no other 
 means of getting away, may be detained all the 
 winter. As the period of our departure ap 
 preached I perceived that the Swiss gentleman, 
 Mr. T********, who has been named in this 
 journal, began to despond , we had seen a great 
 deal of him ; he was a person of various infor- 
 mation and considerable talent, and appeared to 
 feel as if he were shipwrecked for life, and 
 thrown upon a barren coast without any rational 
 hope of ever being restored to society again, or 
 of meeting a brother he had in the United Slates, 
 but whom he was without the means of joining. 
 I could not bear to see a gentlemanly person of 
 so much merit left in such a painful and hope- 
 less condition: if I had left Little Rock without 
 him, I should have felt as much remorse as if I 
 had abandoned one whom I was bound to pro- 
 tect ; and having got into that sort of kind feel- 
 ing, I thought It right to let in a ray of sunshine 
 upon his existence, and proposed to him to ac- 
 company me. I imagine Mr. T******** packed 
 rtp his portmanteau with as much pleasure as I 
 had done my own, and from that moment he he 
 came my companion for the rest of my journey 
 Whilst we were wailing for the river to rise 
 great preparations were making to celebrate 
 Christmas Eve by a ball at one of the taverns, 
 .and although f am not a great frequenter of t)alls 
 I was very anxious to be present at this. 
 Christmas Eve, even in the older parts of the 
 R 
 
 United States, is not, I believe, distinguished by 
 any kind of festivity amongst Protestants, with 
 tlie exception of the few Episcopalian families 
 wlio still adhere to the festal customs of the 
 mother country ; for the Presbyterians and oth- 
 er sectarians rather seem to prefer to desecrate 
 than to celebrate the great Christian festivals, 
 and as they form an overwhelming majority of 
 the population, Christmas or Christmas Eve are 
 seldom mentioned. But a celebration of Christ- 
 mas Eve at Litlle Rock, of all the places in the 
 world, coifld not lail to be something very extra- 
 ordinary, and worth attending, since it was 
 probable that all the devotional piety of the ter- 
 ritory of Arkansas would break out upon the oc- 
 casion. A faint idea of the nature of the affair 
 and of the style of the ball had been already 
 given to me by a person who had attended one 
 the preceding year. There were about 100 men 
 and 3 women. The men had their hats on, and 
 danced armed with pistols and bowie knives, 
 whilst the landlord, assisted by two of his peo- 
 ple, with his hat cocked on one side, took pitch- 
 ers of strong whiskey-punch round the room, 
 and clapping the gentl^-meii on the back, gave 
 them to drink. As tins was the principal busi- 
 ness of the evening, and the pitchers unceasingly 
 went round, the whole party soon got amazing- 
 ly drunk, but were very good-natured, " for there 
 were only a few shots fired in fun." 
 
 Unluckily for our chance of seeing the ball, it 
 began to rain heavily in the night of the 22nd, 
 and continued the next morning, when news 
 reached Lilile Rock that a steamer from the 
 Mississippi had arrived within twenty miles of 
 the town, and would only remain for passen- 
 gers until one o'clock p.m. As soon as we 
 heard the intelligence and had reason to believe 
 it was correct, we got everything into our ve- 
 hicle, and mounting a hired horse, I rode on be- 
 fore, to detain the steamer, leaving my son and 
 Mr. T******** to follow in the waggon. Hav- 
 ing crossed the Arkansas in the ferry-boat I 
 pursued the military road to Memphis for near 
 three miles, and then turned into an indifferent 
 road running parallel to the river. When I had 
 got about fifteen miles I learned at a cabin 
 where I called for information, that I had still 
 ten miles to go at least, as there was a chain 
 of lagoons to head, which, they said, had been 
 an old bed of the river, but that for some dis- 
 tance before I should get to the place called 
 Eafflc Bend, where the steamer was, there was 
 no ^longer a track of any kind for a waggon. 
 This was discouraging; the rain was pouring 
 down all the time, the road was bad, and it was 
 becoming problematical whether we could ef- 
 fect our object at all, for the steamer, not know- 
 ing we were on the road, would have no motive 
 for waiting beyond the appointed hour. How- 
 ever, as everything might depend on my push- 
 ing on, I took the best directions I could get, 
 and hastening forward, soon came to a deep 
 and bad bayou, which I got across with some 
 difficulty, quite despairing of their being able to 
 get through it with the waggon. I now came 
 upon alternate beds of sand and mud, which 
 had been deposited when the river overflowed 
 Us banks in June, 1833, a period when many 
 plantations were destroyed by deep deposits of 
 sand. To these succeeded thick corn-brakes 
 and a total termination tq the track ; it seemed 
 
130 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 as if everything had combined to prevent the 
 possibility of a four-wheeled carriage reacliing 
 the steamer. The afternoon was now wearing 
 away, so, dismounting and fastening my horse 
 to a tree, I walked through the brake to the 
 bank of the Arkansas, thinking there might he 
 a chance, as the land was not very low, of my 
 seeing the steamer if she had not yet got under 
 way. Never was man more startled or more 
 pleased than I was at hearing the steam blow- 
 ing ofTlrom the boat, which was lying moored 
 to the bank, almost immediately below me. 
 This, in fact, was Eagle Bend, on the left bank 
 of the Arkansas, which jutted out into the riv- 
 er, and was about twenty feet high. Hastening 
 down the bank I hailed the steamer, which was 
 that instant getting under way, and giving the 
 necessary information to the captain, he agreed 
 to leave his yawl with one of his men, to take 
 us off, while he dropped down to a wood-yard 
 on the oi.her side of the river, to take in fuel. 
 Having come to a good understanding with the 
 man in the yawl, I now remounted, and hasten- 
 ing back, came up with the waggon about five 
 miles back, which was much sooner than I ex- 
 pected, notwithstanding my knowledge of the 
 resolution of my son in cases of difficulty. In , 
 crossing the bayou they had found it necessary ' 
 to unload the carriage, take the body and wheels 
 off, and carry the pieces up to the opposite 
 bank, as they found it to he quite impossible to 
 draw it up with the horse. We now all pro- 
 ceeded towards the yawl, when, in crossing an- 
 other bad place, the shafts of the waggon got 
 broken, and here they were obliged to stop 
 wlulst I rode on and called the man in the yawl 
 to our assistance. Tying the horses up in the 
 cane-brake we gave the man one of the trunks 
 — my son and myself carried the other, and Mr. 
 T******** managed to take the portfolio and 
 some instruments I had. Night was just set- 
 ting in when we reached the yawl, excessively 
 fatigued, and succeeded in getting our luggage 
 into it. All this lime the steamer had been 
 making signals for us to come off, but we were 
 too busy to mind them. The man was in my 
 interest now, and, as he sensibly observed, "If 
 the captain wanted him particular, he could jist 
 as well cross the river and lend us a hand." 
 
 The most painful part of the business was yet 
 to be gone through. My son, vv-ho had been so 
 long my failhful companion in much difficulty 
 and danger, Vvas now to part from me, and to 
 be left behind in a wilderness, without any one 
 to assist him. I desired him to ride his horse 
 to a cabin a few miles back, and send the peo- 
 ple for the broken carriage the next morning 
 I knew his address and ability, and felt assured 
 that he would do very well. But the moment 
 of parting was painlul to both of us, and as we 
 rowed down the river and beheld him standing 
 on the desolate hank of the Arkansas, watching 
 our boat in the imperfect twilight, I was very 
 much affected, and thought it would have been 
 belter to have spared us both such a moment. 
 Night had set in when we reached the steamer, 
 which seemed clean and nice. I got a very 
 good berth for myself, and should have been per- 
 fectly comfortable if my mind had been at ease. 
 
 Our steamer got under way at break of day, 
 December 24ih, and we proceeded down the 
 liver, which in this low state of the water is 
 
 about 300 yards wide. Nothing can be more 
 monotonous than the country through which 
 this muddy stream holds its course, the whole 
 area being a fertile alluvial deposit of nearly the 
 same level, in which the water has worn a 
 channel, leaving banks froii\ 20 to 30 feet high, 
 composed of fiuvjalile deposits of clay and sand 
 of different colours, of which a dull red prepon- 
 derates. Sometimes the banks rise to forty 
 feet, in which situations the land is free (roui 
 inundation. When we had made about 25 
 miles, we passed some high banks called the 
 Red Pine Bluffs, from TOO to 130 feet high, 
 which the river is rapidly wearing down, un- 
 dermining them beneath, and causing huge 
 masses to fall incessantly from the top. This 
 process is more interesting to the geologist than . 
 to the cotton planter, for the fresh fracture ena- 
 bles him to trace for great distances the party- 
 coloured deposits which alternate with each 
 other, s<ime being red, some white, some gray, 
 and oftentimes all of them intermixed together. 
 The comparative height of these Red Pine 
 Bluffs enables them to assume an important 
 appearance in a country where the surrounding 
 land is at a level of about 2.5 feet above the wa- 
 ter. Farther down, about 20 miles, we came to 
 similar bluffs of a lighter colour, called the 
 Wkiie Bluffs; and about 30 miles still lower 
 down we reached the Red Pine Blvffs, whicli 
 are higher than any of the others. As we had 
 to stop occasionally to take in wood, I availed 
 myself always of the detention to examine the 
 hanks where they were accessible. At the Red 
 Pine Bluffs there is a bed of limestone formed 
 of broken-down oyster-shells like those in the 
 Saline, which was the first calcareous deposit 
 I met with in the banks. 
 
 The whole course of this river is extremely 
 serpentine, the general direction to the Missis- 
 sippi being S.E. ; but the channel every five or 
 six miles describes curves, sometimes going 
 N.E., sometimes S.W. Upon such occasions 
 the main channel is alternately on the right and 
 left bank of the river; when on the right bank 
 an extensive sandy beach projects itself from 
 the opposite shore, and sometimes encroaches 
 so far into the channel as to render it difficult 
 to get the steamer through. We often got 
 aground in less than three feet water, but the 
 captain was a man of experience and resolu- 
 tion, and always succeeded in backing the 
 steamer or forcing it through the mud, although 
 it sometimes caused a delay of several hours to 
 get the boat off again. These beaches some- 
 times contain more than fifty acres, and are 
 thrown up by the stream as it abrades the 
 banks at the foot of wliich it runs. In the 
 course of this voyage I received the most com- 
 plete practical lesson as to the manner in which 
 these streams get into a serpentine course, that 
 had ever been presented to me on so large a 
 scale. Masses covered with trees and canes 
 were constantly falling from the banks, and be- 
 ing carried to the bottom of the channel with 
 immense quantities of clay about their roots, in 
 some places almost filled the river with what 
 are called snarrs and sawyers. The first are 
 trees or stout branches firmly fixed in the mud, 
 sometimes appearing above, sometimes being 
 under the water, and these frequently impale 
 the steamers if a good look-out is not kept : 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 131 
 
 the sawyers are flexible and clastic brandies, 
 over a part of wliich tlie current pa>-ses, and 
 presses lliem into tlie water, from wliicli they 
 rise by their elasticity, producing a sawing mo- 
 tion up and down. These not only embarrass 
 the navigation excessively, but when they ex- 
 tend densely from the bank they once grow 
 upon, offer a point of resistance to the current, 
 which then inclmes to the otber side, and finally 
 wearing its way to the opposite side of the riv- 
 er, begins to abrade the bank there, and throw 
 up another sand-beach. 
 
 In consequence of this frequent deviation 
 from a straight course, many long but narrow 
 reaches of land, as they are called, are formed, 
 sometimes not more than fifty feet wide at their 
 base ; and through these the stream frequently 
 breaks with great impetuosity, when the river 
 is miich swollen and the floods come down from 
 the upper country, forcing a new channel through 
 the read), and leaving a considerable area of 
 land isolated on the side of the bed it has aban- 
 doned and left dry During some of these irre- 
 sistible freshets, the maddened river has soine- 
 times even got under those extensive sand 
 beaches, and after lifting them up as high as 
 30 feet above the general level of the land, has 
 borne them along, and finally deposited them at 
 a distance from the channel of the river. I 
 have seen several of these arenaceous deposits 
 four or five hundred yards from the edge of the 
 bank, covering the soil many feet deep, and ut- 
 terly ruining various plantations. In some in- 
 stances the flood has ploughed up the whole of 
 the soil with the cotton and maize growing 
 upon it to the extent of forty acres, and depos- 
 ited it in a mass on a beach lower down. At 
 a Monsieur Barraque's, an ancient French set- 
 tler, who lives about 140 miles from Little 
 Rock, on the left bank of the Arkansas, I saw 
 a curious instance of this kind. 
 
 The few settlers on the bank of this river are 
 all cotton planters, and experience has taught 
 them now to get upon the highest banks beyond 
 the reach of inundation. Whenever we saw a 
 number of bales rolled down the bank we al- 
 ways stopped to take them in as part of the 
 steamer's freight to New Orleans. Upon one 
 occasion the number of bales was so great that 
 we were detained seven hours, and hearing that 
 there was an old bed in tue vici.uty which the 
 ^iver had formerly abandoned I went to exam- 
 ine it. It was an immense chasm in the land, 
 on the left bank, about 300 yards broad and 
 about 90 feet deep, extended several miles, 
 bearing the appearance of a reddish, sandy val- 
 ley, containing many accumulations of old sand- 
 bars and snags, and was divided from the pres- 
 ent bed of the river by a high ridge, where the 
 young wood was beginning to grow very thick- 
 ly, on a surface from whence all the timber had 
 evidently been swept away by the flood when 
 the change in the channel took place. In this 
 chasm I saw no symptoms of animal exist- 
 ence, except the track of a solitary deer, nor 
 could any thing be imagined more savage or 
 lonely. But what exceedingly interested rne 
 when I got into it, were the curious party-col- 
 oured deposits of clay and sand, which had been 
 left by the various inundations of the river that 
 had taken place since this channel was aban- 
 doned. These inundations could almost be 
 
 enumerated by the thin strata they had produ- 
 ced. There would be a layer of red clay, then 
 one of white sand, then again a mixture of both, 
 and occasionally large blotches or masses of 
 whitish clay enclosed in a regular deposit of red 
 argillaceous earth. The last deposit consisted 
 of about an inch of dull red argillaceous mat- 
 ter, most probably, for reasons which will be 
 adduced, brought from the country through 
 which the river Canadian flows. Appearances 
 of this kind are often met with in the indurated 
 rocks, where they can only be accounted for 
 conjecturally. On this extensive continent, 
 containing rivers whose courses, and the inci- 
 dents produced in them, can be traced for near 
 three thousand miles, there is some encourage- 
 ment to look for the cairses of similar phenom- 
 ena ; for every one, on inspecting them, must 
 feel desirous of satisfying hims6lf why the same 
 river at one time deposits red clayey matter, at 
 another time white sand, and at another period 
 mixed earthy matter, repeating the order of 
 these deposits with something almost amount- 
 ing to regularity. 
 
 This is undoubtedly owing to the extraordi- 
 nary character fif the River Arkansas, a mighty 
 flood, which, deriving its most remote sources 
 from the melted snows of peaks of the Rocky 
 Mountains from 10,000 to 15,000 feet highland 
 holding its course amongst the m<umtain chains 
 for at least 200 miles, pursues its way near SOOO 
 miles before it joins the Mississippi. But the 
 sources of this immense stream are numerous, 
 and some of thein are six or seven hundred 
 miles apart from west to east, lis southern- 
 most branch, the south fork of the Canadiar^, 
 receives streams which rise near the 34lh de- 
 gree of N. lat. ; parallel to this are its other 
 branches, the river Canadian, the north fork of 
 the Canadian, and the Nesuketonga or Grand 
 Saline. Its most northerly source is from the 
 Rocky Mountains between 39° and 40° N. lat., 
 whilst its most easterly sources, comprehend- 
 ing the Verdegris, the Neosho, and the Illinois,, 
 rise in the parallels of from 37° to 38° N. lat., 
 at least six hundred miles to the east of the 
 central and principal sources in the Rocky 
 Mountains. The waters, therefore, that take 
 their rise at points separated by so many de- 
 grees of longitude, have to pass through all the 
 zones of mineral matter which they intersect 
 through such a great extent of surface on their 
 way to the Mississippi. Nor do these branches 
 make slight impressions upon the surface, the 
 southern and western ones being all of them 
 fine rivers, that may fairly be classed with the 
 most important European streams, and the 
 eastern ones are only a degree less important. 
 I have been informed by some persons who 
 have passed across the heads of the southern 
 and western sources of this noble river, that in 
 some places it has varied its channel so much 
 as to have abraded the whole surface for sev- 
 eral miles in width, and that in one or two sit- 
 uations the floods have torn up and desolated 
 the whole country for a space equal to ten miles 
 wide. The southernmost sources flow through 
 an ancient deposit of red argillaceous matter 
 for several hundred miles, which gives the red 
 muddy character to the Canadian and its 
 branches. The western and northern sources 
 bring down mineral matter of various kinds and 
 
132 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 colours ; but to the east some of the branches 
 take their rise in the petro-siliceous country 
 through which I had lately passed, and the 
 white arenaceous deposits are sufficiently indic- 
 ative'of their eastern origin. 
 
 The branches which have been referred to 
 being of unequal length, and separated by great 
 geographical distances, and the melting of the 
 snow and the ramy seasons being governed by 
 differences in latitude and elevation, they aie 
 consequently subject to increase their volume 
 at distinct periods; so that the main channel 
 of the Arkansas is not only sometimes flooded 
 from one set of branches, sometimes from an- 
 other, but is occasionally swollen from a com- 
 bination of them all ; the evidence of the par- 
 ticular state of the river at any one period being 
 to be found in the sedimentary deposits left by 
 the inundations, which are to be considered as 
 representing the mineral character of the dis- 
 tricts through which the waters have passed. 
 A close observation of the eccentric movements 
 of floods of this class throws a great deal of 
 light upon the circumstances which, whether 
 arising from partial eddies produced by a change 
 of level effected in periods of inundation, or 
 from ordinary mechanical causes, have occa- 
 sioned both the regularity and irregularity of 
 deposits ; and tends to explain how blotches of 
 mineral matter, both large and small, are found 
 enclosed in masses of a different character, as 
 in the instances where the whiter matter of the 
 eastern branches is found enclosed in the ex- 
 tensive layers deposited by the waters of the 
 Canadian. 
 
 CHHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 Approximative Method suggested of calculating the Age of 
 Fluviatile Deposits— Brutal Conduct of the Passengers— 
 The Quapaw Indians a Tribe of the Osages— Monsieur 
 Barraqu6, his Adventures— A Young Vagabond — Post of 
 Arkansas — Monsieur Notr6be — The River encroaching 
 upon the Country. 
 
 The manner in which fluviatile deposits are 
 here effected upon so immense a scale, may 
 perhaps suggest the origin of various mineral 
 phenomena observed in the older indurated 
 rocks, especially of those intermixtures of ma- 
 rine and fresh-water strata which took place in 
 rem(Jte periods, when parts of the surface of the 
 earth seem to have been exposed to repeated 
 subsidences and elevations. Although we have 
 no geographical data to form an opinion of the 
 causes which have deposited such fre.sh-water 
 strata, yet we see how in modern times they 
 are brought into place, and perhaps can avail 
 ourselves of what is passing before our eyes to 
 form an approximate estimate of the period of 
 time required for a deposit of a particular thick- 
 ness. The inundation of June, 1833, alone de- 
 posited a layer of one inch of red clay in the 
 chasm alluded to, which can be traced of the 
 same uniform character for several miles, and 
 every year brings at least one inundation ; and 
 although a great portion of this extensive allu- 
 vial country has been deposited under the sea, 
 as we see by the calcareous beds containing 
 marine fossils, yet the whole mineral matter ap- 
 pears to have been brought down from the 
 plains above, so that the process has been going 
 on for an immense period before the historic pe- 
 
 riod. The surface of the country, too, in this 
 vicinity is such as it has been for a long time 
 since it was left by the ocean ; for upon some 
 of the edges of the ancient banks of the river 
 are Indian mounds, with trees growing on them, 
 perhaps five hundred years old, so that the 
 mounds are at least as ancient as the existing 
 vegetable bodies. Quantities of Indian arrow- 
 heads, too, are strewed around them, made of 
 the siliceous mineral of the Washita hills, and 
 some have been found by the settlers buried 
 several feel beneath the surface, facts which 
 show that this alluvial country, which was pos- 
 sessed by some bands of the Quapaws when the 
 whites first began to occupy it, has been inhab- 
 ited by the aborigines at a very distant period. 
 
 When the settlement of the country shall 
 hereafter bring other data forward connected 
 with these considerations, perhaps it will not 
 be found impossible to assign reasonable limits 
 to the period required for the structure of this 
 part of the southern country. It is true the de- 
 posits made by the annual inundations are nat- 
 urally too irregular and variable to afford syste- 
 matic data for a chronological computation of 
 the origin of these fluviatile beds ; but whenev- 
 er a careful inquiry of this kind is made, it will 
 be found important to note them very accurate- 
 ly. Neither would it be impossible to calculate 
 approximatively the amount of sedimentary mat- 
 ter brought down annually by the Arkansas, or 
 any of the turbid tributaries of the Mississippi ; 
 for the principal floods of the Arkansas and 
 Missouri, caused by the melting of the snow in 
 the Rocky Mountains, although they are irregu- 
 larly swollen during the winter and spring 
 months by rain, usually take place in June. At 
 all these times they bear along their greatest 
 quantity of solid matter towards the Mississip- 
 pi, the finest particles of which they consign to 
 the ocean, where, being met and stopped, they 
 are deposited and distributed into levels which 
 are continually extending themselves seaward, 
 to be laid dry perhaps at some future day, as the 
 alluvial plains which now form the surface of 
 the country have formerly been. 
 
 The lowest state of the Arkansas occurs 
 from July to November, inclusive ; during a 
 portion of this time it is often too shallow to be 
 navigable from the Mississippi to Little Rock. 
 In this state of the River, the current being 
 sluggish, the water quasi stagnant, and the solk 
 id matter held in suspension very trifling, al- 
 though the water is always tinged a little with 
 it, a set of experiments might be conducted, 
 showing the mean quantity of sedimentary mat- 
 ter brouglit annually down during the rises of 
 the river, and during the low-water periods. 
 Furnished with the cubic quantity of solid mat- 
 ter thus obtained in a given period, and apply- 
 ing it as a divisor to the probable whole quanti- 
 ty of fluviatile deposit in the entire alluvial area, 
 a chronological period might be approximative- 
 ly assigned to the origin of these rivers, the 
 commencement of these deposits, and the with- 
 drawal of the ocean from this part of the coun- 
 try. Perhaps also the period of its fitness to 
 receive terrestrial animals might thus be found 
 to accord with other indications of the existence 
 of an aboriginal race. 
 
 On reaching the steamer, we found it very 
 clean, and but few passengers on board ; I 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 133 
 
 therefore flattered myself with the enjoyment 
 of many tranquil moments, in which I could 
 daily bring up my journal, finish my sketches, 
 and contrive a few comforts for a voyage which 
 would probably last ten days ; but I never was 
 more engregiously disappomted at any period of 
 my life. The passengers were some low per- 
 sons on their way from Red River to New Or- 
 leans on business, just recovering from the ef- 
 fects of malaria and calomel, and who gave 
 themselves unrestrainedly up to such beastly 
 vulgar babits, even when at table, that it became 
 impossible to remain a spectator of their ster- 
 corarious proceedings. Although the weather 
 was often cold and rainy, Mr. T******** and 
 myself were often driven on deck to eat our 
 food, to avoid the disgusting scenes that were 
 going on around the fireside in the cabin. The 
 captain was a resolute vigilant man, but he 
 cared nothing about what was done there, leav- 
 ing the passengers to regulate those matters 
 amongst themselves. Tbe arrival of night was 
 a blessing to us ; if we could not sleep, at least 
 our eyes and ears were not so much offended ; 
 for tbe brutes, our fellow- passengers, gorged 
 with the coarse things they had eaten, could 
 always sleep, like hogs, the moment they laid 
 themselves down. We made various attempts 
 to put matters upon a better footing, but could 
 not succeed, these animals not having the 
 slightest idea of there being such a thing as 
 indecency. In the morning I was careful to be 
 always up first, get a corner to myself on deck 
 to perform my ablutions in, and when it was 
 very cold I used to go to the engineer's room to 
 warm myself, who was a clever sort of man in 
 his way. 
 
 The first day we made about seventy-five 
 miles, and the next morning proceeded twenty 
 miles to a Mrs. Embree's, a widow, who culti- 
 vated a cotton plantation ; she appeared to be 
 an active respectable person, and lived with 
 some order and comfort in her double cabin. 
 We took in her crop of cotton for the New Or- 
 leans market, as well as that of her son-in-law. 
 Judge Roane, an intelligent person who em- 
 barked with us to go a short distance down the 
 river. Nearly opposite to the widow's is an 
 old village of the Quapaw Indians, which had 
 been the residence of a Mons. Vaugin, a French- 
 man who died lately. The name Quapaw, as 
 it is commonly called, is pronounced, as a half- 
 breed informed me, in a strong guttural manner, 
 as if it were Gkwhawpaw. From a vocabulary 
 which I obtained from this person, the language 
 they spoke appears to be a dialect of the Wha- 
 shash, or Osages, from whom they have proba- 
 bly separated, as these last have their hunting- 
 grounds only about 250 miles to the north-west. 
 From hence we proceeded about 20 miles, to 
 the plantation of a Mons. Barraque, which is 
 very well chosen, bemg somewhat higher than 
 the line of inundation, and perfectly level for a 
 great distance. This is one of the best cotton 
 plantations on the river, to judge from the size 
 and lu.xurianee of the plants, which however 
 were not equal to those I had seen on the Mex- 
 ican side ot Red River. If the company in the 
 steamer had been even tolerable, this little voy- 
 age would have passed off agreeably, for these 
 stoppages gave me frequent opportunities of 
 looking at the country, and calling to see the 
 
 different families, all of whom, by their affability, 
 showed how happy they were to offer civilities 
 to a stranger who visited their country for the 
 first time. The French families were delighted, 
 too, that I could converse with them in their 
 native language, and were in raptures when 
 they heard that I had even been in Paris. This 
 fact of itself procured me the most decided at- 
 tentions. 
 
 Mons. Barraque's family were all French, and 
 occupied a house containing two large and very- 
 comfortable rooms, neatly and sufficiently fur- 
 nished. On entering I found Madame Barra- 
 que, four young ladies, and some of their friqnds, 
 all of whom received me witli a charming po- 
 liteness peculiar to the French, and engaged 
 me in an interesting chat with them for an hour. 
 It was evident that they had ideas and opin- 
 ions a little above the ordinary run of the old 
 Creole French ; and upon my remarking this, 
 Mons. Barraque informed me that he had only 
 emigrated from France upon the fall of his mas- 
 ter. Napoleon ; after which event, being uncer- 
 tain of his advancement in the army upon the 
 restoration of the Bourbon family, he had em- 
 barked for New Orleans, had wandered up the 
 Arkansas, and commenced a trade with some 
 of the western Indians : it was his bad fortune, 
 however, to be robbed and plundered of every- 
 thing he possessed, and in this state he made 
 his way back to the French settlements on the 
 Arkansas, where " tout le monde etoite en- 
 chante de le revoir." Frenchmen make a point 
 of never being unhappy long, so he married the 
 daughter of one of the old settlers at whose 
 house he staid ; and after a while, with the as- 
 sistance of his father-in-law, built a bouse, and 
 gradually cleared a plantation. He is now a 
 successful cotton planter, and being himself a 
 native of the lower Pyrenees, has given the 
 name of " New Gascony" to the district he re- 
 sides in. To judge from appearances, Madame 
 has no small portion of the Quapaw blood in 
 her, which is not an uncommon thing, as most 
 of the Creole French who lived out of New Or- 
 leans connected themselves with Indian wom- 
 en ; her mother no doubt was of that stocky 
 but she is a very good-looking woman notwith- 
 standing her Indian blood, has French manners, 
 and has produced a fine young family. 
 
 As soon as the signal was made for the de- 
 parture of the steamer, I went to the house to 
 make my bow, and to my surprise found Mons. 
 Barraque also ready in his travelling dress, in- 
 tending to go down the river as far as the post 
 of .Arkansas. The affectionate manner in which, 
 he seemed to live with his family was very en- 
 gaging ; at tbe words " Embrassez-moi, mes 
 enfants,'' all ran to hitn, and they took a gentle 
 and tender leave of each other, including Ma- 
 dame. On our way to the boat I said to him, 
 " Apres tons vos mallieurs. Monsieur, au moins 
 vous avez trouve un endroit oii vous etes heu- 
 reiix," when to my extreme surprise he an- 
 swered me in the very words of my old merry 
 travelling companion Mons. Nidtlet, when I was 
 passing through Tennessee, "Monsieur, quand 
 il n'y a pas de choix, tout est bon !" a most com- 
 fortable maxim, if it can be cordially acted up 
 to, and in the practice of which we fastidious 
 Englishmen are not a tenth part as wise as our 
 lively neighbours.. 
 
134 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMEEICA. 
 
 M. Barraque was a great acquisition to Mr. 
 'T******** and myself on board ; lie was full of 
 ■conversation, his adventures and opinions were 
 amusing, and we found him a very intelligent 
 and agreeable fellow-passenger. This was more 
 than could be said of the others, and especially 
 of a young reprobate of tlie name of Powers, 
 apparently not more than twenty-one years old. 
 This youth was decently dressed, and from his 
 language was evidently from New England, 
 "where the young rnen are generally well brought 
 up. But he was a scape-grace of the worse 
 kind, was in a constant state of intoxication 
 with feome ardent spirits he had found on board 
 of the boat, and behaved in the most ungoverna- 
 ble and ruffian-like manner. I had observed him 
 upon several occasions, and had cautiously ab- 
 stained from having anything to do with him. 
 Knowing that the steward of the boat had some 
 claret on board which he had purchased in New 
 Orleans, I desired him to bring me a bottle of 
 it, that I might offer some wine toM. Barraque 
 This drimken puppy, finding that I did not offer 
 it to him, broke out in the most insolent man- 
 ner to me, and jumping up with a knife in his 
 hand, told me, before all the passengers, that he 
 
 " had a good mind to cut my throat." I 
 
 never was more tempted to knock a fellow's 
 brains out, but considering his extreme youth, 
 I dissembled my feelings, and merely told him 
 that if he made one step towards me I would, 
 after that speech, put him to death on the spot. 
 We had a set of excellent printed rules on board, 
 amongst which was one declaring that if any 
 passenger's conduct was offensive to the cap- 
 tain or to the other passengers, he should be 
 immediately put on shore, and I determined to 
 require of the captain to enforce that rule in 
 this case. The other passengers made no re- 
 mark upon his conduct, except M. Barraque, 
 who went on deck and spoke to the captain, 
 and told him what he thought it was his duty 
 to do. Mr. T******** and myself were of 
 opinion that he would be more influenced by 
 the interference of a planter upon whom he oc- 
 casionally depended for freight, than by my 
 representations, and I therefore said nothing, 
 relying upon the captain's good sense, of whose 
 vigilance in matters that related to his duty we 
 had had many proofs. In the evening this 
 young brute became so beastly drunk, that he 
 jay dpwn in a berth belonging to one of the oth- 
 er passengers and vomited upon his clothes. 
 The captam, on hearing of this, came down into 
 the cabin to speak to him, but he was too drunk 
 to understand what was said to him, and the 
 affair was left until morning. When morning 
 arrived I required of the captain an immediate 
 compliance with the rule, and this he frankly 
 admitted he was bound to do, but said there 
 were particular circumstances, known only to 
 himself, which prevented his doing it ; he con- 
 cluded by saying that he would take such pre- 
 cautions as would prevent my being exposed to 
 his insolence again. Thus situated, I had no 
 alternative but to remain on board and see if 
 the captain would restrain him by his authority, 
 or go on shore myself and remain in the wilder- 
 ness perhaps two or three weeks before another 
 steamer should offer. This being the most in- 
 convenient of the two, I determined to wait 
 awhile ; and in /fact the fellow, in consequence 
 
 of the captain's orders to give him nothing to 
 drink, was quieter after this. It appeared from 
 what the engineer told me, that this youth was 
 a relative of one of the owners of the boat, and 
 was going to the gallows so fast, that he had 
 put him under the captain's care as a last effort 
 to keep him from immediate destruction, with 
 injunctions not to let him go ashore at all. 
 
 During this day we made about 30 miles, 
 stopping at two or three plantations to take in 
 cotton, and mooring the steamer as soon as night 
 set in ; for the precarious nature of the naviga- 
 tion renders it exceedingly dangerous and al- 
 most impossible to descend the Arkansas when 
 the river is as low as at this time, except by 
 day-light. Notwithstanding the greatest atten- 
 tion on the part of the captain we frequently 
 grounded, and we often had to stop the engine 
 to permit the boat to glide gently over the trees 
 that lay beneath the water. On the 28th we 
 grounded in a place from which we were unable 
 to extricate the steamer until towards evening, 
 and only made twenty miles during the day. In 
 the morning, the steamer having to take in some 
 cotton, and finding we were ordy about three 
 miles from the ancient French settlement of 
 " Poste d'Arkansas," Mr. T*****-** and my- 
 self landed and walked to it through woods fill- 
 ed with lofty cotton-wood {Popidus momUfera) 
 trees, with an undergrowth in many places of 
 white dog-wood ( Corww* a/ia) and red bud (Cer- 
 cis Canadensis). This place, which is on the 
 left bank of the Arkansas, is situated on the 
 edge of an extensive prairie, and consists of a 
 few straggling houses, principally occupied by 
 some descendants of the ancient French settlers, 
 who live in the comfortless way that the same 
 class does at Carondelet. The great man of the 
 place is a Monsieur Notrebe, a French emigrant, 
 who is said to have accumulated a considerable 
 fortune here. His house appears to be a com- 
 fortable one, and has a store attached to it, 
 where the principal business of this part of the 
 country is transacted. Notrebe preceded M. Bar- 
 raque in Arkansas, and also married a Creole 
 with Indian blood in her veins. Cultivating cot- 
 ton himself, advancing money to other planters 
 to carry on their business with, upon condition 
 of taking their crops when gathered at a given 
 price, and taking skins and peltry of every kind 
 in payment of goods obtained at his store — of 
 which whiskey forms no small item — he has 
 contrived to secure a monopoly of almost all the 
 business of the country, and after a vigorous 
 struggle has compelled all his competitors to 
 withdraw from the trade. In addition to the 
 tenements inhabited by Frenchmen, there are 
 two miserable taverns kept by Americans, where 
 everything is upon the most sordid scale. 
 
 Nature assumes a somewhat different appear- 
 ance at this place, and we were pleased with it 
 on our arrival, being somewhat relieved from 
 that sense of wearine.ss with which an unceasing 
 contemplation of endless forests and cane-brakes 
 oppresses the mind The banks of the river, 
 which are about eighty feet high here, are crum- 
 bling down with a rapidity that must, more or 
 less, attract the attention of the settlers and 
 somewhat alarm them ; the descending floods 
 undermining them on one hand, whilst the banks, 
 saturated with the land-springs and superficial 
 waters tending to the river, become at length 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 135 
 
 ■ton heavy, lose their adhesion, and are precipi- 
 tated in immense masses to the bottom. I'he 
 Arkansas forms a beautiful sweep for two or 
 three miles, where the settlement is, and expo- 
 ses a deep section of the party-coloured banks, 
 in which I observed a seam of calcareous mat- 
 ter towards the bottom of the left bank, compo- 
 sed of broken-down shells, but it was only al)out 
 three inches thick. I examined the neighbour- 
 hood for several miles, and found the country a 
 dead flat, with a few stunted trees growing here 
 and there, and the land so cut up by broad chan- 
 nels or gullies made by the rain, that even with- 
 in :?00 yards of the settlement they had been 
 <jl)liged to construct bridges over some of them. 
 There is a track on the bank of the river which 
 I followed some distance, until it stopped at a 
 precipice of near 100 feet high, with a wide 
 chasm, on my left, the solid contents of the 
 whole having, as I was informed, fallen into the 
 water within the last twelve months. All this 
 might have been avoided if they had, in the first 
 instance, constructed proper passages for the 
 atmospheric waters to pass off. 
 
 We remained at this place the whole day ta- 
 king in M. Notrebe's bales of cotton, many of 
 which we were obliged to leave behind, having 
 no room for them : indeed the bales were so 
 piled up on the decks and paddle-boxes of the 
 steamer, that she looked from the shore like an 
 immense collection of bales of cotton, amongst 
 which some pieces of machinery had been stuck ; 
 hut although, to my inexperienced eye, she was 
 too deeply laden, I afterwards found that she 
 was in good trim, and in the open stream made 
 her eight and ten knots an hour. We were de- 
 tained until ten o'clock the next morning (Dec. 
 30th), when we started for Montgomery's, the 
 noted gambler's, at the mouth of White River, 
 distant from here about 45 miles. 
 
 CHAPTER, XXXVIII. 
 
 The Steamer boarded by Swindlers — Pandemonium afloat 
 —Day and Night Org-ies— A Mysterious Lady— Printed 
 Rules to decoy Passengers— White River — Reach the 
 Mississippi —Arrive at Vicksburg — Mr. Vick and his 
 brother Gentlemen— Worse and worse— Compliments to 
 the Captain of a Steamer by the Gentry of Vicksburg — A 
 View of the Grand Gulf— Reach Natchez— A happy De- 
 liverance of the Swindlers— Judge Lynch in the State of 
 Mississippi — Arrive at New Orleans. 
 
 Upon embarking on board of this steamer I 
 was certainly pleased with the prospect that 
 presented itself of enjoying some repose and 
 comfort after the privations and fatigues I had 
 endured ; but never was traveller more mis- 
 taken in his anticipations ! The vexatious con- 
 duct of the drunken youth had made a serious 
 innovation upon the slight degree of personal 
 comfort to be obtained in such a place, but I had 
 not the slightest conception that that incident 
 would be entirely thrown into tlie shade by 
 others a thousand times more offensive, and 
 that, from the moment of our departure from the 
 post of Arkansas until our arrival at New Or- 
 leans, I was destined to a series of brutal an- 
 noyances that extinguisiied every hope of re- 
 pose, or a chance of preserving even the decen- 
 cies of existence. 
 
 I had been told at the post of Arkansas that 
 en passengers were waiting to come on board, 
 
 and that several of them were notorious swin- 
 dlers and gamblers, who, whilst in Arkansas, 
 lived by the most desperate cheating and bully- 
 ing, and who skulked about alternately betwixt 
 Liitle Rock, Natchez, and New Orleans, in 
 search of any plunder that violent and base 
 means could bring into their hands. Some of 
 their names were familiar to me, having heard 
 them frequently spoken of at Little Rock as 
 scoundrels of the worst class. From the mo- 
 ment I heard they were coming on hoard as 
 passengers I predicted to Mr. T*******^* that 
 every hope of comfort was at an end. But I 
 had also been told that two American officers, a 
 Captain D***** and a Lieut. C******— the lat- 
 ter a gentleman entrusted with the construction 
 of the military road in Arkansas— were also 
 coming on board ; and I counted upon them as 
 persons who would be, by the force of educa- 
 tion and a consciousness of what was due to 
 their rank as officers, on the side of decency at 
 least, if not of correct manners ; and if those 
 persons had passed through the national mili- 
 tary academy at West Point, or had served un- 
 der the respectable chief* of the Topographical 
 Bureau at Washington, I should not have been 
 as grievously disappointed as it was my fate to 
 be. It was true I had heard that these officers 
 had been passing ten days with these scoundrels 
 at a low tavern at this place, in the unrestrain- 
 ed indulgence of every vicious extravagance, 
 night and day, and that they were the familiar 
 intimates of these notorious swindlers. Never- 
 theless, believing that there must be some ex- 
 aggeration in this, I continued to look forward 
 with satisfaction to having them for fellow pas- 
 sengers, confident that they would be our allies 
 against any gross encroachments of the others. 
 
 Very soon after I had retired to the steamer 
 at sunset, the whole clique came on board, and 
 the effect produced on us was something like 
 that which would be made upon passengers in 
 a peaceful vessel forcibly boarded by pirates of 
 the most desperate character, whose manners 
 seemed to be what they aspired to imitate. 
 Rushing into the cabin, all but red-hot with 
 whiskey, they crowded round the stove and ex- 
 cluded all the old passengers from it as much as 
 if they had no right whatever to be in the cabin. 
 Putting on a determined bullying air of doing 
 what they pleased because they were the majori- 
 ty, and armed with pistols and knives, expressly 
 made for cutting and stabbing, eight inches long 
 and an inch and a half broad ; noise, confusion, 
 spitting, smoking, cursing and swearing, drawn 
 from the most remorseless pages of blasphemy, 
 commenced and prevailed from the moment of 
 this evasion. I was satisfied at once that all 
 resistance would he vain, and that even remon- 
 strance might lead to murder ; for a sickly old 
 man in the cabin happening to say to one of 
 them that there was so much smoke he could 
 hardly breathe, the fellow immediately said, " If 
 any man tells me he don't like my smoking I'll 
 put a knife into him" 
 
 As soon as supper was over they all went to 
 gamblimg, during which, at every turn of the 
 cards, imprecations and blasphemies of the 
 most revolting kind were loudly vociferated. 
 Observing them from a distance where Mr. 
 
 Colonel Abert. 
 
136 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 T******** and myself were seated, I perceived 
 that one of them was the wretched looking fellow 
 I had seen at Hignite's, o-n my way to Texas, 
 who went by the name of Smith, and that his 
 keeper iNlr. Tunstall was with him. The most 
 blasphemous fellows .Tiongst them were two 
 men of the names of Kt-otor and Wilson. This 
 Rector at that time held a commission under the 
 natmnal government as Marshal for the terri- 
 tory of Arkansas, was a man of mean stature, 
 low and sottish in his manners, and as corrupt 
 and reckless as it was possible for human being 
 to be. The man named Wilson was a suttler 
 from cantonment Gibson, a mUitary post about 
 250 miles up the Arkansas ; he had a remark- 
 able depression at the bottom of his forehead ; 
 and from this sinus his nose rising with a sud- 
 den spring, gave a fural expression to his face 
 that exactly resembled the portrait of the wick- 
 ed apprentice in Hogarth. The rubric on his 
 countenance too was a faithful register of the 
 numerous journeys the whiskey bottle had made 
 to his proboscis. 
 
 If the Marshal, Mr. Rector, was the most con- 
 stant blasphemer, the suttler was the most em- 
 phatic one. It was Mr. Rector's invariable 
 custom, when the cards did not turn up to please 
 him, to express a fervent wish that "his sou! 
 
 might be sent to ," whilst Mr. Wilson never 
 
 neglected a favourable opportunity of hoping 
 that his own might be kept there to a thousand 
 eternities. This was the language we were 
 compelled to listen to morning, noon, and night, 
 without remission, whenever we were in the 
 cabin. In the morning, as soon as day broke, 
 they began by drinking brandy and gin with 
 sugar in it, without any water, and after break- 
 fast they iniiiiediaiely went to gambling, smo- 
 king, spitting, blaspheming, and drinking for the 
 rest of the day. Dinner interrupted their orgies 
 for a while, but only for a short lime, and after 
 supper these wretches, maddened with the in- 
 flaming and impure liquors they swallowed, fill- 
 ed the cabin with an infernal vociferation of 
 curses, and a perfect pestilence of smoking and 
 spitting in every direction. Lieut. C****** oc- 
 casionally exchanged a few words with me, and 
 appeared to be restrained by my presence; he 
 never sat down to play, but was upon the most 
 intimate terms with the worst of these black- 
 guards, and drank very freely with them. Capt. 
 D*****, with whom I never exchanged a word, 
 was a gentlemanly-looking youth, and was not 
 vulgar and coarse like the others, but I never 
 saw a young man so infatuated with play, be- 
 ing always the first to go to the gambling table 
 and the last to quit it. Such was his passion 
 for gambling that it overcame everything like 
 decent respect for the feelings and comfort of 
 the other passengers; and one night, after the 
 others had become too drunk and tired to sit up, 
 I was kept awake by his silting up with Rector 
 and continuing to play at high, low, jack, and 
 the game, until a very late hour in the morning. 
 Perhaps, however, the most remarkable char- 
 acter anionirsi them was Smith, the New Eng- 
 lander, with his pale dough face, every feature 
 of which was a proclamation of bully, sneak, 
 and scoundrel. I never before saw in the 
 countenance of any man such incontrovertible 
 evidences of a fallen nature. It was this fel- 
 low that had charge of the materials for gam- 
 
 bling, and who spread the faro table out the first 
 evening of their coining on board, in hopes ta 
 lure some of tlie passengers ; none of whom, 
 however, approached table except the drunken 
 youth who had behaved so ill on a previous oc- 
 casion, and they never asked him to play, prob- 
 ably knowing that he had no money. 
 
 Having found no birds to pluck on board, they 
 were eompelled to play against each other, al- 
 ways quarrelling in the most violent manner, 
 and using the most atrocious menaces : it Was 
 always known when these quarrels were not 
 made up, by the parties appearing the next time 
 at the gambling-table with their Bowie-knives 
 near them. In various travels in almost every 
 part of the world I never saw such a coUectioa • 
 of unblushing, low, degraded scoundrels, and I 
 became at length so unhappy as often to think 
 of being set on shore and taking a chance fate- 
 in the wild cane-brakes, rather than have my 
 senses continually polluted with scenes that had 
 every appearance of lasting until the end of the- 
 voyage : but for the comfort I derived from the 
 society of Mr. T********, who was as misera- 
 ble as myself, and who relied altogether upon- 
 me to set a good countenance upon the whole 
 matter, I certainly should have executed my in- 
 tention. 
 
 Above the cabin where these scenes were 
 enacted was a smaller one called the Ladies* 
 Cabin, and when I found what sort of a set we- 
 had got, I applied to the steward to give Mr. 
 T******** and myself berths there ; but he in- 
 formed us this could not he done, because Capt. 
 D*****'s sister was there, having come on board 
 with him at the post. She might be his sister 
 for aught I ever learnt to the contrary, but 
 whatever she was she kept very close, for she 
 never appeared either below or upon deck. My 
 remonstrances with the captain produced no 
 effect whatever ; when I talked to him about 
 his printed rules, he plainly told me that he did 
 not pretend to execute them ; that what I com- 
 plained of were the customs and manners of the 
 country, and that if he pretended to enforce the' 
 rules he should never get another passenger, 
 adding, that one of the rules left it to a majori- 
 ty of the passengers to form their own by-laws 
 for the government of the cabin. 
 
 On recurring to tiiern I found it was so, the 
 terms being that by-laws were to be so made, 
 " provided they were in conformity with the 
 police of the boat." As there was no police ia 
 the boat, it was evident the printed rules were 
 nothing but a bait to catch passengers with, and 
 1 never spoke to him on the subject again. I 
 had heard many stories of gangs of scoundrels 
 who wandered about from New Orleans to 
 Natchez, Vicksburg, and Little Rock, with no 
 baggage but broad, sharp butcher knives, loaded 
 pistols, and gambling apparatus, and I was now 
 compelled to witness the proceedings of such, 
 ruffians. These would have been less intolera- 
 ble if the two U. S. officers had kept aloof from 
 these fellows and formed a little society with 
 us, as I reasonably expected they would do 
 when I first heard they were coming on hoard ; 
 but Capt. D***** never once offered either Mr. 
 T******** or myself the least civility, or ex- 
 changed a word with us ; and although that 
 was not the case with Lieut. C******, yet an 
 incident took place very early in the voyage 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 is: 
 
 which convinced nne we had nothing to expect 
 from hiin. Wilson, the man with the nose, 
 was standing with his hack to the stove before 
 breakfast, unrestrainedly indulging in incohe- 
 rent curses about some one he had quarrelled 
 with, wiien Mr C****** in the most amiable 
 manner put his hand inside of the ruthan's 
 waistcoat, drew forth his stabbing knife, un- 
 sheathed It, felt the edge as if with a connois- 
 seur's linger and thumb, and was lavish in its 
 praise. Such were the unvarying scenes which 
 were re-enacted for the many days we were 
 shut up in the steamer with these villains, and 
 with this statement pf them I return to the 
 topographical details of the voyage. 
 
 We had a favourable run down the river the 
 day of our departure from the post of Arkansas, 
 and in the afternoon turned into what is called 
 the Ctil-off, a natural passage or canal which 
 connects the Arkansas with the waters of White 
 River. Itis more convenient to take this Cut- 
 off to reach the Mississippi, as it is a clear ca- 
 nal-like navigation about 250 feet broad, with- 
 out any snags or sawyers. To the right lies a 
 considerable island cut off from the main land, 
 upon which we saw two miserable cabins, on 
 each side of which lofty canes about 25 feet 
 high were growing. There was no current in 
 this Cut-off, the Arkansas rushing past it at the 
 south end, and White River at the north end, 
 damming up its waters as if it were a millpond ; 
 we therefore soon got into the current of White 
 River itself, which is here a powerful stream, 
 and at night, to our great joy, we reached the 
 Mississippi River, and brought up for a short 
 time at Montgomery's, a notorious place. 
 
 We were now at length on a great fluviatile 
 highway where other steamers were occasion- 
 ally to be met, and Mr. T******** and myself 
 comforted ourselves with the belief that we 
 should have many opportunities of abandoning 
 the wretches we were compelled to live wiiii 
 and exchange their detested society for any 
 other, since none could be more irksome to us. 
 The Mississippi at this point appeared to be 
 about three-quarters of a mile wide, was a fine 
 open stream without sandbars and snags, along 
 which we could freely proceed all night without 
 danger: disgusted as we were, we rejoiced at 
 our escape from the contracted banks and end- 
 less forests of the .Arkansas, the very air of 
 which seemed to breathe of corruption. I rose 
 early in the morning and hastened on deck to 
 look at the shores ; we had the state of Missis- 
 sippi on our left, and the territory of Arkansas 
 on our right. 
 
 The water of the river was of a grey, muddy 
 colour, not red like that of the Arkansas, but 
 the banks, like those of this last stream, were 
 low, and were constantly crumbling and wear- 
 ing away, carrying along with them trees and 
 masses of cane-brake. Everything which de- 
 pended upon the action of the river was the 
 same as in the one we had just left, although 
 upon a larger scale ; there was the same ser- 
 pentine course, the same reaches, but more ex- 
 tensive, and the same sand-bars. In the course 
 of the day we passed Columbia, the county- 
 town of the county of Chicot in Arkansas, said 
 to be the most fertile part of the whole territory. 
 After passing a most horrible night, kept awake 
 by the tobacco and imprecations of the drunken 
 ■ S 
 
 gamblers, we arrived early in the morning of 
 January 1st at Vicksburg, and greatly disap- 
 |)ointed were we not to find any steamer there 
 bound to New Orleans. Here we remained 
 several hours, and thought of going to a tavern 
 to wait fi)r a steamer, for which purpose we en- 
 tered the town with the intention of looking out 
 fi)r lodgings. 
 
 Vicksburg is a modern settlement situated ori 
 the side of a hill very much abraded and cut up 
 into gullies by the rains. The land rises about 
 200 feet above the Mississippi, but sinks again- 
 very soon to the east, forming a sort of ridge 
 which appears at intervals as far as Baton 
 Rouge. On returning to the steamer we were 
 informed that eight or ten gcntkmcii, some of 
 whom were planters of great respectability, and 
 amongst the rest, a Mr. Vick, after whom the- 
 place was called, were coming on board with the 
 intention of going to New Orleans. This de- 
 termined us to continue on with the boat, con- 
 ceiving that we should be too many for the ruf- 
 fians in the cabin, and that the captain — who- 
 was anxious to keep up a good understanding 
 with the planters — would now interfere to keep 
 some order there. But supper being over, and 
 the faro-table spread as usual, what was my 
 horror and astonishment at seeing these Missis- 
 sippi gentlemen, with Ihe respectable Mr. Vick, 
 sitting down to faro with these swindlers, and 
 in the course of a very short time gambling, 
 drinking, smoking, and blaspheming, just as des- 
 perately as the worst of them ! The cabin be- 
 came so full of tobacco smoke that it was im- 
 possible for me to remain in it, so wrapping my- 
 self up as warm as I could, I retreated to the 
 deck to pass the night, Mr. T******** soon fol- 
 lowing me ; there we met the captain, and told 
 him we could not endure this any longer, and 
 were desirous of being put on shore at the very 
 first settlement we should reach by daylight. 
 He said it would be best for us to go on shore' 
 at Natchez, and that he really pitied us, but that 
 he could not disoblige these planters, for that if 
 he was to interfere with their amusements, they- 
 would never ship any freight with him ; adding 
 that the competition amongst the steamers was 
 so great, that every man was obliged to look out 
 for his own interests : as a proof that it was ne- 
 cessary for him to act with some policy, he told 
 us that a ca[)tain of his acquaintance having 
 once put a disorderly fellow belonging to Vicks- 
 burg on shore, had, when he stopped there on 
 his return, been boarded by fifteen persons, arm- 
 ed with knives and pistols, who proceeded to 
 spit in his face, kick him, and treat him in the 
 most savage manner. Some of these fifteen 
 persons, he said, he thought were now on board. 
 This I could readily believe, fi)r nothing could 
 he more reckless or brutal than their conduct 
 and conversation. They had escaped the re- 
 straints which society imposed in the place they 
 inhabited — if any such existed — and seemed de- 
 termined to exhaust all the extravagances that 
 brutality and profanity are capable of I shall 
 never forget these specimens of gentlemen be- 
 longing to the Stale of Mississippi. 
 
 During the day, we passed Rockport or the 
 Grand Gulf where the Mississippi pursues a 
 broad straight channel for several miles, the riv- 
 er having lost its serpentine character, and the 
 shore assuming an unusual height, with pictu- 
 
138 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 resque hills here and there. Generally speaking 
 there is an oppressive monotony in the appear- 
 ance of the shores of this line river to the south, 
 but the view here was sufficiently pleasing to in- 
 duce me to sketch it. The sand has indurated 
 and formed a rock, which in this universal al- 
 luvial country furnishes an excuse for the name 
 of the pretty little settlement of Rockport. Rod- 
 ney, farther to the south, is huilt on a similar 
 ridge, but the inhabitants have abandoned the 
 upland for the low ground, finding this last less 
 unhealthy. 
 
 It was after midnight when we reached Natch- 
 ez, where we had determined to land, and where 
 we did not remain a long time, for we had hut 
 a short time to make up our minds. The prin- 
 cipal or upper town, where the planters reside, 
 is some distance from the shore, and we could 
 not reach it that night without leaving our lug- 
 gage at the low town by the water's edge : but 
 the engineer of the steamer, in whom I placed 
 some confidence, had assured me that this low 
 town was a notorious rendezvous for the very 
 ■worst desperadoes in the country, more infa- 
 mous — if possible — even than the party we had 
 on board, and that if we left anything there we 
 should never see it again ; whdst if we staid 
 there all night we should expose ourselves both 
 to robbery and murder, many persons having 
 been traced to that place, without ever having 
 been further heard of Whilst I was pondering 
 upon this obvious difficulty I saw all the fellows 
 ■we took in at the post of Arkansas come upon 
 <Ieck as if they were about to leave the steamer, 
 and being informed by the steward that the 
 whole yarty, tulli qiianli, officers, mysterious 
 lady and all, were going no farther, I determin- 
 ed to remain. Here then we had the satisfac- 
 tion to see these degraded wretches leave the 
 boat, and a short time after to know that we 
 were on the bosom of the Mississippi without 
 them.* The captain, too, seemed to be glad to 
 
 * A few months a&erwards the outrageous conduct of 
 this gang of lawless men drew upon some of them a sum- 
 mary and tragical fate ; and the incident is so highly char- 
 acteristic of the manners of the part of the country it con- 
 cerns, that it deserves to be related. 
 
 Encouraged by the acquaintances they had formed on 
 board of the steamer, some of these wretches removed to 
 Vicksburg and established gambling tables at various low 
 taverns, to which they decoyed the young men of the place, 
 and having plundered and debauched them, they at length 
 became as depraved as themselves, and their constant asso- 
 ciates. Emboldened by their numbers, and by the impunity 
 which their desperate character appeared to invest them 
 ■with, they threw off all restraint, and by their constant 
 drunkenness, and their crimes, rendered themselves objects 
 of terror to the rest of the inhabitants ; occupying the streets 
 in the day-time, armed with deadly weapons, and insulting 
 every one that was obnoxious to them. This anarchy be- 
 coming intolerable, the citizens were driven to combine 
 against them, and a crisis was soon reached upon the occa- 
 sion of a public dinner, at which one of these men having 
 contrived to get admittance, interrupted the festivity, and 
 struck an inhabitant who endeavoured to keep him in order. 
 Upon this an uproar took place, which ended by his being 
 turned into the street. This fellow, v/hn.se name was Cab- 
 ler, now hastened to his confederates, and arming himself, 
 returned with some of them to the public square, proclaim- 
 ing aloud his intention to put lo death the individuals who 
 Tiad been most forward in expelling him. At the square, 
 bowever, he was met by the company he had insulted, and 
 a small corps of volunteers, who had been dining with them 
 —was seized, di.sarmed, and immediately taken to the woods. 
 Tying him to a tree, they first proceeded to Lynch him in a 
 severe manner, then tarred and feathered him, and peremp- 
 torily ordered him to leave the place. 
 
 The citizens being now roused, held a general meeting, 
 and there passed a resolution that all these gamblers should 
 leave the town in twenty-fc ur hours, and had it placarded 
 on the walls On the morning succeeding to the stipulated 
 
 1 be rid of them, and to have an opportunity of 
 being civil to me, for he voluntarily offered to 
 
 time, the inhabitants in great numbers, accompanied by the 
 I volunteers, went to the haunts of the gamblers, and deputed 
 a part of their number to seize all the faro and rouge et noir 
 tables ; but on reaching a house occupied by a very desper- 
 .ite fellow of the gang, named North, they found it garrison- 
 ed by several of the most obnoxious of these scoundrels, all 
 of them completely armed. The posse having surrounded 
 the house and broken open a back door, a volley was fired 
 from within, by which a Dr. Hugh S. Bodley, one of the 
 most respected inhabitants of the place, was killed on the 
 spot. The fire was instantly returned, and one of the gang 
 wounded ; but the conflict was of short duration, for the as- 
 sailants, enraged at the death of one whom they valued so 
 much, stormed the place, and captured all who had not es- 
 caped : there were five in number, amongst whom was 
 Smith, the pale dough- faced New Englauder, who has been 
 already alluded to as one of the gamblers on buard the 
 steamer. 
 
 Shriving time was not allowed to these miserable wretch- 
 es ; a gallows was instantly erected, and the extraordinary 
 spectacle exhibited of the whole population of a town, head- 
 ed by the leading inhabitants, many of whom were magis- 
 trates, conducting five men to execution — one of whom was 
 desperately wounded — before any preliminary step whatever 
 had been taken to bring them to a trial by the laws of their 
 countiy. Such are the excesses to which the people of these 
 climes abandon themselves when their passions are roused 
 — never stopping to consider consequences, but madly sacri- 
 ficing human life, and incurring the gravest responsiliilities, 
 upon the impulse of the moment ! 
 
 The person from whom 1 had these particulars— which 
 were to a great extent confirmed by the public journals at 
 the tiine^told me that the scene which preceded the death 
 of these men baflHed all description. A tumultuous mob, 
 showing a savage impatience to hurry on the execution, filled 
 the air with execrations ; whilst the captured and crest- 
 fallen gamblers, preceded by a drunken black fiddler, were 
 reluctantly dragged to the fatal tree by the volunteers and 
 citizens. The names of these doomed wretches were North, 
 Hallums, Smith, Dutch Bill, and M'Call ; some of whom 
 were dogged and malignant to the last : Smith, however, 
 was thoroughly terror-stricken ; he wept, he implored, he 
 cried aloud for mercy, and evinced the most abject despair : 
 vain were these appeals, for the instant the gallows was 
 ready, they were all launched into eternity, including the 
 wounded man. It was the next morning before their bodies 
 were cut down and buried together in a ditch. 
 
 This transaction passed over without .any subsequent in- 
 quiry by the constituted authorities. The murdered men 
 were known to be scoundrclsof the worst kind, and received 
 little or no sympathy: out of the State of iMississippi the 
 act was far from being approved of, although it was hoped 
 it might check the profligate career of a set of individuals 
 whose vicious lives were a perpetual defiance to society. 
 But in the State of Mississippi, public opinion unanimously 
 sustained the conduct of the citizens of Vicksburg, who 
 themselves seem— after the transaction, and when their 
 blood must have been cool — to have been quite unconscious 
 of having done anything that was inconsistent either with 
 the dictates of humanity or of justice ; for, in an elaborate 
 justification of their ferocious conduct, which was subse- 
 quently drawn up in that town and published, there is the 
 following extraordinary passage, which not only invites the 
 other towns of the State to pursue the same barbarous sys- 
 tem, tiut also admits that the most respectable inhabitants 
 of Vicksburg participated in the proceedings of that mem- 
 orable day, and were far from being dissatisfied with what 
 they had done : — 
 
 " Society may be compared to the elements, which, al 
 though ' order is their first law,' can sometimes be purified 
 orJi/ by a storm. Whatever, therefore, sickly sensibility or 
 mawkish philanthropy may say against the course pursued 
 by us, we hope that our citizens will not relax the code of 
 punishment which they have enacted against this infamous, 
 unprincipled, and baleful class of society ; and we invite 
 Natchez, .lackson, Columbus, Warrenton, and all our sister 
 towns throughout the State, in the name of our insulted 
 laws, of offended virtue, and of slaughtered innocence, to 
 aid us in exterminating this deep-rooted vice from our land. 
 The revolution has been conducted here by the most respect- 
 able citizens, heads of families, members of all classes, pro- 
 fessions, and pursuits. None have been heard to utter a 
 syllable of censure against either the act or the manner in 
 which it was performed ; and so far as we know, public 
 opinion, both in town and country, is decidedly in favour 
 of the course pursued. We have never known the public 
 so unanimous on any subject "' 
 
 It will scarcely be credited that on the morning prece- 
 ding this wholesale murder, a still more ferocious scene was 
 enacting about forty miles from the same place, of which 
 the particulars appeared in the newspapers of the day 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 139 
 
 give Mr. T******** and myself berths in the 
 ladies' cabin, now vacant, an offer we joyfully 
 embraced, and from that moment never entered 
 the lower cabin but to snatch a liasty meal 
 The Vickshiirg iicnikmni, seeing we avoided 
 their society, behaved as ill as they could wiicn 
 we were present, trying to mock us when we 
 were speaking French or German, merely to 
 provoke ns into a quarrel ; but we had made up 
 our minds to continue to bear their vulgarity, 
 and not to lose our tempers, unless provoked by 
 personal violence, in which case we had con- 
 certed what to do, and told the captain of our 
 intentions. They, either because he spoke to 
 them, or that our coolness had its effect upon 
 them, never dared to go so far. At the best we 
 passed our time miserably, and were much de- 
 tained by fogs. We passed Baton Range in the 
 night time, and after daylight soon became 
 fatigued with the monotony of sugar planta- 
 tions succeeding to each other, the sight of 
 which became as tedious as that of the forests 
 and cane-brakes had been. In fact we were 
 worn out with the horrid scenes we had gone 
 through, and were sighing for an end to this 
 painful voyage. At length, on Sunday morning 
 the 4th of January, we reached the long crescent 
 of shipping moored at the wharfs of New Or- 
 leans, in one of the deep curvatures of the riv- 
 er ; and going ashore amidst a crowd of ill- look- 
 ing people working as steadily as if they had 
 never heard of Sunday, and cursing and swear- 
 ing in French and English, we proceeded to a 
 Mons. Marty's, a countryman of Mr. T*******, 
 and there took our lodgings. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 The Delta of the Mississippi— Shirtings of the Channel of 
 the River — Formjition of new Innd at its mouth — Vi.sit 
 the Cemeteries — Mode of contriving dry Graves — Pirati- 
 cal-looking Population — Green Peas out of doors, Jan. 1 
 — Literaiiire and the Sciences — New Orleans American- 
 ised — Sunday Evening Meetings — Faro the principal 
 business transacted in New Orleans — The Legislature 
 in Session — Good Theatres. 
 
 It is impossible for an observant traveller, 
 accustomed to trace the effects produced by the 
 action of such powerful streams as the Arkan- 
 sas and Red River, both in their abrasive power 
 and in the reproduction of the sedimentary mat- 
 ter they bear along, not to be struck with those 
 geological modifications established on the sur- 
 face of the country by the combined efforts of 
 all the tributaries of the Mississippi, as they are 
 
 I exhibited in the Delta of that mighty i 
 ' immense fiuvialile deposit inav be t 
 
 Upon this occrasion the charge brought against those whose 
 lives were sacrificed, was a conspiracy to organize an insur- 
 rection 01 the slaves. The following extract is made from 
 one of the newspapers : — 
 
 "Twenty miles from this place (Jackson in Madison 
 county), a company of white men and negroes were detected 
 before they did any mischief On Sundai/ last thei/ hung 
 two steam doctors, one named Cotton and the other Saun- 
 ders ; also seven negroes, without law or pospel, and from 
 respectable authority we learn th;it there were two preach- 
 ers and ten negroes to be hanged this day." 
 
 It was in this same State of Mississippi that the doctrine 
 of " Repudiation" first broke out, and was practised in the 
 United States: a mode of fiscal purification of their e.v- 
 chequer, almost as serious in its effects to the many confi- 
 ding creditors it has ruined, as the stoniis with which tliev 
 are accustomed to purify their moral condition are to the 
 objects of their rengeance. Indeed, with slight alterations, 
 the justificatory passages above quoted would seem to be 
 equally applicable to both kinds of puriiication, whether 
 applied to creditors or gamblers. 
 
 river. This 
 deposit may be described as 
 [ an irregular triangle, formed by the line of the 
 I Atchafalaya River from the poin^where it leaves 
 t Red River to where it intersects the 29ih de- 
 ' gree of N. lat., continuing thence along that 
 ' parallel until all the mouths of the Mississippi 
 : are passed, and completing the triangle by a line 
 around Ohandeleur in St. Bernard, and north of 
 Lake Ponlcharlrain to the 31st degree of N. lat. 
 — an area of low alluvial country, comprehend- 
 ing not less than 14,000 square miles, or some- 
 thing more than one quarter of the area of Great 
 Britain. West of the .\tchafalaya it is bounded 
 by prairies and high pine lands. lying in Attaca- 
 pas and Opelousas. two fine districts in the State 
 of Louisiana, which are drained by streams that 
 empty into the Atchafalaya and the Gulfof Mexi- 
 co. To the east it is bnunded by lands similarly 
 elevated, so that the whole area of 14,000 miles 
 is to be considered as an ancient gulf into which 
 the sedimentary matter brought down by the 
 Mississippi and its tributaries has been deposit- 
 ed ever since the ocean abandoned that immense 
 basin in the upper country which is now drain- 
 ed by them, and which comprehends at least 
 one million of square miles. Although the 
 breadth of the river, which is not often more 
 than 1000 to 1500 yards wide, does not appear 
 to correspond in the eyes of some persons with 
 its power, it nevertheless con-ains an iminense 
 volume; for its depth from the junction of the 
 Arkansas is from 60 to 100 feet, until it ap- 
 proaches the isthmus near the Gulf of Mexico, 
 when it decreases very much. 
 
 What has been already observed of the shift- 
 ing character of the channels of the Arkansas 
 and Red River applies equally to the Mississippi, 
 traces of its deviation occurring in many places 
 in the numerous lagoons and ancient beds, a 
 principal one of which is perhaps on the line of 
 the Amite River, a stream which connects the 
 western end of Lake Pontchartrain with Iber- 
 ville River and the present channel of the Mis- 
 sissippi. When the Mississippi was limited to 
 the north by this line, perhaps little or none of 
 the area of land south of it appeared above the 
 water, and the manner in which it has been 
 gradually brought to the surface since the river 
 deviated from an east to a south-east course, 
 sufficiently appears from the narrow tongue-like 
 isthmus which terminates in the mouths of the 
 river a little north of the 29lh degree ; there the 
 stream, constantly carrying the finer silt, de- 
 posits it as it meets resistance from the waters 
 of the Gulf of Mexico, and extends it annually 
 into the gulf, whilst the breadth is enlarged at 
 every inundation to await the growth of a future 
 vegetation. 
 
 This extraordinary exhibition of the constant 
 formation of new land by a river bringing down 
 the ruins of other territories was so vividly im- 
 pressed upon my mind, that the very first thing 
 I did after securing lodgings was to go to one 
 of the public cemeteries, to see how they man- 
 aged to inter their dead in a country so low and 
 flat that the ground must be thoroughly saturated 
 with water, and where, even in digging the foun- 
 dations for houses, I was told it comes in inva- 
 riably at a depth of from two to three feet. I 
 found several new graves open ready to receive 
 their tenants, all destined to repose in shells of 
 
140 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA 
 
 well-masoned dry brickwork with wliich the 
 graves were lined. Here, too, I collecied some 
 fresh-water shells that had been ejected with 
 the soil. Nothjng can be more fanciful than 
 these cemeteries, which abound in bizarre struc- 
 tures of painted brickwork placed over the 
 graves, except the strange sentimental inscrip- 
 tions upon them. Having gratified my curiosi- 
 ty, I roamed until night through the old French 
 part of the city, a duty confined town with nar- 
 row unpaved streets, often impassable with mud, 
 the pruicipal of which, Rue de Chartres, is only 
 forty feet wide. 
 
 Tlie population partook strongly of the char- 
 acter of the latitude it was in, a medley of Span- 
 iards, Brazilians, West Indians, French Creoles, 
 and breeds of all these mixed up with the negro 
 stock. I think I never met one person without 
 a cigar in his mouth, and certainly, taking it al- 
 together, I never saw such a piratical-looking 
 population before. Dark, swarthy, thin, whis- 
 kered, smoking, dirty, reckless-looking men ; 
 and filthy, ragged, screaming negroes and mulat- 
 toes, crowded even Rue de Chartres, where our 
 lodgings were, and made it a very unpleasant 
 quarter to be in. Notwithstanding it was Sun- 
 day, the market was open, and there I saw- 
 green peas (January 1st), salads, bouquets of 
 roses, bananas from Havanna, and various good 
 things that reminded me I was in the 30th de- 
 gree of N. lat. 
 
 In the American quarter the streets are wider, 
 the houses better built, and substantial improve- 
 ments are going on ; all tliis, no doubt, is well 
 warranted by the commercial advantages w-hicli 
 the place affords, the position of tlie city having 
 rendered it the present emporium of this part 
 of the world ; but it appeared evident to me 
 that a man who had no business to transact 
 would find no temptation to remain long, and 
 would be entirely out of place here, for the only 
 object men can have in coming to reside in a 
 town so fatal to health and life in the summer, 
 and so uncomfortable in the winter, must be the 
 accumulation of money. That I am sure is 
 every man's object who comes to New Orleans. 
 Having stumbled upon a rather intelligent 
 Frenchman — a " Fran^ais de France," as they 
 call them here — who sold watch-keys and pam- 
 phlets, and oddities of one kind or another, I 
 asked him if there was a museum in the town, 
 or any place which contained objects of natural 
 history. His answer was, "Monsieur, on n'est 
 pas ici pour la liiterature et les sciences, mais 
 pour accrocher quelque chose, et puis filer le 
 camp avant de mourir." 
 
 The Levee is a wide sloping space between 
 the town and the river, appropriated to the ship- 
 ping business ; and on approaching the city, cer- 
 tairdy the great number of ships and steamers 
 ranged along the crescent which constitutes 
 the harbour, produces a very striking spectacle. 
 Perpendicular from the river there is a wide 
 street called Canal Street, which separates the 
 quarter where the Americans reside, from the 
 old French town of La NouveUe Orleans, now 
 Anglicised into New Orleans, a transition which 
 is in rapid progress with everything ; for in less 
 than fifty years the influence of all persons of 
 the French race will be utterly extinguished in 
 New Orleans and throughout Louisiana. Al- 
 ready the French race is beginning to feel this, 
 
 and to witness with bitter dissatisfaction the 
 superiority of the Americans in everything that 
 depends upon activity and industry. Within 
 that period everything French here will be ab- 
 sorbed into the other race. 
 
 Tlie old city, wliich once was the centre of 
 every sort of gayety and business, is already 
 become gloomy and partially deserted. Rue de 
 Chartres is less sx) because the shops are situated 
 there, but in the other streets you only meet with 
 a few anxious Jewish-looking faces going up 
 and down the narrow streets that run at right 
 ingles to the principal one, h)oking at you in- 
 quiringly, as if they would willingly transact 
 some sort of business with you ; but the well- 
 dressed, gallant, careless, and cheerful Creole 
 gentleman is no more seen. His day has al- 
 ready passed by. Rue Royale is the next best 
 street running parallel with Rue de Chartres, 
 and is less disagreeable, because there are but 
 few persons to be seen in it. A walk of a few 
 minutes from Ibis brings you to the skirts of the 
 city, where the cypress swamps, though filled 
 with water, were more attractive to me thaa 
 anything else, for the graceful palmetto was 
 there in great profusion. 
 
 One of the most agreeable things I found at 
 New Orleans was an excellent table d'hote at 
 Mr. Marty's, at which tliere was every day the 
 greatest abundance of good things ; all the dish- 
 es were admirably cooked, and a bottle of pretty 
 fair claret was placed by each guest ; but in 
 other respects the house was badly kept, all 
 their cares seeming to be given to the table. 
 There was no fireplace in the bed-rooms, a very 
 bad fire in the public room, and I could obtain 
 no place to write in. I received particular an- 
 noyance, too, from the quick eaters, who always 
 began to smoke ere I had half finished my re- 
 past. There was a much better American hotel 
 I was told, but as it was filled with commercial 
 persons, I thought I should acquire more infor- 
 mation from the guests at Marty's, none of 
 whom were of the English race. 
 
 On the evening of our arrival, Mr. T******** 
 and myself walked to the Exchange, to see the 
 newspapers, where we found a large but very 
 dark room, full of people talking French and 
 Spanish as fast as their cigars permitted. It re- 
 minded me of some of the large coffee-hcjuses on 
 the Continent at the period when the French first 
 overran Italy, where I then happened to be, and 
 where all seemed anxious by their conduct to 
 show that the Lord's day should receive no trib- 
 ute of respect from them. On our return to our 
 lodgings we had more abundant proof that this 
 was the order of the day at New Orleans ; for pas- 
 sing a house with a small vestibule, a double door, 
 and lights over the entrance, I took it for grant- 
 ed at first — seeing various people slowly enter- 
 ing — that this was a place of sectarian worship, 
 and entered with the rest, taking my hat off at 
 the second door. A great many devout people 
 had already preceded me, hut all kept their hats 
 on, the reason for which I perceived as soon as 
 I got in, for on looking around I saw it was a 
 public gambling room, with tables laid out for 
 faro and other games. A crowd of the com- 
 monest class of illdressed men, consisting of 
 boat and raftsmen, were at a roulette table 
 playing for quarters of dollars. We entered, 
 two others, all within fifty steps of the Ex- 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 141 
 
 change, and found the same scenes going on. 
 The men that kept the tables were all Ame- 
 ricans, of the same class with those I had been 
 so long on board the steamer with. I was in- 
 formed afterwards that a company of persons, 
 almost entirely Americans, had collected a con- 
 siderable fund for the purpose of carrying on 
 gambling, and that they had branches at various 
 places quite as systematically supported as if 
 they were so many branches of banks, especially 
 at such watering-places as the White Sulphur 
 Springs in Virginia, where they had an esta- 
 blishment. If we had visited any of the nu- 
 merous gaming-tables where higher stakes are 
 played for — some of which we were not without 
 invitations to visit — I dare say I should have 
 recognised Colonel Smith '• of the British army ;" 
 but satisfied with what I had seen, and ima- 
 gining the rest, I did not avail myself of the 
 opportunity of witnessing the doings of " re- 
 spectable people" at such places, which I dare 
 say would have been amusing enough. I was 
 told the houses were kept open day and night, 
 the " gentlemen" who manage the tables being 
 divided into " watches," those who are on duty 
 all night lying abed all day, and vice versa. 
 The houses here alluded to are frequented 
 principally by Americans, but besides these 
 there is an immense number kept by French- 
 men, by Creoles, and Spaniards. A gentleman 
 who had been long resident here told me that 
 the gambling-houses had increased in number 
 •with the commerce of the place ; and that al- 
 though the commercial transactions of New 
 Orleans since the increased cultivation of cot- 
 ton had risen to a great amount, yet he believed 
 that gambling was the principal branch of busi- 
 ness carried on, for that the greater part of the 
 persons who came here from the West Indies, 
 from South America, and from Mexico, came 
 to indulge in this their favourite propensity. 
 
 I was so fortunate on my arrival^ as to find 
 the legislature of Louisiana in session. The 
 legislative rooms were small, but sufficiently 
 commodious for the limited number of mem- 
 bers who are convened. Business is trans- 
 acted in both the French and English tongues. 
 Monsieur Pitot, a clerk in one of the houses, is 
 said to he a person who has acquired an extra- 
 ordinary facility of translating the speeches of 
 members from one language to the other, being 
 able to furnish immediately, for the use of those 
 who do not understand English, a version of an 
 American speech with such accuracy as to give 
 perfect satisfaction. I did not learn whether he 
 is obliged to do this upon every occasion, but I 
 imagine there must be a great many speeches 
 delivered hardly worth listening to a second 
 time by those who understand both languages. 
 The members appeared to be a very respectable 
 class of men in both houses, and were prin- 
 cipally planters and lawyers. 
 
 There are two theatres in the place, an Ame- 
 rican and a French house, both of them exceed- 
 ingly neat ; and I was very much struck with 
 the unexpected decorum prevailing in them. 
 Each has its parquet, so that you have a very 
 comfortable stall during the peformance. The 
 French theatre is in fact an opera-house, and 
 appeared to be very well conducted : few ladies 
 were there the evening I visited it, and those I 
 saw were not remarkable for their ton or per- 
 
 sonal beauty, of which I had heard a great deal, 
 the Quadroon Creoles having been somewhat 
 extravagantly described to me as females beau- 
 tiful beyond all others, and very conspicuous for 
 " une belle taille, et une gorge magnitique." I 
 had occasion to see a good many of them during 
 my stay, at a ball or two I had access to ; and 
 certainly it must be allowed that tliey are " bien 
 mises," and carry their i)ersons very well ; but 
 in the lips and mouth, and in an unpleasing 
 coarse texture of the skin, the negro blood 
 shows itself very distinctly. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Qundroon young Ladies, their hnrd fate — Liaisons of a 
 Bal de Huciete — An amiable Father of several Families 
 —Good Prospect for the Anglo-Episcopal Churcli— 
 Spanish Cathedral — Depart from New Orleans — A 
 Railroad— Embark in a Steamer for Mobile— A Storm 
 —A Bishop on Bnaiil— Come to an anchor— The Bay 
 and River of Mobile— Tokens of Commercial Activity 
 — Beauty and Cleanliness of the town of Mobile — 
 Spanish Creoles — The Bolero. 
 
 The position of this unfortunate race of wo- 
 men is a very anomalous one ; for Quadroons, 
 who are the daughters of white men by half- 
 blooded mothers, whatever be their private 
 worth or personal charms, are forbidden by the 
 laws to contract marriage with white men. A 
 woman may be as fair as any European, and 
 have no symptom of negro blood about her; 
 she may have received a virtuous education, 
 have been brought up with the greatest tender- 
 ness, may possess various accomplishments, 
 and may be eminently calculated to act the part 
 of a faithful wife and tender mother , but if it 
 can be proved that she has one drop of negro 
 blood in her veins, the laws do not permit her 
 to contract a marriage with a white man ; and 
 as her children would be illegitimate, the inen 
 do not contract marriages with them. Such a 
 woman being over-educated for the males of 
 her own caste, is therefore destined from her 
 birth to be a mistress, and great pains are 
 lavished upon her education, not to enable her 
 to aspire to be a wife, but to give her those 
 attractions which a keeper requires. 
 
 The Quadroon balls are places to which these 
 young creatures are taken as soon as they have 
 reached womanhood, and there they show their 
 accomplishments in dancing and conversation 
 to the white men, who alone frequent these 
 places. When one of them attracts the atten- 
 tion of an admirer, and he is desirous of form- 
 ing a liaison with her, he makes a bargain with 
 the mother, agrees to pay her a sum of money, 
 perhaps 2000 dollars, or some sum in propor- 
 tion to her merits, as a fund upon which she 
 may retire when the liaison terminates. She is 
 now called " une placee ;" those of her caste 
 who are her intimate friends give her fetes, and 
 the lover prepares " un joli appartement ineu- 
 ble." With the sole exception of "going to 
 church," matters are conducted very much as 
 if a marriage had been celebrated ; the lady is 
 removed to her establishment, has her little 
 coteries of female friends, frequents their " Bals 
 de Societe," and brings up sons to be rejected 
 by the society where the father finds his equals, 
 with daughters to be educated for the Quadroon 
 balls, and destined to pursue the same career 
 
142 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 which the mother has done. Of course it fre- 
 quently happens that the men get tired of them 
 and form new liaisons ; when this happens they 
 return to their mother or fall back upon the 
 fund provided for ihem in that case; and in 
 some instances I was informed that various fa- 
 milies of daughters by the same father appear 
 at the Quadroon ball on the very evenings when 
 their legitimate brother is present for the pur- 
 pose of following the example of his worthy 
 Papa. 
 
 A very amusing anecdote, illustrative of this 
 state of society, was related to me by a person 
 who had been a resident here a great many 
 years. On his first arival in New Orleans, be- 
 fore it had become such a bnstling place as it 
 is now, and when the French population had 
 rather the dcssus, he presented a letter of intro- 
 ducflon to a " habitant" of great respectability, 
 by wliom he was politely r.eceived, and invited 
 to dine €11 f ami Ik the same day. Nobody was 
 present at the dinner but the wife of Monsieur 
 
 C , an agreeable and well educated Creole 
 
 lady, a native of the place, and three of their 
 
 children. He found Monsieur C a lively 
 
 agreeable Frenchman, full of bonhommic, and re- 
 ceived a great deal of pleasant and useful in- 
 formation from him. Happening amongst other 
 questions to ask him how many children he 
 
 had, Monsieur C gave him the following 
 
 account of his domestic relations : — 
 
 " Combien d'enfants, Monsieur 1 Ah ! voyons 
 un peu, si on pourrait vous dire, Ceia ! Nous 
 avons d'abord, oui, nous avons qiiatre nes a la 
 Rue Royale, puis Irois en haut la de la Rue de 
 Chartres ; il y a encore les deux Montbrillons, 
 mon fils qui est au siicrier, et puis les trnis 
 petits que vous voyez. Voila le bout du compte, 
 a ce que je pense ; n'est ce pas, ma cherel" 
 patting the head of one of the children, and ad- 
 dressing himself in the most confiding, affec- 
 tionate way to Madame. 
 
 It is evident that the future population of 
 New Orleans is likely to afford a rare specimen 
 of the form society can be made to take in a 
 semi-tropical climate, where the passions act 
 unrestrainedly, and where money is the esta- 
 blished religion of the country. 
 
 I was gratified however to find that the 
 Anglo-episcopal church was raising its head 
 here ; at present there is but one episcopal con- 
 gregation, but I should imagine its members to 
 be zealous and spirited, for I was shown a very 
 handsome design of a church which they are 
 about building ; and a Protestant clergyman in- 
 formed me that a project is on foot to put the 
 States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama 
 under one Protestant episcopal diocese. Men 
 of liberal education and correct lives in the 
 United Stales seem naturally to fall into the 
 bosom of the episcopal church, for there they 
 find that attractive order of worship and steadi- 
 ness of purpose which so powerfully encourage 
 them to persevere in that purity of life which 
 generally distinguishes individuals of their class. 
 
 The only curious specimen of architecture 
 here, with the excepticm of the old-fashioned 
 French one-story houses with windows reach- 
 ing to the ground, is the old Spanish cathedral, 
 in one of the public squares in the old town, 
 built somewhat in the Morisco style. 
 
 Having gratified my curiositv until I had not 
 
 the slightest desire left to remain an hour long 
 er, I took leave of New Orleans — a city where 
 all agree in the worship of mammon, and where 
 the undertaker looks with as much periodical 
 anxiety to the season of his harvest as the spec- 
 ulator in cotton does to his. Starting for Lake 
 Pontchartrain the 7th January, 1835, by a well- 
 constructed railroad of five miles which they 
 have laid in the swamp, we made the distance 
 in about fifteen minutes, and embarked on board 
 the steamer Otto. Lake Pontchartrain is a line 
 arm of the sea which communicates with Lake 
 Borgne, a bay of the Gulf of Mexico, by a chan- 
 nel called Rigolet, which is about half a mile 
 wide, and distant twenty-seven miles from New 
 Orleans. We had scarce made five miles when 
 the wind blew a gale a-head, and the weather 
 came on very stormy, with heavy rains : this 
 retarded our voyage, and made us uncomforta- 
 ble. Our fellow-passengers however were of a 
 much better kind than those on board the Lit- 
 tle Rock steamer, and sick as I was I felt com- 
 paratively happy. From the Rigolets we coast- 
 ed along the low shores of the States of Mis- 
 sissippi and Alabama, inside of a number of 
 small islands that separate St. Catharine's 
 Sound from the Gulf, the distance to the en- 
 trance of the Bay of Mobile being about 115 
 miles. 
 
 The sea was very high in the Gulf of Mexico, 
 and as cross and troublesome as I have ever 
 seen it almost in the Gulf of Lyons : we ship- 
 ped a great deal of water, and some of the pas- 
 sengers began to entertain apprehensions that 
 the steamer would founder ; in fact if she had 
 been as flimsy as many of those that ply upon 
 the Mississippi, we should have stood very lit- 
 tle chance of being saved. If we had had my 
 old acquaintances the blaspheming gamblers on 
 board, I should have been disposed to think 
 that their imprecations had been heard, and 
 that the day of reckoning had arrived ; but for- 
 tunately one of our passengers was the Bishop 
 of Connecticut, on a tour in the Southern States. 
 Although the presence of this gentleman was 
 very favourable to the preservation of decorum 
 on board, the captain did not seem to consider 
 him as a sufficient guarantee against the furi- 
 ous storm we had to contend against, for in the 
 night he bore up under the lee of an island, and 
 came to an anchor until daybreak, to the great 
 satisfaction of the timid and the indisposed. As 
 we approached the entrance of Mobile Bay the 
 wind lulled, the rain ceased, and a fine suimy 
 sky appeared, so that the steamer becoming 
 quiet we were all enabled to put our persons in 
 some order, and take a look at each other as 
 well as the boat. What I saw of this last con- 
 vinced me that the captain had acted very pru- 
 dently in coming to an anchor, and that our 
 danger had been greater than I had apprehend<- 
 ed. Generally speaking the weather is so sun- 
 ny and mild in this part of the gulf, that almost 
 any kind of boat is thought sufficient for the 
 voyage, but it requires one of the slaunchest 
 vessels to keep out in such a storm as we ex- 
 perienced ; and if it had been so dark as to 
 prevent our reaching an anchorage, we should 
 probably have been driven upon some shoal and 
 all perished. 
 
 We had a fine run of thirty miles up the bay 
 to .Mobile, which is built at the mouth of the 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 143 
 
 river Mobile, a fine stream formed by the con- 
 fluence of the Tombcckbee, that receives the 
 Black Warrior from the north-east, and the riv- 
 er Alabama, which gives its name to the State 
 The Tombeci<bee, which is the north-west 
 branch of the river Mobile, takes its rise up- 
 wards ol 300 miles from the city of Mobile, and 
 is navigable for the greater part of that distance, 
 a circumstance which gives a great intrinsic 
 value to the fertile soil through which it passes 
 The Alabama, the north-east branch of the Mo- 
 bile, takes its rise in the Cherokee country to- 
 wards the south-western termination of the 
 Alleghany belt, more than 400 miles from the 
 city of Mobile, and is formed by various tributa- 
 ries, such as the Cahawba, the Coosa, and the 
 Tallapoosa. The serpentine course which these 
 streams have assumed nearly doubles the length 
 of their navigation. 
 
 As we entered the mouth of the Bay of Mo- 
 bile we saw between thirty and forty vessels 
 riding at anchor below : this they are obliged to 
 do on account of the extreme shallowness of 
 water in the bay, occasioned by the River Mo- 
 bile constantly depositing great quantities of 
 silt, in the manner that is done by the Missis- 
 si[)pi. Many of these vessels were three-mast- 
 ed, and their number betokened great com- 
 mercial activity at this point of export for the 
 productive cotton-lands of the States of Mis- 
 sissippi and Alabama. On reaching the city we 
 also found the wharves crowded with steamers 
 and vessels of small burden. The lower part 
 of Mobile is built upon the shore on the right 
 bank of the river, and the streets near to the 
 water are dirty and narrow ; but the land im- 
 mediately begins to rise by a gentle acclivity to 
 a plateau ab<iut sixty feet from the level of the 
 stream. What I had previously heard of Mobile 
 was not very much in its favour, and what I had 
 seen of the other towns in this climate had not 
 raised my expectations. On reaching this pla- 
 teau therefore, and observing its extent, I was 
 surprised at the peculiar beauty of the place, 
 for It consisted of streets well laid out at right 
 angles, with excellent sidewalks, the streets 
 between them being graduated and macadam- 
 ised with the sea shells that are found in the 
 greatest abundance on the shores of Lake Pon- 
 ehartrain and other places, and in so perfect a 
 manner as to form the most solid and the clean- 
 est streets I ever have seen in any country. 
 One of these streets, where the market is, is 
 100 feel broad, and is finished in a very admira- 
 ble style for a distance of more than two miles 
 from the river. The buildings, too, are appro- 
 priate to the beauty and width of the street, 
 some of them bi-ing stately structures of brick, 
 denoting opulence in the proprietors ; and in 
 the pretty but more contracted streets that go 
 off at right angles are numerous houses built 
 of wood, neatly painted white, with large plots 
 ol land attached to them, fenced in with paint- 
 ed palings. 
 
 .U every step I took I was more and more 
 struck wiih the universal love of order, and the 
 good taste which seemed to prevail. The ex- 
 celletit example which Mobile has set to the 
 oilier towns in these latitudes deserves more 
 praise than it appears to have received. I did 
 noi even suspect existence anywhere of so many 
 wise precautions to disarm the Yellow Fever of 
 
 its malignity, which, though now much mitiga- 
 ted, has often been so fatal to the citizens of the 
 place. Beyond the houses are extensive sandy 
 plains covered with pine-trees, and a thick un- 
 derwood of evergreens, consisting of Ilex cas- 
 sinc loaded with its bright red berries, juniper, 
 and other plants. Many of the citizens have 
 built little villas in these healthy plains, to 
 which they retire both to avoid the extreme 
 heat of the summer and the yellow fever. The 
 population at this time is said to be upwards of 
 6000, and from its great advantages as a com- 
 mercial position, its beauty, and comparative 
 salubrity, it is probable that it will increase ra- 
 pidly. On the score of health it is, as a resi- 
 dence, infinitely to be preferred to New Orleans, 
 for that city stands in the midst of a swamp, 
 which is a magazine of malaria that explodes 
 every autumn, whilst Mobile has the sea-air in 
 front, and a dry arenaceous back country, where 
 vegetable decomposition is comparatively in- 
 noxious. But the good sense of the citizens, 
 which has secured and improved all its natural 
 advantages, must soon acquire for this pretty 
 town the excellent reputation which it deserves. 
 
 While rambling about I was attracted by the 
 sound of a guitar coming from a very old-fash- 
 ioned looking house in one of the smaller streets, 
 accompanied by some very fine voices, which 
 seemed to infuse life and spirits to many cheer- 
 ful persons, some of whom, I knew by the sound 
 of their steps, and by the time they kept, were 
 dancing a bolero. Mobile was first colonised, 
 by the Spaniaids, and those individuals of that 
 race who are still here now stand in the same 
 relation to the Americans that the French in 
 Louisiana do. Curious to see some of the 
 Spanish Creoles, I opened the door gently and 
 entered. Two Spaniards were dancing with 
 much grace and national feeling, whilst about 
 a dozen men and women ware looking on and 
 singing. I had scarce entered when the mas- 
 ter of the house came to me to inform me, I 
 suppose, that it was a private house ; but I an- 
 ticipated him by telling him I was a stranger, 
 and passionately fond of the bolero. He smiled 
 and said I was welcome, so I remained near aii 
 hour, highly delighted, for I had not witnessed 
 anything of the kind for a great many years. 
 
 On my return at night to the hotel where I 
 had taken my luggage, I learnt that a steamer, 
 called the Chippewa, would leave Mobile a little 
 alter midnight for Wetuinpka, about 350 miles 
 up the Alabama and Coosa. Finding nothing 
 to induce me to prolong my stay at Mobile until 
 a steamer should offer for the Appalachicola- 
 River, which I was desirous of going up, I de- 
 termined to go and look at this steamer, and 
 get some information of the character of the 
 passengers. There are no towns of importance 
 on either of those rivers to attract travelling 
 gamblers, but the Appalachicola is perhaps the 
 least frequented by them, which was one of my 
 reasons for prefering it. Finding the steamer, 
 however, a pretty fair one, and receiving a sat- 
 isfactory account as to the rest, I engaged pas- 
 sages for my companion and myself, and trans- 
 ferring our luggage on board, the steamer now 
 became our hotel, and we took possession of 
 our respective berths, or state-rooms as they are 
 called. 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 Embark in .1 Steamer, and ascend the Mobile and Alaba- 
 buma— Tertiary deposits at Fort Claiborne — Great fer- 
 tility of the State of Alabama— Aptitude of the Greek 
 Indians for labour — Reatli Montgomery, in Alabama — 
 Filthiness of the •' principal" Hotel — Engage a carriage 
 to cross the Indian Territory —Country inundated — Cross 
 the Oakfuskee and enter the Creek Nation. 
 We got away some time after midnight, and 
 going upon deck at break of day, I found we 
 ■were in the Mobile River. It resembled the 
 Arkansas in the flatness of surface of the coun- 
 try, but with the material exception that the 
 river being unusually high, we could see no 
 banks whatever to it ; the forest-trees and the 
 cane-brakes, which were very abundant and 
 thick, being, as far as we could see, about ten 
 feet under water from their roots upwards. 
 
 About forty miles from Mobile we passed the 
 junction of the Tombeckbee and Alabama, the 
 breadth of this last being here about 150 yards. 
 During the whole of this day the country was 
 under water, the vegetation standing in it in the 
 greatest profusion. I was therefore not sur- 
 prised to learn that the live oaks {Quercus scm- 
 jtervirens), and all the other species of oaks 
 found in these latitudes, which are periodically 
 subject to this kind of inimdation, are not con- 
 sidered sound timber. Towards evening the 
 land began to rise, and tired with the monotony 
 •of the scene, we were heartily glad to see tlie 
 ground again. On reaching Fort Claiborne, 
 distant from Mobile near 150 miles of serpentine 
 Bavigation, I found th? bluffs were about 150 feet 
 above the level of the river, and a short deten- 
 tion enabled me to take a look at the beds of 
 tertiary shells in the banks and make a collec- 
 tion of some of them ; but as the fossils found 
 in these deposits have l»een already collected, 
 and probably will soon be accurately described, 
 by that very modest and intelligent naturalist 
 Mr. T. A. Conrad, who is decidedly the first au- 
 thority amongst the fossil conch dogists of the 
 United Stales, I omit any remarks respecting 
 them for the present. Frort' hfuce to Praine 
 Bluffs, the country rises to a still higher level, 
 and live oaks and laurels of every kind abound, 
 the trees being occasionally loaded with curtains 
 of forest-moss {TilJandsia usnoidcs) hanging to 
 the ground, and frequently bearing imimense 
 bunches of mistletoe in their tops. At Prairie 
 Bluffs, where we arrived the next morning, I 
 found several subcretaceous shells, the same 
 exogyra which is in such abundance at Judge 
 Cross's, in Arkansas, and some aminonites 
 ■which I had not seen before. The Bluffs here 
 3s only about half the height of that at Fort 
 Claiborne, and the tertiary beds have probably 
 been washed away from the subcretaceous ones. 
 'We now proceeded lo Canton through a very 
 attractive country, which might be explored 
 •with a great deal of satisfaction at a healthy 
 season of the year. I was informed that some 
 ■wells had been dug in these parts about 500 
 feet deep, through the subcretaceous limestone 
 Tbeds, into a quartzose slate, which, from the 
 description I received of it, is probably a con- 
 tinuation of that which underlies the great 
 :tinnestone valley of the Alleghanies. Cahawba 
 is a settlement on a high bluff of land at the 
 mouth of the Cahawba River, built upon a rot- 
 ten limestone which appears formed of broken- 
 down testaceous matter. From hence to Ver- 
 
 non the river averages about eighty yards in 
 breadth, and the high bluffs are continuous, 
 sometimes extending a mile or two without any 
 depression. Froiti Vernon to Monigomery the 
 distance is estinriated at fifty miles ; the banks, 
 consisting of ferruginous earths and sands with 
 a good deal of gravel, being generally about 100 
 feet in height. 
 
 After a tolerably interesting and peaceful voy- 
 age, we reached Montgomery in the afternoon 
 of the r2th of January, and here the steamer 
 was to stop some time. The Coosa was still 
 navigable forty miles to Wetumpka, a place near 
 the falls of the river, but the captain intending 
 to remain some time here before he proceeded 
 up, I determined to leave the boat. It would 
 have been agreeable to me to have visited the 
 falls, because, from the information I received, 
 the rocks there were gneiss, and this was one 
 of the points of limitation of the sedimentary 
 beds, from which the ocean had last retired : 
 besides, I heard that bituminous coal, which is 
 also found on the Black Warrior and other parts 
 of Alabama, existed on a partial line not far 
 from the Wetumpka falls, which is exactly the 
 manner in which the Chesterfield coal-field in 
 Virginia is situated in relation to the falls on 
 James River at Richmond ; and one of the in- 
 teresting questions suggested by the geology of 
 North America is as to whether there is a line 
 of coal-fields in the United States east of the 
 Alleghany mountains, running in detached ba- 
 sins from Virginia to Alabama. If the foliage 
 had been out, the country would have been 
 beautiful ; but considering the softness of the 
 climate here, and the great fertility of the soil 
 in Alabama, it is not surprising that people 
 should flock— as they do— to this favoured part 
 of the United States. Still, with all its advan- 
 tages, I must say that I would rather be a visiter 
 than a sojourner in the land : the persecuting 
 malaria, which never pardons the country a sin- 
 gle season, is of itself a great objection, and the 
 universal and extravagant use of tobacco by the 
 people would be to me another of equal magni- 
 tude ; so, what with the effluvia of nature and 
 tTian combined, this fine country, with all its 
 advantages, seems to fall very far short of a ter- 
 restrial Paradise. 
 
 I was glad to leave the boat, which was a 
 very dirty concern, and nothing could be less 
 tempting than our fare; some of the passengers 
 were kind and communicative, but others were 
 too fond of gambling, and spitting, and smoking 
 to permit the enjoyment of much comfort. 
 These were not Mobile people, but individuals 
 going to different plantations, roads to which 
 come out upon the river ; and at most of these 
 communications we either landed or took in 
 persons on the way, but they were all coarse in 
 their manners, and in many instances very dis- 
 gusting. In an inordinate love of tobacco they 
 all agreed, and it appeared to me that those 
 whom the mania for this weed had seized in 
 the strongest degree were always the most care- 
 less about their manners, as if it were out of 
 character for a tobacco-eater to be decent. A 
 few of the tnen employed on board the steamer 
 were Muskogee, or Creek Indians; this was 
 the first time I had seen aborigines etnployed as 
 labourers, and from the activity they showed 
 when we stopped to take in fuel, I could not 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 145 
 
 but think that if a different policy liad been ob- 
 served towards this unlortunate race, good do- 
 mestic servants and labourers might have been 
 furnished from them in time, more inteUigent 
 than the negro, and fitted to the climate ; but 
 these considerations come too late — the fate of 
 the Indians is sealed. 
 
 From the landing we had to walk a mile to 
 Montgomeiy, a small straggling town with a 
 population of from two to three thousand inhai> 
 jtanls, iiuilt upon a deposit of sand and red blu- 
 ish clay, which, with occasional patches of rot- 
 ten limestone in the local prairies of the neigh- 
 bourhood, constitute the general soil of this part 
 or' the country. 
 
 The two principal streets are very broad, in 
 the style common to all the southern towns, and 
 from the great number of stores in them, 
 amountmg at least to one hundred, it would 
 seem to be a place of extensive inland business ; 
 but of all the horrid filthy places into which I 
 ever entered in any country, I think the pmi- 
 cipal hotel here, which was the one to which we 
 were directed by common consent of all those 
 we made inquiries of, bears the dirty palm. 
 Everything about it seemed to breathe of whis- 
 key and tobacco, and the walls of the bed-room 
 to which I was shown were so incommunicably 
 squirted over with a black-coloured tobacco- 
 juice, and with more disgusting things, that it 
 was evident the visitors to the place were, as to 
 manners, but little raised above the inferior ani- 
 mals. There was an unfinished hotel then 
 building opposite, but what the other hotels were 
 which were not "principal," I had not time to 
 ascertain. I regretted much, however, that I had 
 not gone to one of them, upon the very chance 
 that they could not be worse, and might be bet- 
 ter, following the principle that a gentleman of 
 my acquaintance once pursued in writing from 
 the country to his agent in New York : " The 
 servants you have sent me with good characters 
 have all turned out so ill, that you will oblige 
 me by sending those I am in want of at present 
 with as little character as possible." And the 
 plan succeeded, lor those with good characters 
 tliinking they could always get other places, did 
 just as they pleased, whilst the others being anx- 
 ious to keep their places, were more circum- 
 spect in their conduct. 
 
 There was little temptation to remain here, 
 and I turned my attention to leaving the place 
 as soon as I found out how uncomfortable it was 
 likely to be. Upon inquiry I found that the 
 roads through the Indian territory of the Creek 
 nation, through which I had now to pass to get 
 mio the Slate of Georgia, were excessively 
 broken up, especially the Indian bridges which 
 cross the great swamps, and that in consequence 
 thereof the letters were forwarded on horse- 
 Dack, the mail-stage being unable to run ; so 
 ihat I had got into a cleft stick, and must either 
 remain here until the roads became passable for 
 xhe mail — which was not expected until spring 
 — or must take a private conveyance and pay 
 .any price they might think proper to exact of 
 mc. The landlord was the person I had to deal 
 with, and he ended a monstrous account of the 
 ditliculties with an equally monstrous price for 
 conducting us in a miserable vehicle and a pair 
 of wretched horses to Columbus, in Georgia, 
 the distance being ninety miles. After a good 
 T 
 
 deal of chaffering, I finally agreed to give him 
 sixty-five dollars, which, with a gratuity to the 
 driver, amounted to about four shillings a mile 
 in English money. 
 
 Instead of getting off early the next morning 
 as had been agreed, everything had to be repair- 
 ed ; but at length, to our great satisfaction, we 
 got out of the filthy house into the pine woods, 
 where a gentle air was mournfully but pleasing- 
 ly rustling the branches. We found the road as 
 we advanced quite answering to the description 
 they had given us of it, being so frightfully cut 
 up as to render it impossible to sit in the vehi- 
 cle : wherever it was dry enough, therefore, we 
 walked, expecting every instant to see the car- 
 riage overturned ; and indeed the manner in 
 which it survived the rolling from one side to 
 the other was quite surprising. The black fel- 
 low, however, who drove us, seemed to take it 
 as philosophically as if there was nothing un- 
 common in this sort of motion ; he always 
 urged us in a very anxious manner to get in 
 whenever he came up with us, and seemed to 
 think we were not quite right in our senses for 
 prefer! ing to walk when we paid so much for 
 riding. At length we came to a low part of the 
 country completely inundated, where it was im- 
 possible to walk, the water being in many places 
 four feet deep. Here we were obliged to get in, 
 and the old vehicle took to rolling in such a 
 dreadful manner that every instant we expected 
 to be soused into the water; and what rendered 
 it really amusing was, that we were constantly 
 obliged to draw up our limbs on the seat, for the 
 water was at least eight inches deep in the bot- 
 tom of the carriage, and went splashing about in 
 the most extraordinary manner. All this time 
 our trunks, which were lashed on behind, were 
 being quietly dragged under the water. Mine 
 had got such a satisfactory ducking before I had 
 time to think of it, that I turned my attention 
 exclusively to my portfolio and instruments to 
 prevent them from getting wet, casting a look 
 now and then at my companion, who never hav- 
 ing travelled in that style in his native moun- 
 tains, looked very woe-begone, and was con- 
 stantly exclaiming, " Mais quel pays ! A-t-on 
 jamais vu de pareils chemins!" Fatigued and 
 wet, we reached at night an old settler's of the 
 name of M'Laughlin, a very respectable sort of 
 man, who lived upon some of the land which 
 the Creeks had been compelled to surrender. In 
 the course of the day we had only made four- 
 teen miles, and the whole performance had been 
 of such an anomalous character, that, persuaded 
 it could not have been got up for less than that 
 money in any other part of the world, I became 
 quite reconciled to the landlord and his four 
 shillings a mile. 
 
 Next morning we went five miles to Oakfus- 
 kcc Creek to breakfast, a pretty brawling stream, 
 forming the present boundary betwixt the Creeks 
 and the State of Alabama, which we crossed in 
 a ferry boat. We were now upon Indian terri- 
 tory, still possessed by the Indians, and where 
 the laws, manners, and customs of the whites 
 did not yet prevail. Captivated in my youth by 
 what I had read and heard of the aboriginal in- 
 habitants of North America, I had been led to 
 visit that continent as early as 1806, more for 
 the purpose of seeing the tribes of red men, and 
 studying their languages, than with any other 
 
146 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 ■view, and in the succeeding ypar had visited 
 most of the tribes in Upper and Lower Canada, 
 witli others dwelling within the limits of the 
 United States. The msight I had obtained into 
 the anomalous structure of the Indian dialects, 
 which is to the ear what the synthetic arrange- 
 ment of Chinese written characters is to the 
 eye, had induced me to seek for information re- 
 specting the Cherokee and Muskogee, or Creek 
 tongues; and thus becoming familiar with the 
 history of those people, I <;uuld not but feel a 
 deep interest in the present state of the Creeks, 
 to which they had been brought by a series 
 of events that made them deserving of sympathy 
 and admiration. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII 
 
 Description of the Muskogee or Creek People — Their 
 Sachem, H'Gillivray — Their Treaties with the Ameri- 
 can Government— 'i'he Ciiiefs corrupted by tlie Geor- 
 gians— Wealherfonl, the Saclicni of Uic Lower Creeks, 
 attacks anrl iiiass.-icres the Garrison of Fori Miinnr?: — 
 Genera] Jackson takes the Field— Fatal Battle of Toho- 
 peka, or the Horse Shoe — VVeatlierford's IJrroic Con 
 duct — M'Intosli betrays his countrymen, and is Shot— 
 The Creeks compelled to cede all their Country— Apol- 
 ogy for the Whites. 
 
 The Muskogee, or Creek people, are not to be 
 considered as a dull, imbecile race of aboriginal 
 savages, with not an idea beyond that of sup 
 plying their daily wants : they rather resemble 
 the Suliots, or some of those conimimities of 
 Asiatic people, who, passionately attached to 
 their native country, have contended with the 
 most desperate valour to preserve it from the 
 invaders whom they hated. Inhabiting an ar- 
 dent climate, and a fertile country which sup- 
 plied all their wants, war and the chase, at the 
 period when the whites first appeared amongst 
 them, were the pursuits they exclusively gave 
 themselves up to. To powerful frames and 
 forms of great symmetry, they united activity 
 of person and undaunted courage. Their cop- 
 per-coloured complexions, long coarse black 
 hair, and dark wild eyes, were the beau ideal of 
 Indian beauty ; and perhaps no human being 
 could be more remarkable than a young, well- 
 made Creek warrior on horseliack, dressed in a 
 gaudy calico hunting-shirt, with a bright-colour- 
 ed silk handkerchief wound gracefully round his 
 head in the form of a tnihan. 
 
 Previous to the year 1790 the Muskogee pop- 
 ulation was very great, and claimed dominion 
 over and possessed a territory, boimded on the 
 east by the Savannah river, which comprehended 
 perhaps twenty-five millions of acres of fertile 
 land, being more than tiiree-fourths of the whole 
 area of England. But about that period, the 
 population of the State of Georgia encroaching 
 coiiliiuiallv upon them, they found it necessary 
 to enter into negotiations with the general gov- 
 ernment of the United States, then administered 
 by President "Washington. 
 
 At this time Alexander M'Gillivray was, as 
 he had long been, the principal chief of the 
 Creek people. He was the son of an English- 
 man by a Creek woman, had been well educated 
 at Charlestan in South Carolina, and was fifty 
 years old. At the death of his mother, who 
 was herself a half breed, he became first sachem 
 by the usages of the nation ; but leaving it to 
 
 the people whether that dignity should be con- 
 tinucil in Ills hands, they not only insisted iipore 
 his retaining that rank, but afterwards called 
 him, as if ny general consent, " king of kings;" 
 and, from all the accounts we have of him, he 
 was universally beloved by the people, and de- 
 served their attachment During the civil war 
 between Great Britain and her colonies, he ad- 
 hered to the mother country, and fought against; 
 the Americans ; but, alter the peace, circum- 
 stances o(;curring which made it doubtful whether 
 a collision might not take place between the 
 Georgians and his people, he was invited by the 
 federal authorities to New York, where the 
 seat of government then was ; and going there 
 with otlier chiefs in 1790, was well received by 
 President Washington, with whose government 
 he concluded a treaty in the month of August 
 of that year. Tliis treaty was the first of twelve 
 that have been made by the United States witk 
 the Muskogee nation, and each of them has 
 been a tir.u/y of cession except the last. In all 
 the others the Creeks have gradually been made 
 to cede a portion of their country adjoining to 
 tlieir neighbours the Georgians, and to fall back 
 upon the remainder ; in each case that remainder 
 being auUninly guaranteed to thcni by the United 
 States. The tenth treaty left them a very limit- 
 ed portion of their ancient country; but by the 
 eleventh they ceded every foot ol land contained 
 in that limiied portion. By the twelfth and last 
 treaty, the United States governmenl stipulate 
 to give them certain lands west of the Missis- 
 sippi for their nation to inhabit for ever ; that is 
 to say, until the white population shall reach 
 them, when the same game will have necessarily 
 to be played over again. 
 
 In the first treaty, made in the year 1790, are 
 the two following articles: 
 
 "Art. 5. The United States solemnly guaran- 
 tee to the Creek nation all their lands within the 
 limits of the United States, to the westward and 
 southward of the boundary described by the 
 preceding article. 
 
 " Art. 6. If any citizen of the United States, 
 or other person, not being an Indian, shall at- 
 teiTipt to settle on any of the Creek lands, sucli 
 person shall forfeit the protection of the United 
 States; and the Creeks may pun is h htm or notf 
 as they •please.'''' 
 
 The manner in which the guarantee in the 
 fifth article has been observed, is sufficiently 
 explained by the fact that by the succeeding- 
 treaties the Creeks have ceded every foot of 
 land they possessed ; and as to the sixth article, 
 which provides that the Creeks may punish in- 
 irudevs upon their lands, it was expressly be- 
 cause they endeavoured to enforce tliis article, 
 and prevent new intruders settling upon their 
 lands, that new quarrels arose betwixt them 
 and the Georgians, which always ended in a 
 new treaty and an important cession of the land 
 intruded upon, under the pretence, generally, 
 that it was within the "chartered rights of 
 Georgia." 
 
 If the Creeks, however, had remained a united 
 people in their resistance to these encroach- 
 ments, the spoliation of their territory would not 
 have proceeded so rapidly. Unfortunately they 
 became divided amongst themselves by the arts 
 of the while men, and, as has often occurred in 
 similar cases, the parly thai maintained the in- 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA 
 
 147 
 
 dependence of the nation was opposed by a 
 niinorily, jealous of the ascendancy of some of 
 the chiefs, and which rashly sought to strengthen 
 itself hy the counsels and aid of the white men, 
 whose sole object was to eject them all from 
 Ihe country. 
 
 As early as 1790 this became a source of 
 weakness to the nation. M'Gillivray in his 
 treaty of that period, had made an important 
 cession of territory to the United States, upon 
 tht; ostensible consideration of an annuity of 
 1500 dollars, and a present of " certain valuable 
 Indian goods." This was represented as an 
 act of treason to his nation ; it was said that he 
 had been corrupted, had become a pensioner of 
 the United Slates, and had ceded a part of their 
 territory without the consent of a general coun- 
 cil of the people. The Sachem was so much 
 hurt by the opposition he met with on his return, 
 that he left his nation for awhile, and went to 
 the Spanish settlements, from whence, however, 
 he returned, and appeared for a time to have 
 recovered liis popularity ; probably this was 
 only in appearance, for he again went to Florida, 
 and died at Pensacola in 1793. 
 
 By Ihe treaty of Novemher 14, 180.5, another 
 very nnportant cession of territory was made to 
 the United States, together with a right to a 
 horse path throughout the whole Creek territory, 
 " in such direction as shall, by the President of 
 the United States, be considered most conve- 
 nient," with a right to all Americans to pass 
 peaceably thereon, the Creek chiefs stipulating 
 to keep ferry-boats at the rivers for "the con- 
 veyance ol men and horses." In this treaty, 
 which threw the whole Creek territory open to 
 the whites, nothing is said about the right of 
 the Creeks to punish intruders on their lands ; 
 but the United States agreed to give to the 
 nalion 12,000 dollars, in money or goods, for 
 the term of eight years, and 11,000 dollars, in 
 money or goods, for the term of the ten succeed- 
 ing years, w ithout interest. 
 
 The work of plunder and corruption was now 
 rising to a great height ; the increasing popula- 
 tion of Georgia was pressing upon the Indians. 
 and the legislature of that State — in which the 
 speculators upon Indian lands had a piedomina- 
 ting induence — carried its political weight to the 
 Congress to effect these treaties that were to 
 aggrandize their own State and satisfy the ra- 
 pacity of their own citizens, who were the spec- 
 ulators and politicians for whose heneht these 
 treaties were to be made. At all times there 
 have been honourable and just men in the Con- 
 gress, who saw into these machinations, and 
 opposed them, but always in vain ; and the e\- 
 ecutive government, who perceived how irresit- 
 ibly events were tending to accomplish the ab- 
 sorption of all the lands wiiich had been so 
 stdemnly guaranteed to the Indians, could do no 
 more, even if it were otherwise disposed, than 
 to modify tlie injustice which was perpetrating, 
 by executing the treaties as impartially as cir- 
 cumstances admitted of. Every thing seemed 
 to concur to nourish the increasing passion of 
 the Americans to appropriate all terrjtories that 
 were contiguous to them, and to create an ex- 
 travagant opinion in the minds of iheVisinir gen- 
 erations, that there was no moral inipropriety 
 in any claim made by the United States, as they 
 could not by any possibility be iuHhe wrong. 
 
 The chiefs of the Upper Creek nation, who im- 
 mediately adjoined the Americans — the Judases 
 who had betrayed their country — and through, 
 whose hands these annuities passed, became 
 now, many of them, as eager to earn these pen- 
 sions by the destruction of their nation, as tho 
 Georgians were to encourage them ; lliey had 
 their own friends to reward, and the fruits of 
 their treachery being soon dissipated in whiskey 
 and personal indulgences, their partisans became 
 clamorous for the means of gratifying their pro- 
 pensities. 
 
 On the other hand the Lower Creeks, who 
 had not tasted so abundantly the sweets of 
 these treaties of peace and friendship, were be- 
 coming more and more estranged Irom the up- 
 per nation ; and when the United States declared 
 war against Great Britain in 1812, they took up 
 arms against the Americans, and led hy Wcath- 
 erford — one of those half-breeds that are some- 
 times gifted with such a surprising degree of 
 eloquence, courage, and resources, as raises 
 them at once to be the leaders of their nation — 
 performed acts as conspicuous for their daring 
 as they were for savage ferocity. Amongst 
 these was the surprisal of Fort Mimms, a fort 
 built by the United States in the Creek lerritoiy. 
 At the head of 1500 warriors Weatherford bold- 
 ly attacked the fort at noonday. Major Beasley, 
 the Commandant, had a garrison in it of 275 
 persons, some of whom were women and chil- 
 dren. He had been already apprised of the ap- 
 proach of Weatherford ; and if he had takea 
 proper precautions, could, with about 200 meii 
 that he had under his command, have effectually 
 resisted the attack. Despising his enemy, he 
 appears to have strangely neglected the safety 
 of the fort, which gave Weatherford an opportu- 
 nity of surprising it before they had time to close 
 the gates, at which point a most sanguinary con- 
 test took place hand to hand. The Americans 
 fought bravely, and disputed the entrance with. 
 desperate valour : they were however unable to 
 close the gates, and a furious ccmtest of swords, 
 bayonets, knives, and tomahawks, at length ter- 
 minated in favour ()f tlie Indians, the brave Ma- 
 jor Beasly and his gallant brother olticers being 
 every <me slain on the S[)ot. Having massacred 
 theganison, the Indians set fiie to the block- 
 houses where the women and children had takea 
 refuge, and, with the exception of a few, burnt 
 them all up. Of the wlude number of 275, only 
 17 survived, some of whom were sevejely 
 wounded. 
 
 Tlie news of this disastrous affair caused a 
 great excitement in the slates that were conler- 
 minous with the Indian territory. Amongst 
 the.se was the State of Tennessee, which border- 
 ed upon the Cherokee and Creek lands; and as 
 this su(5ce.ss was considered to be o a very daa- 
 gerous c;harai-ier, since it miglit lead to a t.'Oni- 
 bination of all the Indian tribes, most, of whoia 
 woulii willingly have enlercd into a general war» 
 it was determined to oppose to WcatherCord a 
 man whose reputation lor courage and deter- 
 mination was at that lime well eslabl|,■^he(l in his 
 own State, 'i'his man was tin-- n<r.v (•.••|rl)rated 
 General Jackson, wbo, being highly pupular ia 
 Teniie3s«e,iS(ioii sLiiu^eeded in raisi'r;.' 2000 light- 
 ing men, ('(|n'ii|i(ii for Indian warfa,;, and burn- 
 ing to r(:''aiinii! upon the Indians thi^ (iesirnclioft 
 of the garrison of Fort Mimms. Geaeiiil Jack- 
 
148 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 son took the field before a regular commissariat 
 could be establishod, crossed the Tennessee 
 River, and trusting often to casual supplies, 
 plung'ed into the wild country drained by the 
 Blacic Warrior and Coosa rivers. On his left 
 were a party of the upper Creeks, friendly to 
 the United States, under the command of anoth- 
 er famous half-breed named William M'lnlosh, 
 ■who, being bitterly opposed to Weatherford and 
 the lower Creeks, sought every opportunity to 
 damage them. Such was the fury of this man 
 against his own countrymen, that at the battle 
 of Aulossee — a place on the south bank of the 
 Tallapoosa, about twenty miles north of east 
 from Montgomery — he assisted most ferociously 
 in the massacre of 300 wretched Creeks, who 
 were surprised in their wigwams. 
 
 After a great many fights in which the Creel<s 
 were uniformly defeated and sustained severe 
 Josses, they were induced by their prophets to 
 fortify themselves upon a neck of land formed 
 by a great curve in the Tallapoosa River, which 
 the Creeks call Tohopeka, or Horse-Shoe. In 
 this desperate state of their affairs the poor In- 
 dians clung with more than their accustomed 
 confidence to the conjurers of their nation who 
 pretended to divine the future, and who had 
 assumed the title of prophets. They were as- 
 sured that this was the place where they were 
 to conquer, and at any rate it was evident, from 
 what was observed after the battle, that the last 
 struggle was intended to be made here. They 
 liad fortified themselves with great ingenuity, 
 the points of resistance affbrded by the looaliiy 
 Avere very favourable to them, and having about 
 1000 tried men, they were not afraid of being 
 taken by storm. 
 
 Here Jackson followed them. His army had 
 repeatedly mutinied for want of provisions, and 
 lie only kept it together by sharing in an unosten- 
 tatious manner all the privations of his men ; 
 making no regular repasts, but sustaining him- 
 self by the grains of corn which he carried in his 
 pocket, and which he sometimes offered to his 
 men when they were sinking from weakness 
 and fatigue. With such an example in the chief, 
 soldiers with any generous feelings will follow 
 wherever he leads them. As soon as he reach- 
 ed the place where the wretched Creeks — them- 
 selves undergoing every sort of (irivation — were 
 about to play their last stake, he attacked the 
 place with a settled purpose to finish the war at 
 this point. In his official letter he says, " Deter- 
 mined to exterminate them, I detached General 
 Coffee with the mounted and nearly the whole 
 of the Indian force early in the morning of yes 
 *^niav fMarch 27th, 1814), to cross the river 
 about two miles below their encampment, and 
 to surround the bend ill sacli a manner as that 
 none of them should escape by attempting to cross 
 the river." The place, after a severe contest of 
 five hours, was stormed, and the Americans en- 
 tered it. Five hundred and fifty-seven Indians 
 were slain on the bend, and many others who 
 attempted to cross the Tallapoosa were sabred 
 by the horsemen : but to pursue the otficial 
 tetter — " The fighting continued with some se- 
 verity about five hours, but we continued to 
 destroy many of them who had concealed them- 
 selves under the banks of the river until we 
 were prevented by night. This morning loe kill- 
 ed sixteen icho had been concealed. We took about 
 
 250 prisoners, all women and children, except 
 two or three. Our loss is 106 wounded, and 25 
 killed. Major M-Intosh, the Cowetau, who 
 joined my army with a part of his tribe, greatly 
 distinguished himself" 
 
 If it had been a den of rattlesnakes their de- 
 struction could not have been accomplished or 
 related in a more energetic manner. 
 
 Some of the Creeks now fled to Florida, and 
 others into the Cherokee country, whilst Weath- 
 erford and the few Indians adhered to him, were 
 hunted into the swamps, and hemmed in in such 
 a manner as to be reduced to the last extremity, 
 feeding upon the roots and the barks of trees 
 until famine and disease rapidly diminished their 
 numbers. In the meantime Jackson had re- 
 quired of the Indians who adhered to the Amer- 
 icans to cause that chief to be delivered* bound 
 to him to undergo his fate. Weatherford soon 
 received information of this, and unable any 
 longer to endure the misery of his followers, and 
 determined not to submit to the indignity of be- 
 ing bound, he resolved upon a step that marks 
 the elevation of his character, and that produced 
 consequences that reflect great honour even up- 
 on the successful American general. 
 
 It happened to me many years ago to hear 
 the relation of what took place from an eye-wit- 
 ness of the first interview which Weatherford 
 had with his conqueror, 
 
 Jackson was one day in his tent with some 
 of his officers, when an Indian was seen on 
 horseback galloping into the encampment, and 
 who did not slop until he reached the General's 
 tent. Throwing himself from his horse, he en- 
 tered the tent boldly, and in a inoment stood 
 before the commander-in-chief. The Indian 
 was tall and well-proportioned, his countenance 
 indicated great intelligence, and was distinguish- 
 ed by that particular beauty which is sometimes 
 given by a thin aquiline nose. His person was 
 squalid and emaciated, his dress dirty and rag- 
 ged, but his biilliant and still fierce black eyes 
 showed at once that he was no common man. 
 Addressing himself to Jackson, he instantly be- 
 gan to this effect : — 
 
 " I am Weatherford ; I fought you as long as 
 I could ; I can fight no longer ; my people are 
 dying in the swamp. Do with mt as you please ; 
 I give myself up. I know you are a brave man ; 
 have pity on my people. Let them have some- 
 thing to eat ; send a good talk to them; they 
 will do what you wish. Here I am." 
 
 The inexorable temper of Jackson was soft- 
 ened by the abject condition of the fallen chief, 
 and his generosity awakened by this heroic con- 
 duct : he spoke kindly to Weatherford, and bade 
 him be comforted, declaring with warmth that 
 no man should hurt a hair of his head, and that 
 if the Indians would submit, he would take care 
 of them and give them peace. Thus did this 
 generous step, which could only have been sug- 
 gested by a lofty mind, produce the happiest ef- 
 fects. 
 
 The Creeks had now received a fatal blow 
 both to their power and their pride. They were 
 at the mercy of their conquerors, and on the 9th 
 of August, 1814, signed articles of "Agreement 
 and Capitulation" with the successful General at 
 Fort Jackson. These articles began as follows : — 
 " Whereas an unprovoked, inhuman, and san- 
 guinary war, waged by the hostile Creeks against 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 149 
 
 the United States, liath been repelled, prosecu- 1 
 ted, and determined successfully on the part of' 
 the said Slates, in conformity wilh principles of 
 national justice and honourable warfare," &c. 
 
 By tliis treaty the Creeks ceded every part 
 of the territory that was required of them. All 
 the upper part of the Coosa country was surren- 
 dered, and that river as far as Wetumpka be- 
 came their boundary. Within the space of 
 twenty-four years the Creeks had now surren- 
 dered — with a few local exceptions — all that 
 portion of their native country extending from 
 the Coosa eastward to the Savannah ; compre- 
 hending about 250 miles in breadth of the finest 
 land in the United States. But a fine territory 
 was still left to them, and if there was any virtue 
 in words, the United Stales were bound by the 
 following article in the treaty to protect them 
 in its possession : — 
 
 " Art. 2. The United States will guarantee 
 to the Creek nation the integrity of all their ter- 
 ritory eastwardly and northwardly of the said 
 line, to he run and described as mentioned in 
 the first article." 
 
 Further concessions, however, were made by 
 the treaty of January 22, 1818, in consideration 
 of ihe United States paying the sum of 120,000 
 dollars, in certain instalments; and on the 8th 
 of January, 1821, a subsequent treaty of cession 
 took place for other valuable considerations. 
 
 Wiliiam M'Intosh, the half breed, who had 
 contributed so efTectually to the destruction of 
 his countrymen, the lower Creeks, was now the 
 leading Sachem, and was thechief under whose 
 management these treaties of cession were made. 
 Emboldened by his success, and urged on by the 
 speculators who were still watching for oppor- 
 tunities to despoil the nation of everything, he 
 iii>w ventured upon a proceeding which roused 
 the lower Creeks from their apathy, and signed 
 a convention, February 12, 1825, wilh certain 
 American commissioners who were Georgians, 
 in which it was provided that a further impor- 
 tant cession should be made to the United States, 
 for which the parties interested were to be com- 
 pensated in the following manner. They were 
 to receive acre for acre upon the Arkansas Riv- 
 er, west of ihe Mississippi, upon condition of 
 their emigrating to that country, and were be- 
 sides to be paid a sum amounting to four hun- 
 dred thousand dollars in money, to compensate 
 them for their losses in removing from their na- 
 tive country and to enable them " to obtain sup- 
 plies in their new settlement." 
 
 The Creeks had submitted with impatient re- 
 luctance to the previous cession made by M'In- 
 tosh, but this, which expatriated a great portion 
 ofihem into the bargain, was intolerable. In 
 vain had the chiefs told the American commis- 
 sioners, at a council to which they were sum- 
 moned, "We have no land to sell. M'Intosh 
 knows that no part of the land can be sold with- 
 out a full council, and wilh the consent of all 
 the nation ; and if a part of the nation choose 
 to leave the country, they cannot sell the land 
 they have, but it belongs to the nation." A 
 deaf ear was turned to this, and M'Intosh, 
 templed by the personal advantages that were 
 to be secured to him, and believing that the 
 United Slates government would carry out ihe 
 execution of the treaty, signed the document, 
 with a few of the chiefs connected with hira, 
 
 whilst thirty-six of them, present at the coun- 
 cil, refused to put their marks to it. Many of 
 the chiefs now openly denounced him ; and let- 
 ters he had written to some of the half-breeds, 
 oflering to bribe them with part of the money- 
 he was to receive from the American commis- 
 sioners, being produced at a subsequent council, 
 his treachery to the nation was apparent to 
 every one. Perceiving that a great majority of 
 the Creeks were inclined against him, M'Intosh 
 repaired to the State of Georgia, where his 
 abettors were, and claimed the protection of the 
 governor. Having been assured that he should 
 receive it, he returned to his house, on the 
 Chatahoochie, where two of his wives lived, 
 and where some Americans and suh-chiefs of 
 his own party soon joined him. While here, 
 relying upon the powerful protection of Gover- 
 nor Troup of Georgia, Menaw-way, a chief of 
 the lower country, accompanied by a very large 
 party of armed Oakfuskee warriors, suddenly- 
 surrounded the house on Sunday morning the 
 1st of May, about two hours before daylight. 
 As soon as day broke he sent an interpreter to 
 inform the white people in the house that they 
 and the women and children must instantly 
 leave it ; that it was not his intention to hurt 
 them, but that General M'Intosh having broken 
 the law of the nation, they intended to execute 
 him immediately. All now left the house but 
 M-Intosh and one Tustenugge, who was his 
 principal confederate in executing the obnoxious 
 treaties. Menaw-way, who seemed determin- 
 ed to hold no conversation wilh the delinquent 
 chiefs, now directed his warriors to set fire to 
 the house ; and the inmates, making a despe- 
 rate sally from the door to escape being burnt 
 alive, were both shot dead. 
 
 The governor of Georgia, incensed at this exe- 
 cution of his proteges, breathed nothing but ven- 
 geance -against their enemies, who, probably, 
 but for the wise and humane view which the 
 federal government (then administered by Pres- 
 ident Adams) took of the causes which had led 
 to this characteristic and summary proceeding, 
 would have had to undergo new persecutions 
 from their white neighbours. The President 
 not only used his authority upon this occasion 
 to protect the Indians from further injury, but 
 entered into a treaty with them on 24th of Jan- 
 uary, 1826, whereby the last convention signed 
 by M'Intosh was declared null and void. This 
 treaty contained also a cession of some lands, to 
 make it acceptable to the Georgians, for which 
 the sum of 217,600 dollars was to be paid to 
 the chiefs and warriors, as well as an additional 
 perpetual annuity of '20,000 dollars. The inter- 
 ests also of the friends of M'Intosh were provided 
 for ; they were to emigrate to the west side of 
 the Mississippi — an arrangement which met 
 their approbation — and were to be liberally pro- 
 vided for, and to be under the protection of the 
 United States. This treaty, which was no 
 doubt made in a spirit of fairness to the Indians, 
 also contained the usual guarantee to all the 
 lands " not herein ceded, to which they have a 
 just claim." A further treaty of cession, how- 
 ever, was entered into on the "25lh of November, 
 1827, for the purpose of quieting some titles in 
 the "chartered limits of Georgia," the sum of 
 42,000 dollars being the consideration paid hv 
 the United Slates, 
 
150 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 The last treaty of cession was made on the 
 24th of March, 1832, when the government of 
 the United States was administered by Presi- 
 dent Jackson, the person who had given the 
 Creeks such a fatal blow in 1814. Tne treaty 
 commenced in the following significant words : 
 " Art. 1. The Creek tribe- of Indians cede to 
 the United States all their land east of the Mis- 
 sissippi rivery 
 
 Thus was extinguished the title of the Mus- 
 kogee people to every foot of land comprehended 
 in their ancient territory, consisting of about 
 twenty-five millions of acres of fertile land, all 
 of which had been now ceded in a little more 
 than forty years to the white population of the 
 adjacent States. 
 
 The speculators had now effected their great 
 object of despoiling the Creeks of their native 
 country. Ostensibly, the treaty provided for the 
 interests of the Indians, but, substantially, it was 
 a provision for their plunderers. Ninety of the 
 principal chiefs were to have one section * of 
 land each, as soon as the survey of the land had 
 been effected by the United States ; and every 
 head of a Creek family was also to have a half 
 section. Those who consented to emigrate and 
 join their countrymen west of the Mississippi 
 ■were to be removed at the expense of the Amer- 
 ican government, and to be subsisted by it one 
 year after their arrival there. To the specula- 
 tors the most interesting portion of the treaty 
 •was contained in the following words : 
 
 "Art. 3. The tracts [those provided for the 
 chiefs and heads of families] may be conveyed 
 by the persons selecting the same to any other 
 persons, for a fair consicleration, in such manner 
 as the President may direct." 
 
 Now these chiefs and heads of families, thus 
 to be provided for, were illiterate, wretched 
 beings, broken down in spirit by the ruin of their 
 nation, and most of them addicted to excessive 
 drunkenness. There was not a part of the terri- 
 tory where white men were not to be found 
 vending whiskey to the poor Indians on credit ; 
 so that at the time this treaty was made they 
 ■were all deeply indebted; or if any of them had 
 had but slight dealings with these men, being 
 entirely illiterate, they neither knew how to 
 keep an account of their transactions, nor what 
 the nature of the paper was which they had been 
 induced to sign before witnesses on coming to a 
 settlement. 
 
 So degraded and miserable was their condi- 
 tion, that almost any of them could be brought 
 to sign any thing when sufficiently excited by 
 ■whiskey ; and although the third article pro- 
 vided that the conveyance of their lands to 
 others should be made under the direction of 
 the President, yet he could do no more than 
 delegate agents to inquire into the transactions 
 of the Indians and their white creditors, which 
 agents were always presumed to be favourable 
 to these last, and to be easily satisfied of the 
 ♦' fair consideration" that had been given. Sub- 
 stantially, therefore, this treaty was a liquida- 
 tion of accounts betwixt them and their credi- 
 tors, and transferred to these last the lands 
 ■which it ostensibly assigned to the Indians : 
 indeed if any of them had even succeeded in 
 retaining possession of their sections, it was 
 
 * 640 acres. 
 
 evident, that under such a state of things it was 
 impossible for isolated individuals to live amongst 
 the white men that were now about to pour in 
 amongst them : they could follow the chase no 
 longer, all their occupations were at an end, 
 and nothing would soon be left for them but 
 acts of violence and drunkenness, until disease 
 should destroy them, or until they should be 
 forcibly removed from the country. Such was 
 the situation, and such the Cuture prospects, of 
 the remains of the great Muskogee people at 
 the ratification of this treaty. 
 
 It is due, however, to truth to say that there 
 had never been wanting virtuous and excellent 
 persons in other parts of the United States to 
 inveigh loudly against the whole system of pro- 
 ceedings by which such an atrocious spoliation 
 was consuamiated. Nearer to the scene of 
 action a more moderate degree of disapproba- 
 tion was sometimes expressed, and it was not 
 unusual to hear a qualified apology for these 
 transactions from sensible and respectable per- 
 sons, who would shrink from committing acts 
 of injustice and inhumanity themselves ; and 
 who observed that, however criminal such pro- 
 ceedings might appear, the removal of Indians 
 from their lands did not attach as a crime to 
 the nation that removed them ; for where the 
 white population increased so rapidly, the neces- 
 sity of their removal becaine unavoidable ; and 
 the act, therefore, being involuntary, could not 
 be a crime. 
 
 If a contrast were to be drawn between the 
 intrinsic importance to the world, of a nation of 
 aboriginal savages and a community of civMised 
 and religious white people, all men would prob- 
 ably be found to agree which of the two should 
 be preserved, even if it involved the destruction 
 of the other. In the eyes of the educated white 
 man, the life of the Indian is divested of every 
 rational comfort, that could encourage him to 
 hope he could ever be reconciled to it. It is a 
 mere animal life, without religion, and without 
 any law except the law of revenge. Restrained 
 neither by education nor example, passion alone 
 rules, and war and the chase become his sole 
 occupations. His children pursue the savage 
 customs of their forefathers ; and as they in- 
 crease in numbers, only extend the deadly spec- 
 tacle of whole nations living and dying without 
 the desire of knovvledge. 
 
 With a well-trained white man, every thing 
 is in a state of religious and moral progression. 
 Education engrafts the desire of knowledge in 
 his young mind, and renders its acquisition cer- 
 tain. His labour, successfully applied in one 
 direction, opens other avenues to him still more 
 profitable, and leads to the development of every 
 recourse of human talent and ingenuity. He 
 abounds in the substantial comforts of life, and 
 is the friend of peace and law, knowing that 
 they alone furnish a secure protection to the fu- 
 ture enjoyment by his generations of the proper- 
 ty he has acquired by his own honourable la- 
 bours. We may believe, therefore, that men 
 who thus, by tiieir sobriety, industry, fidelity, 
 and integrity in social life, exemplify a con- 
 sciousness of their responsibility to their Crea- 
 tor, are, whilst extending their generations, 
 worthily pursuing the true purposes of their ex- 
 istence, and are qualifying themselves for a more 
 perfect state of enjoyment hereafter, such, per- 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 151 
 
 Jiaps, as we can hardly conceive Uio mere ani- 
 mal Indian to be capable of" aspirinf,' to. This 
 contrast, however, if it is not allogotlier theo 
 Tclical, is not by any means applicable to the 
 people of Georgia. They, at any rate, were not 
 jinder the necessity of expelling the Creeks to 
 make room for an increasing virtuous popula- 
 tion : their proceedings had been at all times 
 marked by fraud and violence, against which 
 their victims had in vain looked up for protec- 
 tion to the federal government, — a protection it 
 was bound upon every consideration, divine and 
 human, to have given them, and which, per- 
 haps, it was alone restrained from doing by sor- 
 did political management. If the federal gov- 
 ernment could not have done every thing the 
 Creeks could fairly claim under its repeated so- 
 lemn guarantees, there was still something left 
 in its power. Having repeatedly treated with 
 them as an independent people under their pro- 
 tection, it was bound to give them a domestic 
 government, to have provided for their conver- 
 sion to Christianity, and to have afforded them 
 every facility of becoming cultivators, and form- 
 ing themselves into contented communities, as 
 some of the Choctaws and Cherokees are at this 
 <lay. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 The ruins of a Nation — Kateebee Swamp — .'\ Turkey ini- 
 plumis — EniigranU with their Shives — Phlebotomy — 
 Diamond Rattle Snakes — Reach Columbus, in Georgia 
 — Falls of the Chatahoochie — Leave Columbus — Ob- 
 servations upon the Family of Naiades — Arrive at Au- 
 gusta-Railroad to Charleston, in South Carolina — 
 Reach Columbia, in South Carolina. 
 
 With these events, as they are just sketched, 
 uppermost in my mind, I now entered the Creek 
 territory. Tiie lands had been surveyed, the 
 chiefs who had deluded the nation into the 
 treaty had been well provided for, and the rest 
 with very few exceptions, had transferred their 
 rights to white men. I was now to be a wit- 
 ness, not of the ruins of a Palmyra or a Baby- 
 lon, but of a nation of famous warriors degraded 
 to the lowest pitch of drunkenness and despair, 
 and surrounded in every direction by the least 
 industrious and most dissolute white men on the 
 continent of America. 
 
 Everything as we advanced was Indian, the 
 road was crooked, bad, and made without any 
 system, and by its side occasional ragged-look- 
 ing pieces of ground, badly cleared up, on which 
 were built miserable-looking cabins without any 
 fences near them. We had not been half an 
 hour in the territory before we came to a filthy 
 cabin where a villanous-looking white man sold 
 tobacco and whiskey. A stream was running 
 close by, and at the door of the cabin three 
 other brutal-looking whites were standing with 
 this man, all engaged in making game of a fine 
 tall Indian, about forty-five years old, who was 
 remarkably well made. He was excessively 
 drunk, and was staggering about stark naked 
 and vociferating in an unintelligible manner, 
 whilst the foam from his mouth was falling on 
 his prominent breast. These fellows were pro- 
 mising him another drink if he would jump into 
 the stream, but although they had persuaded him 
 to strip, the morning was so cold and the water 
 — on account of the late rains— so high, that he 
 
 seemed to have sense enough left not to go any 
 farther. We left the place thoroughly disgust- 
 ed, but I have no doubt they prevailed ujion him 
 at length, for the Indian, when tipsy, is outra- 
 geous for more liquor until he becomes dead 
 drunk ; and the men told us that he had often 
 done it before. Our road was indescribably bad, 
 going over beds of black waxy plastic clay, of 
 the consistency of that on the small prairies in 
 Arkansas, and entirely cut up by the immense 
 number of waggons containing families that 
 were emigrating from South Carolina to Alaba- 
 ma. Being on foot, and always a-head of the 
 carriage, I used to enter the Indian cabins I 
 came up with, and enter into conversation with 
 those of the people who could speak a little 
 English. Nothing could exceed the dirt and 
 stench of these places. In one of them I stop- 
 ped half an hour, and saw breakfast cooked for 
 sotne Indian woincn by a negress who wasthe'r 
 slave ; it consisted of some rotten-looking meat, 
 and her manner of cooking it, in a dirty pan 
 which seemed never to have been cleaned, was 
 something quite shocking. 
 
 On reaching the Kateebee swamp we found 
 the bridge of logs, which extended about a mile, 
 quite dislocated with the incessant passage of 
 waggons and the rise of the waters. A file of 
 them had just passed it with great difficu'ty, 
 and on taking a look at the numerous holes made 
 in it, sotne of which were four feet deep, I de- 
 spaired of getting our vehicle over. A person 
 on horseback, who was accompanying one of 
 the waggons, and with whom I had entered into 
 conversation, very kindly lent me his horse to 
 cross the swamp with, and gave me directions 
 how to proceed ; by observing these I succeed- 
 ed, after a hard struggle ; and on reaching the 
 other end, where were some more waggons, I 
 sent the horse back to him by a negro slave be- 
 longing to one of them. 
 
 Almost the whole of the bridge was under 
 water, and in one part of it the structure had 
 been quite broken up for a distance of at least 
 200 yards, the horse treading fearfully amongst 
 the logs, some of which were floating and some 
 sticking in the mud, not a little puzzled how to 
 get out of these chasms after I had forced him 
 into them. 
 
 From hence I proceeded on foot to Walton's, 
 a house of entertainment, where the carriage 
 finally overtook me, to the great satisfaction of 
 Mr. T********, who considered the log-bridge, 
 when he got xipon it, as the ne plus ultra of his 
 travels in this direction ; but the driver was ac- 
 customed to scenes of this kind, and telling him 
 to sit still, at length extricated him. At this 
 house I met two ladies, both of theiTi very gen- 
 teel persons, on their way from Charlestown, in 
 South Carolina, to Mobile : one of them was a 
 Mrs. H*****, and the other was a Mrs. B***% 
 her niece, an extremely beautiful and interest- 
 ing young person, wlio had lately been left a 
 widow. Having heard unpromising accounts 
 of the Kateebee Swamp, they had stopped here 
 to get inforination from some one who had 
 crossed it. We took a late repast togettier, and 
 I do not know that I ever felt more sympathy 
 for any individuals than for these amiable wo- 
 men, who were travelling through such an in- 
 hospitable country at this unpropitious season, 
 with no attendants but a boy and a negro who 
 
IS'^ 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 drove their carriage. On parting I gave him in- 
 structions how to proceed, and was glad to find 
 he was an intelligent and careful man. As to 
 his fair charge, they were both resolutely bent 
 upon making the best of everything, and were 
 prepared to meet events in that admirable spirit 
 •which frequently characterises the sex upon 
 perilous occasions. 
 
 Everything as we advanced into the Creek 
 country announced the total dissolution of or- 
 der. Indians of all ages were wandering about 
 listlessly, the poorest of them having taken to 
 begging, and when we came in sight would 
 come and importune us for money. Some of 
 them, imitating the whites, were doing their 
 best to prey upon each other, for we frequently 
 saw squavk's belonging to some of the chiefs 
 seated by the roadside at a log or rude table 
 with a bottle of whiskey, and a glass to supply 
 their unfortunate countrymen who had anything 
 to give in return, if it were only the skin of an 
 animal. These women seemed to laugh at the 
 distresses of the others, and gave us a great 
 deal of their eloquence when we passed them, 
 but fortunately we did not understand what they 
 said, though by their lifting up the whiskey bot- 
 tle it was evident they wanted to make some- 
 thing out of us also. In other places we met 
 young men in the flower of their age, dressed in 
 ragged hunting-shirts and turbans, staggering 
 along, and often falling to the ground, witli emp- 
 ty bottles in their hands : in this wretched state 
 of things, with the game almost entirely destroy- 
 ed, it is evident that nothing will soon be left to 
 those who have beggared themselves but to die 
 of want, or to emigrate, a step they are so very 
 averse to take, that in their desperation they 
 have already committed some murders. 
 
 The jurisdiction of this part of the territory 
 had now passed over from the United States to 
 the State of Alabama, which not having yet 
 commenced its exercise, the Indians did just as 
 they pleased. One of them lately shot a sort 
 of itinerant preacher, named Davis, with whom 
 he had had some dealings, and afterwards came 
 to Walton's and said he was very sorry, but he 
 thought it was a wild turkey he had fired at. 
 This no doubt was a piece of Indian wit, and 
 meant not that he was sorry for what he had 
 done, but that he was sorry it was not a wild 
 turkey he had shot. The few white families 
 who have established themselves on the road 
 were beginning, and with reason, to be alarmed 
 at their situation, for it would require very little 
 combination on the part of the Indians to mas- 
 sacre them all in one night. 
 
 At the Persimmon Greek and Swamp we met 
 with another broken-down log-bridge that was 
 dangerous in some places ; but several Indians 
 who were here behaved very well, giving us 
 most effectual assistance in getting the carriage 
 across, for which we paid them liberally. From 
 hence we proceeded to one Macgirt's a white 
 man, living in a filthy, Indian-looking place, who 
 pretended to give us some breakfast, but it was 
 so disgustingly bad that we were unable to touch 
 it. This uian said he expected every night to 
 have his throat cut, which induced me to tell 
 him, that if it would be any consolation, he 
 I might be quite sure they would not touch his 
 I victuals. We now got upon an excessively bad 
 'i road, so cut up that the horses could hardly drag 
 
 the carriage through the deep ruts, and the soil 
 being of the red, vva.xy kind, we found it almost 
 as difficult to walk upon it. In the course of 
 the day we met a great many families of plant- 
 ers emigrating to Alabama and Mississippi to 
 take up cotton plantations, their slaves tramping 
 through the waxy ground on foot, and the heavy 
 waggons containing the black women and chil- 
 dren slowly dragging on, and frequently break- 
 ing down. All that were able were obliged to 
 walk, and being wet with fording the streams 
 were shivering with cold. The negroes suffer 
 very much in these expeditions conducted in 
 the winter season, and upon this occasion must 
 have been constantly wet, for I am sure we ford- 
 ed from forty to fifty streams this day, which, 
 although insignificant in dry weather, were at 
 this time very much swollen with rain. We 
 passed at least 1000 negro slaves, all trudging 
 on foot, and worn down with fatigue. 
 
 The Indian cabins, as we advanced, were 
 somewhat different from those we observed on 
 entering the territory, being merely circular 
 spaces covered with bark, and apparently ex- 
 posed to all the rains : on examining them, how- 
 ever, 1 found that a small trench was dug round 
 them which prevented the superficial water get- 
 ting in, and that the bark was lapped over so 
 well that it kept all the rain out. But no lan- 
 guage can describe the filth inside of them, and 
 the disgusting appearance of their tenants, espe- 
 cially the old crones. The women seemed to be 
 fond of being bled, for in one of the largest cab- 
 ins a young man had been bleeding several of 
 thetn with a rude lancet. Amongst the rest 
 was an old creature turned sixty, the most 
 thoroughly hideous, wrinkled, dark, and dirty 
 hag I had ever seen amongst them : she had 
 the features and hair of an Alecto, and was 
 completely stark naked. 
 
 We made only twenty-five miles this day, 
 and arrived after dark excessively fatigued at 
 one Cook's, a cheerful, dissipated sort of fellow; 
 whose wife, however, being a very respectable 
 woman, gave us a tolerable clean supper and 
 separate beds. In the morning I found that 
 Mr. Cook was a collector of natural curiosities,, 
 the stuffed skins of three extraordinarily thick 
 Diamond rattlesnakes being hung up in the porclx 
 of his little tavern, one of which was seven feet 
 ten inches long, and thirteen inches and a quar- 
 ter in circumference. He said that great num- 
 bers of these enormous snakes, which I beheve 
 have not yet been described, were found in the 
 pine lands of this part of the Creek nation. 
 There is also some limestone near his house, ia 
 which I observed imperfect specimens of Gry- 
 phffia vesiculosa. From hence we got into a. 
 very pretty sandy district, and found a tolerably 
 good road on the sand ridges. Streams, whose 
 banks were covered with laurels, live oaks, and„ 
 other evergreens, were running pleasingly at the 
 base of graceful pine hills, which overlaid a rot- 
 ten limestone, and wild grass was growing ev- 
 ery where in great profusion. This day we 
 met an almost uninterrupted line of emigrants,, 
 with innumerable heavy and light waggons. 
 Some of them had got stuck fast in the deep 
 bottoms, and the men around them were pulling, 
 hauling, whipping, and cursing and swearing to 
 get them out ; there were also some lighter 
 carriages, indicating abetter class of emigrants^ 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 155 
 
 Amongst the rest was an old-fashioned gig, 
 with a lame horse guided bj- an aged grand- 
 motlier, with several vviiite and black cliildren 
 stuck in it around her. The whole scene would 
 have reminded me of the emigrations in patriar- 
 chal times, but for the very decided style of the 
 cursmg and swearing. As we advanced they ! 
 all inquired if the road was not better a-bead ; 
 and our answer generally was, "Keep up your 
 spirits and you'll get through." At one time j 
 of tlie day we certainly passed 1200 people, 
 black and white, on foot. We found very few 
 Indians in this part of the territory — a circum- 
 stance I was glad of, as the spectacle they fur- 
 nished was always a distressing one ; and oc- 
 casionally some of the young men, who were 
 rather drunk, had been very insolent to us. 
 
 About eight miles before w^ reached the Cha- 
 tahoocliie we met boulders of gneiss and quartz, 
 always an indication, in this part of North 
 America, of the limits of the subcretaceous and 
 tertiary beds. In the afternoon we reached the 
 Chatahoochie, it having taken us four days to 
 travel a distance of ninety miles. This fine 
 stream is crossed by an excellent bridge, and 
 divides the state of Georgia from the Creek ter- 
 ritory now forming part of Alabama. On the 
 opposite bank is the pretty town of Columbus, 
 in Georgia, where we stopped for the night at a 
 noisy tavern, which seemed to be a general 
 boarding-house for the town. My first care 
 was to secure places for the mail-stage in the 
 morning ; the next, to hasten to the Falls of the 
 Chatahoochie, about a mile from Columbus, 
 where I had the pleasure of meeting the gneiss 
 jocks again in place, and of seeing this fine 
 Viver tumble over them just as it does at Fred- 
 ericsburgh and Richmond, in Virginia : indeed, 
 there is a strong scenic resemblance betwixt 
 the falls of all the rivers on the east side of the 
 chain which fronts the Atlantic. After gratify- 
 ing my curiosity, I recrossed the bridge to the 
 Indian side of the Chatahoochie, wliere I saw a 
 great many huts, and some dwellings apparent- 
 ly belonging to white persons. Here I found 
 the lowest stage of drunkenness and debauchery, 
 prevailing to such an extent that the settlement 
 had acquired the nickname of Sodom: and on 
 my return into Columbus the street was swarm- 
 ing with drunken Indians, and young prosti- 
 tutes, both Indian and white, a sufficient indi- 
 cation of the manners of the place. 
 
 Having reached the tavern again, we endea- 
 voured to get something to eat, and were told 
 to wait until the supper-bell rang ; which hav- 
 ing done with great patience, we moved, as 
 soon as the tumultuous rush common upon such 
 occasions was effected, to the supper-table; hut 
 it was so full that it was quite impossible to get 
 a seat there, neither was there another chair or 
 bench in the room ; so, knowing it would serve 
 no purpose to show any impatience, we remain- 
 ed standing and looking on. The art of bolting 
 was practised here with as much success as I had 
 seen it done at any other place, and in less than 
 ten minutes every man, without excepiion, had 
 gone back again to the bar-room ; a circum- 
 stance that would have given us unalloyed 
 pleasure, if they had not taken every scrap that 
 had been set on the table along with them. We 
 now made our wants known ; and the mistress 
 of the house, learning that we were the two 
 U 
 
 " 77ic;i" that had come from the "nation" in a 
 carriage, very obligingly ordered some food to 
 be produ(!ed for us, which after a little more 
 patience, we had the satisfaction of eating alone. 
 
 We left Columbus, January 17, at 5V a. m. , 
 keeping on the edge of the gneiss, which is 
 covered with sand, gravel, and clay, bearing oak, 
 hickory {Juglans), and pine trees. During the 
 day we got upon the red lands, formed appa- 
 rently by the decomposition of primary ferrugi- 
 nous slates, and proceeded on over what is call- 
 ed a rolling and broken country. At the end of 
 fifteen iniles we stopped at Ellerslie to break- 
 fast, and were heartily glad we should not have 
 to encoimter any more of the distressing scenes 
 we had left behind, for we had now got into" a 
 white community, if a population can properly 
 be called so where nine out of ten are black. 
 From thence we proceeded seventeen miles to 
 Talbotton, the soil being generally red, and 
 strewed with quartz boulders. On our road 
 from this place to Flint River — a tributary of 
 the Appalachicola, and a very fine stream — the 
 driver incautiously overturned the mail-stage, 
 without however, doing us any great harm. 
 Having crossed the Flint, we proceeeed through 
 a sandy country, with pine timber, seven mUes 
 to Knoxville ; and thence to Macon, a very 
 pretty town, with a population of from 3000 to 
 4000 inhabitants, and which, like all the towns 
 in this part of the United States, has a cheerful 
 appearance, not being cramped up as they are 
 in the Northern States. The principal street in 
 Macon is so wide that I took the trouble to 
 measure it, and found it 150 feet broad. 
 
 The Ocmulgcc River, upon which Macon is 
 situated, is a branch of the Alatamaha, the first 
 river which empties into the Atlantic Ocean 
 north of the peninsula of Florida, and the Flint, 
 which we have just left behind, being a branch 
 of the Appalachicola River, which empties into 
 the Gulf of Mexico, I determined to stay a 
 short time here for the purpose of collecting 
 soine of the fresh-water shells called Unios 
 from the Ocmnlgce, and comparing them with 
 those I had taken from the various waters which 
 flow into the Gulf of Mexico. The fact had 
 been for some time ascertained that, farther to 
 the north, the Unios, which are one of the divi- 
 sions of the family Naiades of Lamarck, consist- 
 ed as to numbers, of comparatively iew species, 
 and these generally homely in their appearance, 
 thin and unornamented, when contrasted with 
 those so unrivalled for their beauty, which in- 
 habit the waters flowing into the Gulf of Mexi- 
 co; the Atlantic shells being without that re- 
 splendent nacre, that rare pearly and delicately-- 
 coloured interior, that rich velveity tuberculated' 
 and plicated exterior, and those curious alated 
 forms which distinguish the Unios of the west- 
 ern waters. 
 
 An opportunity now occurred of observing 
 whether so extraordinary a difference in the ex- 
 terior and interior structure of shells belonging 
 to the same genus was geographically true at 
 this point, where rivers emptying into the At- 
 lantic and into the Gulf of Mexico, were flow- 
 ing through the same region, and only distant; 
 thirty miles from each other. 
 
 Owing to flie state of the waters, I was not; 
 fortunate in procuring many shells. The Vmo 
 purpurcus, however, which I had not found in 
 
154 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 any of the Gulf waters, and which is the char- | 
 acteristic shell of the Atlantic rivers, I did find | 
 in the Ocnuil^ee, without heing accompanied by I 
 a single specimen of any of the beautiful west- 
 ern species, with most of which I had now be- 
 some extremely conversant : nor could I find 
 out "from any of the people at Macon, to whom 
 I showed specimens of the western shells, that 
 such were found in the Ocmulgee at any stage 
 of its waters. This examination, therefore, 
 tended to confirm the opinion that an extra- 
 ordinary diversity of character prevails in the 
 Unios inhabiting these two classes of rivers, a 
 diversity which appears to amount to a total 
 separation of kinds. 
 
 Nor does the fact militate against this opinion 
 of their general separation, that at various 
 points lying farther to the north, the inhabitants 
 of these two classes of rivers are, for a limited 
 distance, found partially intermixed in the 
 sources of streams which interlock each other, 
 as well as in some of the upper lakes, such as 
 Lake Erie, Lake Huron, and Lake Michigan ; 
 for the western Unios found at those points do 
 not appear to travel to great distances from 
 their native waters, and never to descend the 
 Atlantic rivers to where the tide flows ; so that 
 even the exception proves the fact of a real ge- 
 ographical separation of these mollusca, leav- 
 ing the intermixture to be explained by the oc- 
 -casional inundations that frequently connect 
 the eastern and western waters at points where 
 the difference of level is never more than twen- 
 ty feet. 
 
 Mr. Conrad, the only American naturalist 
 •who appeai-s to have travelled for the purpose 
 of studying this interesting Naiad family, has 
 communicated to me the specific names of 
 .more than one hundred species (1) of the Unio 
 inhabiting the waters flowing into the Gulf of 
 Mexico, of which not one of the preponderating 
 species has been found in the Atlantic streams : 
 and, as I have before observed, the Umopurpu- 
 reus, that is the characteristic shell of about 
 twenty species inhabiting the Atlantic streams, 
 is not found to the west of Flint River. 
 
 The causes which have produced so striking 
 a difference in the shells of these mollusca, or 
 have led to this curious geographical distribution 
 «f their different species, well deserve the atten- 
 tion of philosophic naturalists. If what have 
 hitherto been called species are, in most instan- 
 ces, only varieties produced by expediency, then 
 the mineral character of the strata through 
 which the rivers flow, the degree of dynamic ac- 
 tion of the streams, and the peculiarity of food 
 and climate, may be amongst the efficient causes 
 of geographical distribution and general variety. 
 
 On the other hand, as there was undoubtedly 
 a time preceding the existence of all the rivers, 
 Tiz., when the whole continent of North Ameri- 
 ca was covered by the ocean, the origin of all 
 fresh-water mollusca must necessarily be as- 
 signed to a period subsequent to tlie upraising 
 of the dry land from the bosom of the ocean, and 
 the establishment of rivers; a state of things 
 Avhich admits a conclusion capable, perhaps, ot 
 reconciling the anomaly of the case, since it 
 ■wvould bring all these widely separated mollusca 
 into the general category of organized beings, 
 created with inherent faculties capable of secu- 
 Turing all the advantages of the varying regions 
 
 in which they were produced, and in which they 
 were fitted to live, without a chance of any ma- 
 terial deviation in their con.slitutional structure 
 The power of accommodating themselves to a 
 partial change of country has no doubt been ac- 
 corded to all beings, and, in the case of these 
 mollusca, we see how they are subject to ad- 
 mixture, and to a casual separation from their 
 original habitats. 
 
 The differences in the e.xterior of their shells, 
 even when they are so slight as to escape the 
 notice of other observers, have made them ob- 
 jects of the most intense anxiety to many of 
 those ardent conchologists who indulge in ex- 
 tensive generalization over the fireside, and who 
 rush into immortality upon the strength of any 
 difference, often unreal, which appears to sepa- 
 rate one shell from another, and to justify them 
 in adding to the Ifst of species, already cumbrous 
 and perplexing, by the multiplication of conflict- 
 ing synonymes. The grand object of some of 
 these sedentary naturalists appears to be to coin 
 a new Latin name, and add the magical word 
 "nobis" to it. Accidental characters are just 
 as valuable to them as natural ones. If a shell 
 in a particular stream is soft and friable and 
 easily decorticated at the beaks, w here it is most 
 exposed to disintegration, it is forthwith raised 
 into a species, and becomes Unio canosus, al- 
 though practical naturalists know that the same 
 shell in other streams is never decorticated in 
 the slightest degree. 
 
 Other shells, which have been named circulus, 
 orbiculahs, siibrotundus, triangularis, and the like, 
 according to their approximation to a round or 
 angular shape, are often found with characters 
 totally opposite to those specifically assigned to 
 them ; so that it is not uncommon to find Unios 
 without the specific characters upon which thejr 
 rank depends in the books, whilst they have got 
 those of almost every other shell. Unio cor- 
 Tiutus, which in some streams has peculiar pro- 
 tuberances on the e.xterior of the shell, is found 
 in others without even the budding of horns; 
 so that there are horned shells without horns, 
 and carious shells perfectly sound. What would 
 be said of the want of sense of cattle-breeders, 
 if they were to talk of long-horned cattle that 
 had got no horns, and Durham short-horns with 
 long horns? These races, which externally 
 differ from all other animals of the same family, 
 are artificial varieties produced by a departure 
 from their natural habits, and would, if they 
 were no longer influenced by art, go back to 
 another and very different state. It is not, 
 therefore, very surprising that the same Unio 
 should differ occasionally so much in the shape 
 of its shell, or that it should he carious in one 
 stream and sound in another, since the modifi- 
 cation in the first case may be produced by the 
 circumstances it is exposed to, aided by an in- 
 herent power of adaptation to them, and in the 
 second, perhaps, by the absence or presence of 
 parasites. As to the nature of that inherent 
 |)Ower, we know that the shells of these mol- 
 lusca are repaired again when they are injured; 
 and may, without assuming either intelligence 
 or volition for the animal in that act, infer that 
 the same provident care which knits the broken 
 limb of the unconscious child, has not only been 
 extended to the mollusca, but modifies, when 
 necessary, the primary form of their shells. 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 \Yhen, tbrrefore, we find them lluis modified, it 
 is but pvideuce of what nature is ever vigilant 
 to do for conservative purposes. \\'e cannot, 
 therefore, hut regard the labours of those neolo- 
 gists who found their classification of the mol- 
 lusca upon the sliells of the animals, as idle and 
 iusecure. It is to he regretted, both for the 
 sake of zoology and conchology, that so many 
 specie-makers are pursuing the shadow and not 
 the sui)stance. When conehologists make the 
 ]<nowledge of malacology the serious object of 
 their labours, when they study the animal more 
 and the shells less, every accession to our know- 
 ledge of this branch of natural history can be 
 profitably carried to the genera! account of 
 science, and will redound to the permanent hon- 
 our of the discoverer ; whilst those who encum- 
 ber the path of science by their contests for 
 priority in inventing names for shells will ac- 
 quire no lasting reputation, even when they 
 succeed in establishing their claims. 
 
 From Macon to Milledgeville we had thirty 
 miles of bad road over a red clay exceedingly 
 cut up. This town is situated on a hill near 
 the Oconnee River, the east branch of the Ala- 
 tamalia, and is, like the rest, an open, airy 
 place, with fine broad streets. We were now 
 in a part of the old colony of Georgia before it 
 •vvas enlarged by acquisitions from the Creeks. 
 Timber was comparatively scarce, the soil a 
 <]eep red earth, still good for cotton, and the 
 iields larire and under good fence. On descend- 
 'ing a hill about ten miles from this place, I 
 
 F found gneiss near a small stream, with veins 
 <of porphyritic granite resembling that upon 
 which the Chesterfield coal-field, in Virginia, 
 reposes, which is of the same character as the 
 granite of Shapfell, in England. The weather 
 was singularly hot for January, Fahrenheit 
 showing 74° upon the scale at noon. From 
 lience we made twenty-three miles to Sparta, a 
 pleasing rural-looking place, built upon a hill, 
 and containing some neat houses, with a very 
 good sort of tavern. The roads were very bad 
 the next twenty-three miles to Warrenton ; we 
 crossed the Ogeechee River at about half the 
 distance, and proceeding all night through 
 wretched roads for forty-two miles, reached 
 Anoiista, on the Savannah River, a muddy 
 stream about 200 yards wide, which is the 
 boundary betwixt the States of South Carolina 
 
 and Georgia. This is a long, straggling town, 
 containing perhaps 4000 inhabitants ; with a 
 main street at least a mile long, and full of 
 small stores and low taverns. All these south- 
 ern towns are very much alike : there is always 
 one endless street filled with small linen-dra- 
 pers' shops or stores, the owners of which call 
 themselves merchants. In some of these stores 
 ready-made clothes are sold, in others boots 
 and shoes ; a few of them contain the wares 
 of ironmongers, ar,d perhaps one or two of them 
 are small book stores. These, with at least 
 one hundred dram-shops and dirty taverns, are 
 what is to be seen in one of these long streets, 
 
 crowded with men all upon a level in greedi- 
 ness and vulgarity ; in short, there is nothing 
 to detain a traveller who is in search of any- 
 thing that is rare and interesting, but everything 
 conspires to make him anxious to take to the 
 roads again, be they ever so bad. 
 
 We crossed the Savannah over a bridge to a 
 
 I dirty suburb called Hamburgh, the termination 
 of a railroad 140 miles long, from Charleston, 
 
 ' on the Atlantic. A great part of this railway, 
 which is a single line, is raised, not on an em- 
 bankment, but on piles from six to twenty feet 
 high from the ground, standing upon stilts, as it 
 were, and must be singularly dangerous. At 
 the end of the first stage we passed a well-con- 
 structed inclined plane about half a mile long. 
 Almost the whole distance of eighty mdes from 
 Augusta to Cuhnnhia is over a pine and sand 
 country of the poorest character, the latter part 
 of it being a dead flat. One mile from Colum- 
 bia we crossed a long wooden bridge, thrown 
 over the Congaree at the confluence of the Sal- 
 uda and Broad Rivers, both of which have their 
 sources in the mountains of North Carolina. 
 Not far from the bridge this river falls over 
 gneiss rocks penetrated by granitic veins, and 
 a short railway is laid from the bridge up a gen- 
 tle acclivity to the town, which contains about 
 4000 inhabitants. The streets, like those of 
 the other towns, ar-e broad, and planted with 
 that gaudy tree, the Pride of China. {Melia Aza- 
 derach). Having travelled several nights in that 
 exposed and most comfortless and lumbrous 
 contrivance, an American stage-coach, I deter- 
 mined to rest a day or two here and see a ie\f 
 acquaintances I had in the neighbourhood ; so 
 being fortunate enough to get a private room 
 at the tavern, I proceeded to spruce myself up 
 a little, a thing I had not done since I left New 
 Orleans. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 The Gentlemen of America— The TariflF and Nullification 
 —Wise conduct of Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun— Warlike 
 Propensities of an Octogenarian Philosopher— A black 
 Animal chained on the roof of a Stage-coach— Ti\e char- 
 acter of the White Man elevated by the Slavery of the 
 Black one. ^ 
 
 CoLUMBi.i, the capital of South Carolina, is 
 pleasantly situated, and in some of its airy streets 
 there are genteel-looking houses, which at once 
 indicate a respectable state of society ; but I was 
 very much surprised to find the capital of the 
 State built on a piece of ground so barren, that 
 even grass will scarcely grow upon it. Having 
 walked through the streets to see what the town 
 looked like, I rambled in the afternoon about two 
 or three miles oif to call upon Dr. Cooper, whom 
 I had met before in New York. This gentle- 
 man, always conspicuous, had made himself 
 particularly so of late, in the agitation of the 
 NidUJlcMion question, which the Tarili' law had 
 given birth to, and which had so nearly brought 
 fhe State of South Carolina into hostile collision 
 with the power of the federal government under 
 the administration of Preside'nt Jackson. Al- 
 though the excitement — which at one time 
 threatened such fatal consequences — had been 
 calmed by the judicious conduct of Mr. Clay 
 and Mr. Calhoun in agreeing to the Compromise 
 Act, yet the same question is of such vital con- 
 sequence to South Carolina, and so important to 
 the Northern manufacturers, that it i-s always 
 liable to be agitated again. The leading plant- 
 ers of South Carolina are generally men who, 
 having inherited large estates with numerous^ 
 slaves born upon them, and received liberal ed- 
 ucations, consider themselves, not without some 
 TQAson, the gentlemen of America; looking down 
 
156 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 upon the trading conamunities in the Northern 
 States, where slavery does not exist, with that 
 habitual sense of superiority which men born to 
 command — and above all others slaveholders — 
 always cherish when they are placed in compe- 
 tition with men engaged in mercantile pursuits, 
 whom they consider to be, by the nature of their 
 avocations, incapable of rising to their level: to 
 this feeling, the seeds of which are planted in 
 infancy, is added a distrust sometimes amount- 
 ing to hatred. 
 
 The planter, although his crops of cotton and 
 rice often produce him an annual income far ex- 
 ceeding that of the cultivator of the North, and 
 tempt him to live in a style corresponding to the 
 rank he believes himself to hold in society, yet 
 is frequently less independent than the opulent 
 merchant or farmer he undervalues, his annual 
 expenditures being large and certain, whilst his 
 returns are somewhat precarious. He has per- 
 haps to feed and clothe several hundred slaves, and 
 it is not convenient for him to reduce his style of 
 living: so that not unfrequently the merchant at 
 the north, who is his agent, and to whom he con- 
 signs his productions for sale, sends him an ac- 
 count current, where, instead of small charges be- 
 ing deducted from large returns, he finds the ad- 
 vances made to him in money, the bills for feeding 
 and clothing his slaves, his wines and luxuries, 
 and other charges, swelled to an amount far ex- 
 ceeding the sum-total that his crops have sold 
 for; perceiving himself therefore the debtor and 
 quasi slave of the man he despises, his pride, his 
 interest, and his passions, all combine to rouse 
 his indignation: at such moments the agitated 
 planter is easil}' led to follow in the wake of any 
 politicians who flatter him with the prospect of 
 red ress. 
 
 When the politicians and manufacturers of the 
 Northern States combined to enact the tariff of 
 1828, "for \.\i2 protection of home manufactures," 
 alleging that the productions of the Southern 
 States were admitted without competition into 
 the ports of England, a general feeling of resist- 
 ance arose in the State of South Carolina: the 
 duties now to be levied upon those articles of Brit- 
 ish manufacture which the planter was compell- 
 ed to purchase for the use of his slaves, must 
 necessarily greatly augment his expenditures, 
 and to this was added the apprehension of another 
 evil of still greater magnitude, viz. that Great 
 Britain might lay retaliatory duties upon his ex- 
 ports, and gradually look to other countries to 
 be supplied with them. Politics and interests 
 therefore combined in South Carolina to rouse 
 the people into a resistance to that law, and the 
 government of the State taking the lead, finished 
 by declaring that when the United States gov- 
 ernment manifestly exceeded its powers — of 
 which fact they held that the suffering State 
 must be the best judge — every single State had a 
 natural and constitutional right to "nullify its 
 acts." 
 
 Armies now were raised, and everything was 
 preparad for resistance, as much as if a foreign 
 invader was about to enter their territory. Such 
 was the indomitable spirit that appeared to pre- 
 vail, and the determination not to permit the rev- 
 enue laws of the United States to be executed in 
 South Carolina, that if President Jackson, as it 
 was believed he was disposed to do, had attempt- 
 ed to execute them by force, there is no doubt 
 that a furious civil war would have raged in the 
 State, of which the consequences — let the ques- 
 tionable result have been either one way or the 
 
 other — must have been signally fatal ; for no one 
 can predict the ultimate consequences of giving 
 military habits to a numerous slave population, 
 which must upon so fatal a contingency have 
 unavoidably taken place. Happily for the coun- 
 try, the wise compromise which took place, the 
 efiect of which was to provide for the gradual 
 reduction of those oppressive tariff duties to an 
 amount limited by the wants of the public reve- 
 nue, and not by the demands fyr protection, avert- 
 ed this great danger. Mr. Clay, whom the pro- 
 tection-party claimed as their leader, and Mr. 
 Calhoun, the. avowed leader of the Nullifying 
 party, patriotically concurred in making sacrifi- 
 ces in favour of peace, by carrying the measure 
 called the Compromise Act through the national 
 legislature. 
 
 No man had taken a more energetic and ani- 
 mated part in this dangerous agitation than the 
 veteran Dr. Cooper, now approaching his eighti- 
 eth year, and one of the most remarkable men 
 that have emigrated from England — his native 
 country — to the United States. Cooper was a 
 philoshpical tleve of the famous Dr. Priestley, 
 and finding that everything in England was too 
 long or too short for him, he passed over to the 
 "asylum of oppressed humanity," with the in- 
 tention of making it his home for life. He was 
 a man of singular versatility of talent, of i.nceas- 
 ing activity, and great natural benevolence. His 
 attainments were various; there was nothing in 
 law, physic, divinity, chemistry, or general sci- 
 ence that he had entirely overlooked; and al- 
 though some of his screws were uncommonly 
 loose, particularly his religious ones, he was ca- 
 pable of being a very useful member of society, 
 and was always — as such a man with so much 
 experience must be — a most agreeable and in- 
 structive companion. But that which above all 
 things made the Doctor happy, and which wher- 
 ever he went seemed to be his study to provide 
 a quantum sufficit of, was persecution, and this 
 he was fortunate enough to find even in Ameri- 
 ca. On his arrival his talents procured him an 
 official appointment of some distinction in Penn- 
 sylvania, but he soon contrived to be driven from 
 it, and to be fined heavily into the bargain. At 
 length he took refuge iti South Carolina, was 
 well received by the leading planters there, and 
 placed in the honourable and lucrative situation 
 of President of the College in the town of Co- 
 lumbia. { 
 
 Here the Doctor might have flourished in re- 
 nown, and have pursued a career of usefulness, 
 but the current was too gentle for him, and pre- 
 ferring troubled waters, he began to insinuate 
 that it was unworthy of free men to be educated 
 in religious prejudices, and ended by openly de- 
 nouncing the Christian religion. If there were 
 a few persons in the State to whom this was 
 agreeable, there were a great many to whom it; 
 was very ofl^ensive. The friends of tlie college 
 had hoped that in placing an amiable person 
 with such various attainments at its head, he 
 would have possessed suflicient judgm.ent tO' 
 have looked to the interests of the institution, 
 and would have endeavoured to support that 
 which supported him. The sons of persons en- 
 tertaining difl^erent opinions both in^religion and 
 politics were to be educated liere, and it was ex- 
 pected by all that though theology was not to be 
 a principal branch of study, yet a reverence for 
 religion would be inculcated; it was soon made 
 evident, however, that anything but this was in- 
 stilled into the young minds entrusted to hi& 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 157 
 
 care, ami parents immediately began to withdraw 
 tlieir cliitdren from an institution where the 
 Christian religion was openly derided. The 
 Ducior having succeeded in driving away all 
 thoi«3 who were not disposed to imbibe his irre- 
 ligious opinions, proceeded to practise the same 
 tactics with those who woukl not agree with 
 him in defying the government of the country, 
 its established by law, in regard to Nullification ; 
 so that his students became at length very few 
 in numbers, and not long before I reached Co- 
 lumbia, the friends of the college, to save it from 
 total ruin, caused the Doctor to be removed from 
 his situation. In doing this they acted with 
 great delicacy and generosity, creating for him 
 a sort of sinecure office, under which, unless he 
 again oscillates out of his orbit, he may enjoy a 
 very competent salary for the rest of his life. 
 
 1 Ibund Doctor Cooper in a pleasant little 
 Tilla, which the ladies of his family had fur- 
 nished with a great many comforts. He re- 
 ceived me very cordially, and although about 
 eighty years old, began to talk with wonderful 
 .energy and vivacity upon a variety of subjects. 
 The Compromise Act, however, was uppermost 
 dn the Doctor's mind, and I soon saw that he 
 did not like it at all, for it had extinguished 
 all the eloquence, patriotism, and achievement 
 which Nullification might have brought forth at 
 SL future day. Upon my congratulating him upon 
 ihat measure, and the happy consequences which 
 "would flow from it, he rose from his easy chair, 
 and although almost bent double like a hook, he 
 seized the hearth-brush, and with his eyes full 
 of fire, and wielding the brush as if it were a 
 broadsword, denounced the Compromise Act as 
 an ignoble measure which he never could ap- 
 prove of; declared that the Nullifiers were quite 
 in the wrong to make peace with the Union 
 men (their opponents in South Carolina), and 
 that it would have been a much better course 
 for them to have taken the field against General 
 Jackson, and have fought all the power he could 
 have brought against them. "We have lost a 
 fine opportunity, sir, of carrying this State to the 
 highest renown," said this little crooked octo- 
 genarian; and then giving General Jackson a 
 desperate cut with the hearth-brush, he went 
 back to his easy chair again. 
 
 I was perfectly delighted with the vivacity of 
 the old gentleman, and never passed a pleasanter 
 •evtr-niiie;. At tea we were joined by some very 
 well-bred neighbours, amongst whom were sever- 
 al ladies, to whom the Doctor, constantly paddling 
 about amongst them, paid hisli vely compliments, 
 and then returned to his chair to laugh and dis- 
 pute about chemistry, geology, law, and, above 
 all, religion and politics. Whatever side of the 
 qnesii in he took he maintained it with wonder- 
 ful energv, and always with pertinacity when 
 he could not do it with reason, as if it was too 
 Intp in life for him to be convinced about such 
 matters. 
 
 The next morning 1 visited the college, which 
 h;id the appearance of being very much neglect- 
 eil; there was a collection of minerals, but it 
 wi- in wretched disorder; indeed everything 
 •<(>fined to be out of place. On my return I 
 i'^int that some gentlemen, with whom I had 
 !'"en previously acquainted, had called upon 
 m°, and I willingly accepted an invitation to 
 .line with one of them. Our party consisted of 
 some gentlemen of the place. Dr. Cooper, and a 
 few professors belonging to the college. Some 
 of them were very .intelligent men. and hearty 
 
 in their manners. What particularly struck me 
 at this dinner was the total want of caution and 
 reserve in the ultra opinions they expressed 
 about religion and politics; on these topics their 
 conversation was not at all addressed to me, but 
 seemed to be a resumption of the opinions they 
 were accustomed to express whenever they met, 
 and upon all occasions. A stranger dropped in 
 amongst them from the clouds would hardly 
 have supposed himself amongst Americans, the 
 language they used and the opinions they ex- 
 pressed were so diametrically opposed to the 
 sell-laudatory strain they too generally indulge 
 in when speaking of their country or them.selves. 
 It was quite new to me to hear men of the better 
 class express themselves openly against a re- 
 publican government, and to listen to discus- 
 sions of great ability, the object of which was 
 to show that there never can be a good govern- 
 ment if it is not administered by gentlemen. 
 Not having shared in the conversation, I ven- 
 tured at one time to name Mr. Madison, at 
 whose house I was in the habit of making au- 
 tumnal visits, as a person that would have 
 ranked as a gentleman in any country; but I 
 was immediately stopped by a declaration that 
 he was a false hypocritical dissembler, that he 
 was one of the favourites of the Sovereign Peo- 
 ple, and one of the worst men the country had 
 produced. At a period of less excitement such 
 a sentiment would not have been tolerated, and 
 I could not but attribute their present pique 
 against this eminent statesman to the inflexible 
 opposition he had given to Nullification, which 
 went to destroy the efficacy of the constitution 
 he had been one of the principal framers of A 
 short time after, something very extravagant 
 having been said, I could not help asking, in a 
 good-natured way, if they called themselves 
 Americans yet; the gentleman who had inter- 
 rupted me before, said, "If you ask me if I am 
 an American, my answer is. No, sir, I am a 
 South Carolinian." If the children of these 
 Nullifiers are brought up in the same opinions, 
 which they are very likely to be, here are fine 
 elements for future disunion; lor, imbibing from 
 their infancy the notion that they are born to 
 command, it will he intolerable to them to sub- 
 mit to be, in their own estimation, the drudges 
 of the northern manufacturers, whom they de- 
 spise as an inferior race of men. Even now 
 there is nothing that a southern man resents so 
 much as to be called a Yimkee, a term which in 
 the Southern States is applied exclusively to the 
 New England people, and in quite as sarcastic 
 a sense as it is sometimes applied in Europe to 
 all citizens of the United States. 
 
 Having secured seats in the mail for the north 
 on the 22nd of January, we were standing near 
 the stage-coach at the door of the tavern waiting 
 the arrival of the mail from Charleston, when it 
 drove up with a negro male slave, about thirty 
 years old, chained fiat on the roof, the poor devil 
 having been overtaken by his master after an 
 inefl"ectual attempt to run away. 
 
 It happened, oddly enough, that a gentleman 
 whom I had met at dinner, and with whom I had 
 had more than once a good deal of conversation, 
 having called to bid me good bye, was at this 
 very moment talking rather earnestly with me 
 on the subject of slavery. Admiring his intelli- 
 gence and the liberality of his sentiments on 
 other subjects, I had ventured to observe — what 
 I had cautiously atistained from doing when in 
 society — that it" detracted very much from the 
 
158 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 estimation in which the gentlemen of South 
 Carolina otherwise deserved to be held, that no 
 relaxatiot. was to be found in their opinions 
 about slavery, and that it seemed to me their 
 stale could never be as prosperous as the north- 
 ern states, as long as they held men in bondage, 
 and relied eniirely upon slave labour. The line 
 of argument he took up in answer to my obser- 
 vation was really very curious, and deserves to 
 be recorded. 
 
 He observed that the working of the institution 
 of slavery (so he dignified this bondage) was not 
 understood out of the slave states ; that it elevated 
 the character of the master, by comparison, made 
 him jealous of his own, and the natural friend of 
 public liberty ; that the dignity of character which 
 had belonged to southern gentlemen, from Wash- 
 ington down to the present times, was unknown 
 to the men of the northern states, and must al- 
 ways be, since one effect of their laws and cus- 
 toms was to cause a division of the estate of 
 every head of a family, on his decease, equally 
 amongst his children, and so compel every one 
 of them to reconstruct a fortune as well as he 
 could; that every body knaw this generated a 
 rapacious spirit, and made the accumulation of 
 wealth the sole object of every man's life. This 
 was not the case in South Carolina, where the 
 planter, whatever might be his transactions, was 
 careful not to encroach upon the character of 
 the gentleman ; and he adduced Mr. Calhoun, 
 the leader of the Nullifying party, as an eminent 
 instance of the justice of what he said. This 
 gentleman, he remarked, was a planter and a 
 slaveholder, who in private life never had been 
 known to be guilty of a mean action, and in pub- 
 lic life had never omitted an opportunity of vin- 
 dicating the constitution from the attempts of 
 sordid persons to pervert its intentions. For 
 these reasons, he said, Mr. Calhoun, independent 
 of his great intellectual powers, was universally 
 honoured in his native state, and was justly look- 
 ed up to bv all as the vigilant guardian of its 
 rights. All these great principles of action, he 
 added, were developed and strengthened by the 
 institution of slavery ; that the slaves were not 
 an unhappy race of men; they were well fed, 
 well clothed ; and if there had "been a necessity 
 for it in the late dispute with the United States 
 government, ihe slaves would have shown to a 
 man their well-known fidelity to their masters. 
 
 I was struck with this justification of slavery, 
 which, notwithstanding its excluding humanity, 
 benevolence, and justice from the list of our du- 
 ties to others, would seem to qualify white men 
 in a very high degree for the enjovment of the 
 compulsory labour of men of a diflferent colour. 
 If it means any thing, it must mean that every 
 man should be a slaveholder in order to the suc- 
 cessful development of his own inherent dignity. 
 
 Just at the moment my friend had finished, 
 the exception to this fidelitv before noticed drove 
 up to where we were talking, chained at full 
 length flat upon the topof the stage. I had seen 
 turtles, and venison, and wild turkeys, and things 
 of that sort, fastened to the top of a stage-coach 
 before, but this was the first black man I ever saw 
 arranged in that manner. Catching a glimpse 
 of him as the stage drove up, I thought it was a 
 bear, or some other animal on its way to the 
 larder; but in a I'ew minutes they handed him 
 down from the top, holding him by the end of his 
 chain, exactly as if he had been a baboon, and 
 then proceeded to hoist him to the top of the 
 stage we were to travel in, and fasten him down 
 there just as he had been before. 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 Inside and Outside Passengers in chains — Bob Chatwood 
 and the Game of All Fours— A Social Bottle— An Over- 
 turn in the dark— Reach Charlotte, in North Carolina — 
 Description of the Gold Region in North Carolina and 
 Virginia— Richmond, in Virginia— The Chesterfield Coal- 
 Field — Speculations respecting it. 
 
 I NOW bade adieu to my friend, and pointing to 
 the poor fellow in bonds, told him that, since I 
 was going to travel with the institution of slavery, 
 I hoped 1 should turn out to be a perfect Hamp- 
 den before the day was over. He laughed and 
 went away, and Mr. T******** and myself took 
 our seats in the stage-coach, not in the least 
 dreaming of what was now going to occur. We 
 were left alone for a few minutes, and I was ru- 
 minating upon the fine theory of the person who 
 had just gone away, and contrasting it with the 
 practical consequences attending the "institu- 
 tion," as exemplified over my head, when a num- 
 ber of persons came out of the kitchen door of 
 the tavern, approached the stage, opened the 
 door with something of a bustle, and handed a 
 young white man into it, about twenty-five years 
 old, with his legs fettered and manacles on his 
 hands. This agreeable object took the hind seat 
 exactly opposite to me, and after him entered a 
 deputy sheriff, in whose custody he was, and a 
 number of low vulgar fellows — all seeming very 
 much in want of shackles — until the stage was 
 full. I was so exceedingly struck with the nov- 
 elty of my situation, travel'ling in a stage- coach 
 with a black man in chains at the top, and a 
 white man chained in the inside, that I could not 
 help calling the agent of the stage to the window- 
 next to my seat, to ask him if he could not get 
 me a yellow man from the mulattos in the street, 
 to chain at the bottom. The man laughed heart- 
 ily, and gave me the history of my opposite 
 neighbour. 
 
 His name was Bob Chatwood, a desperate, 
 gambling, dissolute fellow, from his earliest 
 years. One of Bob's practices was to persuade 
 negroes that he was acquainted with to steal 
 whatever they could from their masters, convert 
 it into money, and then play with them at all- 
 fours, a game some of them are very fond of. 
 There was a black amateur, a great adept at 
 the game, quite equal to Bob at it; and upon one 
 occasion, when they were playing together in a 
 shed by the light of an old lamp, the negro won 
 every game. Bob lost his teinper, and after 
 keeping the black man up almost all night, re- 
 fused in the end to pay his losses; but producing 
 two silver dollars, told him if he could win them 
 he would pay him. Luck still continued on 
 Sambo's side, who, having won the game, in- 
 stantly snatched up the money and ran off. Bob 
 soon overtook him, and in the scuffle which en- 
 sued, finding the black man too strong, he ran a 
 knife into his throat and mortally wounded the 
 poor fellow, who had just strength to get home, 
 tell his story, and expire. 
 
 For this offence Bob was tried, and, being a 
 white man, great sympathy was manifested in 
 his favour. If it had been nothing but an angry 
 scuffle between them, he would probably have 
 been acquitted, but he had committed the unpar- 
 donable sin of playing at cards with a slave for 
 stolen property: this was proved against him at 
 Chesterville, a town throu^:'.; which we were to 
 pass, and he was found guilty of murder. His 
 friends, however, had influence to procure a new 
 trial beforethesuperiorcourt at Columbia, where 
 he had been removed ; but the example was loo 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 159 
 
 dangerous, and the first sentence had just been 
 confirmed, and Bob ordered to be hung in April 
 next. 
 
 The silence which prevailed in the stage-coach 
 for the first mile or two was broken by the dep- 
 uty taking a bottle of liquor from his pocket, 
 putting it to his mouth, and passing it round, 
 when each one, taking his quid of tobacco out 
 for an instant, took a swig. Bob took a very 
 hearty one, and then kindly passed the bottle to 
 me ; who having decHned touching it, the deputy 
 extended his arm, took it out of Bob's manacled 
 paw, corked it, and replaced it in his pocket. 
 They now began to talk politics; all of them 
 were Nullifiers except Bob, and Bob was for 
 General Jackson, probably thinking that the best 
 chance he stood for his life depended upon a suc- 
 cessful invasion of the state, and a general clear- 
 ing out of the gaols. The bottle continued to 
 circulate from time to time; but Bob, finding me 
 so unsocial, ceased offering it to me, whether 
 from policy or displeasure I could not tell. He 
 looked very tiioughtful at times, as if his fate 
 was uppermost in his mind ; but he was always 
 ready for the bottle, and, alter he had drunk, was 
 sometimes livelier than any of them, getting into 
 long stories about cock-fighting, and horse-ra- 
 cing, and card-playing, that showed he was a 
 perfect character in his line. The deputy and 
 the other fellows laughed and joked and told their 
 stories, treating Bob exactly as if they were Ms 
 equals. This agreeable illusion seemed to cheer 
 him a little, and to last until the last swig at the 
 bottle had ceased to warm him, and until there 
 was a momentary silence; then I used to ob- 
 serve, especially towards the close of the day, that 
 a dreadful change would come over his features, 
 as if tiie unfortunate wretch was picturing to 
 himself his last moments, when the gallows and 
 the hemp were standing ready to receive him. 
 They had soon emptied the first bottle, and had 
 replenished it at some place where we had chan- 
 ged horses; but this too htcame nullified , and then 
 the whole party of blackguards seemed disposed 
 to sleep, and left me to such reflections as could 
 not fail to occupy my mind, shut up as I was in 
 a vehicle conveying such a horrid combination 
 of beings. 
 
 We had made fifty-five miles, and were dri- 
 ving on rather rapidly in the dark, having only 
 five miles more to Chesterville, when the stage, 
 having got into a deep rut, was suddenly upset 
 on the side where I was, and my head coming to 
 the hard ground with a violent blow, I received 
 a severe contusion. All had now to get out and 
 assist to replace the stage on its wheels. The 
 black fellow who was chained to the top was ex- 
 ceedingly amused with the incident, and got into 
 one of his negro fits of laughter; he was tired of 
 his recumbent position, and had now, without 
 any trouble or hurt, got into a vertical one. We 
 could scarce see each other, and an opportunity 
 might have occurred of Bob's hiding himself 
 away in the woods ; but the deputy and the other 
 fellows immediately convinced him that he was 
 not quite one of themselves, by lashing him to a 
 tree, before they assisted the driver with the 
 stage. As for myself, I had such a violent head- 
 ache with the blow I had got, that it was impos- 
 sible for me to assist them or bear the motion of 
 the stage. I determined therefore to walk, dark 
 as it was, slowly on to Chesterville, where I ar- 
 rived in about two hours and a half, the stage 
 coming up with me as I was entering the place. 
 Our drive this day was over decomposed fer- 
 
 ruginous slates ; and occasionally, as we drew 
 northward, gneiss and greenstone appeared in 
 the ravines, with a decomposing rock, which 
 looked like elvan, frequent veins and beds of 
 which are fi)und in the Gold Region of North 
 Carolina, which we were now ap|iroaching. 
 
 From Chesterville, where we left the motley 
 crew we had been travelling with, black and 
 white, we continued twenty-one miles to York- 
 ville, a small village, and pursuing our journey- 
 thirty miles to Charlotte, in North Carolina, 
 crossed the CtUav-l)a River, which lies halfway 
 betwixt these two towns, into that state. It was 
 night before we reached Charlotte; and I went 
 immediately to bed, suffering severely from the 
 contusion 1 had received. 
 
 Feeling myself refreshed by my night's rest, 
 and my headache having very much abated, I. 
 descended the next morning to a comfortable 
 breakfast; and afterwards sallied out to examine 
 the neighbourhood, which has acquired a little 
 celebrity by the establishment of some mills here, 
 for the purpose of crushing the gold ore which 
 abounds so much in this part of the country. 
 
 What is called the Gold Region in the United 
 States, may be described as a metalliferous bell; 
 extending in a south-west direction from the Po- 
 tomac River to the heads of the Talapoosa, ia 
 the State of Alabama, running: in its course 
 through the States of Virginia, North Carolina, 
 South Carolina, and Georgia. The length of 
 this belt is about GOOmiles, and it has a mean, 
 breadth from its southern to its northern edge of 
 about eighty. In every part of this extensive 
 line native gold is found in alluvial deposits, and 
 in various streams, whilst the contiguous rocky- 
 strata abound in quartzose veins more or less- 
 auriferous. From the nature and position of the^, 
 alluvial deposits, the manner in which they are"^ 
 sitLiated in relation to the stream, and the gen- 
 eral modification which the surface has received 
 from one end of the line to the other, it is impos- 
 sible to avoid the conclusion tha-t there has been, 
 at some remote period, a great degradation of 
 the ancient surface, and that the metallic and 
 stony contents of the alluvial deposits are com- 
 posed of the ruins of the old rocks. Nothing i.s 
 more common in these deposits than to find 
 masses cif quartz with small lumps of native 
 gold imbedded in them, resembling in every par- 
 ticular others which are taken from veins now 
 in place, the heaviest masses being always found 
 nearest to the auriferous strata, and the particles 
 of gold dust at the greatest distance fram them. 
 
 The auriferous quartzose veins in the gold 
 region are singularly abundant, and are either 
 found in a formation of which talcose slate is 
 the characteristic rock — as in Viiginia — or are 
 sheathed with talcose slate, and hold an almost 
 vertical position in elvan beds and beds of ferri>- 
 ginous .slates, as in North Carolina ; so that tal- 
 cose rocks characterize the entire Gold Regiou 
 from one extreme to the other. These talcose 
 rocks are continued north from the Potomac, 
 running in the same north-east direction through, 
 the northern portion of the United States to the 
 River St. Lawrence, south of Q.uebec. I have 
 traced them through the whole of this extended 
 line, and although gold is not found in every 
 part of it as on the south side of the Potomac, 
 yet it is eminently metalliferous in c()i)per and 
 lead, and native gold has been found uj'.on it in 
 various localities even as far as the extreme 
 point to which it has been traced. Asa metal- 
 liferous deposit it is, therefore, one of the most 
 
160 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 Temarkable geological features of the continent 
 of North America, running parallel to, and in 
 some parts Ibrming a portion of, the great ele- 
 vated Alleghany belt. 
 
 The gold region in Virginia is a singularly 
 beauiiiul country, especially in a western direc- 
 tion from the town of Fredericsburg, on tlie 
 Rapahannock River. When the discovery of 
 this metal there began to be first talked of some 
 years ago, I passed a great deal of my time in 
 ihose lovely woodland districts, where the whole 
 country is thrown into hills gracefully rounded 
 by the action of water, and where the clear 
 streams in the valleys run through the alluvial 
 ■deposits, consisting of the ruins of the rocks 
 which had once united the hills by a more ele- 
 vated surface. With a clean room to retire to 
 at a settler's residing far in the woods, and 
 abundance of milk and bread, and bacon, and 
 tea and sugar to comfort myself with when I re- 
 turned at night fatigued with my day's excur- 
 sion, the time stole away most agreeably and 
 rapidly. Many a time, when wandering by one 
 of those murmuring brooks, and listening to the 
 rich and varied melody of the mocking-bird, 
 whose favourite breeding-place is in these groves, 
 have I dipped out the auril'erous gravel, washed 
 it in a pan that I carried about with me, and 
 thus collected in the course of the day native 
 -gold of the value of from five to ten shillings. 
 In a i'ew of the streams the grains were very 
 abundant, and I have known some of those per- 
 sons who then began to follow gold-finding as an 
 occupation, collect as much as the value of a 
 guinea or two in the course of a day. 
 
 "Upon one occasion I visited an extensive allu- 
 vial deposit in the county of Louisa, where great 
 success had attended the operations, some per- 
 sons having unexpectedly come upon an' extra- 
 ordinary rich bed of auriferous gravel, from 
 which in six days they extracted native gold, in 
 grains, of the value often thousand dollars. This 
 Ireasuie, when I saw it, had a very odd appear- 
 ance, for the proprietors had put it into glass 
 botiles; it was a large sum, and people at a dis- 
 tance were not disposed to believe so much gold 
 had been found there; but there it was, I saw it 
 weighed, and could entertain no doubt upon the 
 subfect. Soon after this discovery, the vein from 
 whence it was derived was also found, consist- 
 ing of a pale porous quartz, thickly studded with 
 knobs and lamina of native gold, and upon com- 
 paring specimens of it — which I was permitted 
 to do— with the contents of the bottles, I found 
 that many of the pepitna, or knobs of gold, cor- 
 responded in form, although the alluvial gold 
 was rounded and worn by the action of water. 
 
 I also visited another verv interesting place. 
 Some children playing on the side of a hill, on 
 pulling up some bunches of grass, found numer- 
 ous particles of gold mixed up with the earth, 
 which inducing their father to dig into it, he 
 came to a very extensive pocket or cavity, at 
 the bottom of which was an immense quantity 
 of yellitw earthy matter (decomposed felspar) 
 with pepitas in it, some of the finest specimens 
 of which I purchased for my cabinet. He now 
 got two or three hired negroes to assist him, and 
 this stuff was wheeled to the brook which ran at 
 the foot of the hill and washed. Although the 
 operation was conducted in a very wasteful 
 manner, he nevertheless sometimes obtained 
 gold to the amount of one thousand dollars in 
 the course of the day. The last time I visited 
 liis mine I was sorry to find him under very 
 
 changed circumstances, for having extracted ah 
 the loose earth from the pocket, he had made his 
 assistants dig various adits at random into the 
 hill without propping the roofs up, in conse- 
 quence of which a ponderous mass of earth gave 
 way and killed one of his hired negroes, whose 
 full value he was obliged to pay to the proprie- 
 tor. This untoward event had created a preju- 
 dice against his mind, and, as he told me, "had 
 turned all the luck against him." I found, how- 
 ever, that the true cause of the reverses which 
 overtook him was more deeply seated than this, 
 for in his confidence in the resources of the mine, 
 he had, a short time before, purchased the fee- 
 simple of the place of the owner, had paid him 
 on account almost all the cash he had obtained 
 for his gold, and had mortgaged the place for the 
 remainder. Having no ready money left, and 
 the mine requiring both skill and capital — nei- 
 ther of which he possessed — to carry it on, the 
 mortgagee took advantage of his necessity and 
 proceeded to foreclose the mortgage; so that he 
 was in a likely way to lay down his character 
 of gold-miner and go back to his first occupation 
 of gold-finder by washing gravel at the brooks. 
 
 The general direction of the auriferous veins 
 of quartz in this part of Virginia is north-east 
 and south-west — a fact which appears to identi- 
 fy their origin with that of the great belt of the 
 AUeghanies: they are very numerous, and oc- 
 cur in some places every two or three hundred 
 yards, often branching out into narrow ramifica- 
 tions, and uniting again into one vein from four 
 to six feet broad. The veins go down almost 
 vertically, and upon being broken up are gener- 
 ally found loaded with ferruginous matter, or 
 crystals of sulphuret of iron containing thin la- 
 mina of gold. Near the surface these crystals 
 are very much decomposed, and often present 
 particles of gold lying free amongst a quantity 
 of oxide of iron. In some instances the cry^tal- 
 line structure of the pyrites is beautifully ex- 
 hibited, the incipient decomposition of the crys- 
 tal showing the complex laminated structure of 
 the interior, where bright lamina of native gold 
 are seen leaning against the parietes, with trans- 
 parent crystals of sulphur formed from the de- 
 composition of the sulphuret. In some instan- 
 ces the veins of quartz contain no sulphuret of 
 iron, but present, on being fractured, knobs and 
 particles of native ffold, which form a brilliant 
 contrast to the pure whiteness of the quartz. In 
 almost every case, however, where shafts have 
 been sunk upon a vein, the quartzose matter de- 
 creases in quantity as the vein descends, and at 
 a mine in Orange Countv which I visited, the 
 contents of the vein became more and more py- 
 ritical as it descended, until, at a depth of 120 
 feet, no more quartzose matter appeared, and the 
 entire vein was composed of a finely granulated 
 sulphuret of iron. Although there are a few 
 known localities in Virginia where the native 
 gold is alloyed with silver, and many where tel- 
 lurium abounds in the veins, yet the native gold 
 is generally very little alloyed, rising as high as 
 twenty-three or twenty-three and a half carats, 
 which is gold nearly in its pure state. 
 
 Through the kindness of Mr. Bissel, an intel- 
 ligent and experienced gold-miner, who has su- 
 perintended the operation of the gold-mills in the 
 vicinity of Charlotte, I had an opportunity of 
 examining the ores of this part of the State of 
 North Carolina. Those which are now broken 
 at the Charlotte Mills are brought from a mine 
 at some distance called Capp's, which in com- 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 161 
 
 pany with Mr. Bissel I visited, and went down 
 the shaft that has been sunk to a depth of Hid 
 feet. The quartz vein here was sheathed vviili 
 a case of lalcose slate, and the elvan rocks 
 through which it descended, although in some 
 places hard, were very prone to decomposition. 
 The gold was everywhere associated with iron, 
 and seldom visible. Near to this 1 saw an in- 
 stance of a flat vein or floor of auriferous quartz, 
 -which seemed in its progress from below, when 
 in a semiliquid state, to have poured itself oni 
 right and left, and to have completely covered 
 the elvan to a considerable distance. We visit- 
 ed also another vein which had been opened, in 
 one part of which specks of gold appeared, bin 
 ■which was very rich in sulphuret of copper. 
 From various copper ores which were shown to 
 me, 1 imagine that that metal will hereafter be 
 found more productive in North Carolina than 
 gold. The ores are unusually rich, and I think 
 •will repay those who at some future day may 
 cause them to be skilfully treated. At present 
 there seems to be no information of this kind in 
 the Slate. As to gold-mining, I do not learn that 
 any perscm has become enriched by it: it is n 
 fascinating pursuit and has attracted many, but 
 the average value of the ore, as far as I can 
 learn, does not p.xceed two shillings and sixpence 
 the bushel of lOOUs. ; and whether such ore en 
 be extracted from deep mines, brought to the 
 surface, broken, triturated, amalgnmaied, and its 
 precious material finally incited into bars of pure 
 gold, at a profit, is verv doubtful. That some 
 localities may yield a fair return for the great 
 capital which gold-mining involves is very prob- 
 able, and I have se^n some ores that would in- 
 spire me vi'iih confidence; but I should as soon 
 think of purchasing every ticket in a lottery for 
 the sake of securing the great prize, as of expend- 
 ing capital in working some of the mines I have 
 visited. 
 
 Having passed mv first day here very agree- 
 ably and instructively, I sallied out alone on the 
 next, and wandered around the neighbourhood, 
 in many parts of which are feldsphatic rocks 
 chequered with a great number of auriferous 
 quartz veins, whilst in particular areas talcose 
 and other slates are found loaded with fer- 
 ruginous matter. Wherever the ferruginous 
 slates occur the soil is red, and where the elvan 
 rocks prevail it is dry, sandyish, and has a pale 
 arenaceous colou'--, the colour and constitution 
 of the soil conspicuously announcing the nature 
 of the subjacent rocks. But the most remark- 
 able mineral which I have seen in America, 
 both on account of its great beauty and its rarity, 
 is a singular felspathic dyke of a pale colour, of 
 the variety' which the "Germans have named 
 Weis.s-stein. but spotted with brown and brown- 
 ish black cylindrical or oblong infiltrations, often 
 several inches in length, and from the size of a 
 pin's head to half an inch in diameter. These, 
 in transversal sections, appear more or less in 
 the form of orbicular spots in proportion as the 
 slabs are cut parallelly to the horizontal rifts in 
 the lock, and somewhat resemble the spots on a 
 leopard's skin. They appear to owe their origin 
 to infiltrations of oxides of manganese and iron 
 in solution, and contain, as well as the mass in 
 •which they are enclosed, minute doul)le six-sided 
 pyramids of quartz, and small reddish particles, 
 probably of the garnet kind.* There is also an- 
 
 * I broiiffht a ina«riiifinent specimen of this rock to Eng- 
 land in 18.'?^. weighing about SOOlbs. ; and my friend Dr. 
 X 
 
 other variety in the same dyke, perhaps not less 
 beautiful, where the infiltrations have uniformly 
 taken the dendritic form. The dyke is very ex- 
 tensive, and is a short half-hour's walk from the 
 village of Charlotte. 
 
 At midnight on the 26th, we got again into the 
 stage and drove to a small place called Lexing- 
 ton to breakfast, passing through the town of 
 Salisbury and crossing the Yadkin River on our 
 way. Tliis part of the United States, like many 
 other mineral regions, is not particularly fertile: 
 some pretty -situai ions occur here and there but 
 the country is often barren and has a homely 
 appearance compared with parts of the Gold 
 Region in Virginia. The settlers in this part 
 of North Carolina seem to be a quiet old-fashion- 
 ed people, contented with little, and not at all 
 disposed to trouble themselves with the mania 
 of internal improvements, or even to practice 
 any but the most primitive methods of preparing 
 their food. The richest lands in the State lie 
 more towards the Atlantic coast, and upon the 
 margins of some of the rivers; but I have always 
 heard that they are exceedingly unhealthy, and 
 should suppose so from the sallow, languid ap- 
 pearance of the people I have occasionally seen 
 from that quarter. 
 
 At Lexington I heard of some bituminous coal 
 that lay to the south on Deep River, and should 
 have visited the locality if 1 could have procured 
 a conveyance there. I determined, however, to 
 revisit the coal-field of Chesterfield in Virginia, 
 with which it is not improbable it may have a 
 geological connection. From Lexington we 
 went to Greensborough, and thence to Danville 
 upon the River Dan, one of the head branche.s 
 of the Roanoke River. 
 
 Here we crossed into the State of Virginia, 
 but being in the early part of the morning the 
 circumsiance was not adverted to, until, about 
 daylight, stopping at a tavern to change horses 
 and breakfast, and coming into the room from 
 the well, I was so exceedingly surprised at see- 
 ing on the table a great variety of beautiful-look- 
 ing bread, made both from fine wheaien flower 
 and Indian corn, that I exclaimed, " Bless me, 
 we must be in Virginia!" The mistress of the 
 house laughed when I explained to her that I 
 had not seen any good bread since I left New 
 Orleans, and that I knew I must be in Virginia 
 as soon as I saw that upon her table. This is 
 strictly true of Virginia bread, which is made up 
 into so many forms, and is so white, and light, 
 and excellent, that it is impossible, with the aid 
 of the good milk to be found in almost every 
 house, to make a bad repast. 
 
 These parts of Virginia, like the correspond- 
 ing midland countries of North Carolina, are 
 rather barren, and consequently are poorly set- 
 tled. We passed no village of any consequence 
 until we reached Cartersville, on James River, 
 a poor woe-begone place named after one of the 
 old distinguished families of Virginia. On our 
 way here I observed nothing in all the ravines 
 we passed — for there the stnUa are usually laid 
 bare — but the usual primary rocks that occupy 
 the area lying between the tide waters of the 
 Atlantic arid the mountains. Gneiss, traversed 
 bv broad granitic veins, hornblende slates, sien- 
 itic rocks, in many beautiful varieties, were 
 constantly alternating with each other. 
 
 Tfnrkland pronounrins it an unique, I presented it to the 
 British Museum, where, under the direrlion »f Mr. Konig, 
 it has been made into two very remarkable tablets. 
 
162 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 At Cartersville I succeeded in making an ar- 
 rangement which enabled me to deviate from the 
 mail-stage route and get lo Richmond, the capi- 
 tal of the State of Virginia. The upper part of 
 this town is advantageously situated upon a hill 
 which commands a fine view of the James River 
 and the adjacent country, a circumstance which 
 forms some analogy to the situation of Rich- 
 mond-on-Thames in England, and has suggested 
 the name it bears. A few pretty situations, and 
 cheerful villa-looking houses built in this quar- 
 ter, make at first a favourable impression upon 
 travellers; but the lower town, which swarms 
 with negro coal-heavers, is about one of the dirt- 
 iest places in America. Being at the head of 
 tide-water navigation — which terminates here at 
 the Falls, where the stream breaks so beautifully 
 over the primary rocks— some fossiliferous de- 
 posits of considerable extent are found on the 
 banks of the river. The hill upon which the 
 court-house stands seems to be formed of a con- 
 geries of minute fossils and casts of moUusca; 
 but of these, and the extensive tertiary and sub- 
 cretaceous beds farther down James River, 
 which were visited by me in 183-2, 1833, I defer 
 saying anything at present, being desirous of 
 confining my attention exclusively to the coal- 
 deposits that lie between the tide-water districts 
 and the Alleghanies, of which those in the Rich- 
 mond district have been regularly worked, and 
 which disclose phenomena deserving the notice 
 of geologists.* 
 
 I had already, when visiting my friends in the 
 year 1832, in this part of Virginia, traced the 
 out-croppings of the coal veins in the Richmond 
 district at various points, lying from north-east 
 to south-west, a course which seems to be in 
 harmony with the magnetic direction of the 
 principal mineral phenomena on this continent. 
 The Appomaiiox River, which empties into 
 James River a few miles below Petersburg, ap- 
 peared to be its limit to the south ; and the out- 
 crops had not been traced farther to the north 
 than the country betwixt the heads of the Chiek- 
 ahominy and the Pamunkey rivers, giving an 
 apparent length to this coal-field of about thir- 
 ty miles. Of its breadth the indications were 
 more imperfect, and consisted principally in the 
 difference of character betwixt the sedimentary 
 grits and shales lying on the surface of the 
 ground, and the soil derived from the decom- 
 posed primary rocks of the surrounding coun- 
 try : it probably, however, has a maximum 
 breadth of fifteen miles. As to the depth of the 
 basin, it of course varies with the conformation 
 of its granitic bottom and sides. In Mr. Heath's 
 Maidenhead mine, the coal is taken from a 
 magnificent seam near thirty feet thick, at a depth 
 of about 400 feet; and in other places the work- 
 ings are carried on at a depth of even 600 feet. 
 The shafts which have been sunk are at some 
 distance from the outcrop, and are carried down 
 upon calculations proper to intersect the veins 
 and cut them out advantageously. 
 
 I believe I was the first to notice— in a com- 
 munication to the Geological Society of London 
 in 1828— th it there was an apparent deficiency 
 in North A merica of twenty one important stra- 
 
 * I would refer those who are desirous of seeing many 
 interesting ilel;tils of tins coal-fieUi presented in a faithful 
 and instructive manner, to nn able paper on the subject by 
 Mr. Richard C. Taylor, in "Transactions of the Geological 
 Society of Pennsylvania," vol. i.. 1835. The great experi- 
 ence and mnture judgment of that gentleman, in matters re- 
 lating to the structure of coal-fields, are highly appreciated 
 Loth in Europe and America. 
 
 ta of European rocks, estimated to contain a ge- 
 ological thickness of upwards of 5000 feet, com- 
 prehending all the beds from the Exeter red con- 
 glomerate, to the Weald clay, both inclusive 
 and that, consequently, the coal measures came' 
 at once to the surface; as in the instances on 
 the banks of the Potomac, above Cumberland, 
 where the broad seams of bituminous coal lie 
 exposed in the sides of the hills far above the 
 level of the river; on the Ohio, in the neighbour- 
 hood of Pittsburg; o-n the Mononghahela; on 
 the Kentucky River; and in many other situa- 
 tions. In all these localities the coal-fields con- 
 form to their place in the geological series of 
 rocks belonging to England, having sedimentary 
 strata beneath them. But in the Richmond dis- 
 trict, where the country is level, and the coal 
 comes equally to the surface, the mineral being 
 found at great depths, with no sedimentary beds 
 beneath it, is consequently in an extensive basin 
 or chasm of primary rocks. And such is proved, 
 to be the case upon an examination of the rocks 
 through which the shafts aie sunk, and those upon 
 which the whole contents of the basin repose. 
 
 By the kind attentions of Mr. Heath, I re- 
 ceived every facility for the examination of his 
 coal-works, and a list of all the beds overlying; 
 the coal. Specimens of these were also given 
 me, consisting of sandstones exceedingly mica- 
 ceous, of sandy grits, of carbonaceous and argil- 
 laceous shales of various colours more or less- 
 conglomerated, and of every variety of sedimen- 
 tary matter derived from the destruction of the 
 older rocks, including fragments of crystals of 
 felspar. The coal itself lies upon a coanse gran- 
 ite of the porphyritic kind, containing great 
 quantities of red crystals of felspar, resembling 
 the Shapfell granite in England. That the bot- 
 tom of this basin is of a rugged character, is ev- 
 ident from the fact of huge knobs of the granite 
 frequently protruding themselves above the coal,, 
 which lies betwixt these knobs in such thick 
 masses as to induce an opinion that at some time 
 or other it has been in a pasty or semi-fluid state, 
 and has been compressed into every cranny of 
 the chasm by the pressure of at least 400 feet of 
 sedimentary matter. All the coal seams in the 
 basin which have hitherto been worked, compre- 
 hending a thickness said to be of from fifty ta 
 sixty feet, lie beneath this enormous weight. 
 
 The extraordinary spectacle which this coal 
 
 basin presents suggests many reflections, both in 
 
 regard to the origin of that mineral, the ancient 
 
 state of the surface of the earth in this part of 
 
 North America, and the period of time requisite 
 
 to bring the basin into its present condition. 
 
 Some eminent geologists have entertained the 
 
 opinion that the vegetable matter represented in 
 
 coal seams did not grow where it is found, but 
 
 that it is a deposit derived from forest trees and 
 
 plants, deracinated by violent inundation, and 
 
 drifted into estuaries ; analogous to the case of 
 
 the great deposit of lignite at Bovey Heathfield, 
 
 in Devonshire, which was probably removed 
 
 from the neighbouring uplands of Dartmoor, not 
 
 earlier than the conclusion of the tertiary period;. 
 
 j or to the ca.se of the great rafis on Red River,, 
 
 : which have been described in this (our. That 
 
 I many deposits of coal may have had an origin 
 
 ': of this kind is probable ; but I am now more 
 
 than ever inclined to the opinion I long ago ex- 
 
 pres.sed, that the American coal-fields are to be 
 
 accounted for in a very different manner, and 
 
 which, I think, is less obnoxious to the charge 
 
 I of being hypothetical. The considerations upon 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 163 
 
 -which this theory is founded may be thus st 
 
 ated. 
 
 * My attention having been drawn away of late years 
 from geological pursuits, I may, for aught 1 know to tlie 
 contrary, be urging the refutation of the drifting theory, 
 when it is no longef maintained. That was not the case 
 certainly when 1 first publicly expressed luy objections to it 
 in 1829, 1831). In the year 1829, when the science of geol- 
 ogy was regarded with very little favour in the United 
 •States, I delivered a course of geological lectures in the 
 city of New York, for the benefit of the Lyceum of Natural 
 History, an excellent .society, in that city, conducted by 
 Ameriran gentlemen of great intelligence, which had strug- 
 gled with many difficulties in its attempt to support the 
 cause of natural science. The favoural)le reception they 
 met with induced me to repeat them in the city of Phila- 
 delphia in the year 1830. The expensive canal system of 
 Pennsylvania having been undertaken for the purpose of 
 bringing anthracite coal to that city. I devoted one lecture 
 upon this last occasion exclusively to the subject, and took 
 a general view of the coal strata of North America, as far us 
 I was then acquainted with them. These lectures, being 
 the first that ever vrere delivered in the United States on 
 the science of geology, were exceedingly pojiular: they 
 were published immediately after their delivery ; and to 
 show that 1 have been consistent in my opinions, I venture 
 to make the following extracts from them :— 
 
 " The great carbonaceous deposits in all parts of the 
 ■world with which we are acquainted appear to be, as well 
 in Europe as in America, in the same part of the geological 
 series (these lectures were illustrated by Sir H. de la 
 Beetle's Synopsis of the order of Rocks, which had only ap- 
 peared the year before, and which was exhibited upon 
 these occasions on a very large scale), and to repose either 
 upon the conglomerate grits and shales, or some limestones 
 of the carboniferous series. From the difference which ex- 
 ists betwixt the quality of the anthracite and bituminous 
 coals, and from the manner in which the first are found em- 
 bedded in the mountains, some persons in America have 
 been led to suppose that such coal was of mineral origin ; 
 but no one practically conversant with the structure of 
 these coal basins, or who has attended to the analysis of 
 coal, has been known to express an opinion different from 
 that universally entertained by men of science, that coal, 
 whether bituminous or non-bituminous, is of vegetable or- 
 igin. The coal strata are in fact, whether in the state of 
 lignite, anthracite, or bituminous coal, the residua of vege- 
 table bodies in various stages of bituminisation, the non-bi- 
 tuminous state of the anthracitic varieties being probably 
 due to accidental causes. 
 
 " The beginning and progress of vegetable creation has 
 been traced with great felicity and beauty of reasoning by 
 some eminent per.sons in Europe, amongst whom M. 
 Adolphe Brogniart deserves to be conspicuously mention- 
 ed : to them we owe the just ideas which now prevail re- 
 ■specting vegetable life, from the first dawnings of plants of 
 the simplest structure, to the solid monarchs of the forests 
 of our own times. According to the natural system of bot- 
 any, plants are divided into acotyledons withlobeless seeds, 
 monocotyledons with seeds having one lobe, and dicotyle- 
 dons with seeds of two lobes. The impressions of coal 
 plants found in the rocks up to the coal measures inclusive, 
 afford no evidence that any plants but those of the simplest 
 structure existed at that time : all were of the first kind, 
 or acotyledonous ; and the inference to be drawn from that 
 fact is that trees having seeds with lobes had not been pro- 
 duced up to that period, and that their appearance was re- 
 served for a time approaching nearer to the present order 
 of nature. We are entitled, therefore, to draw the legiti- 
 mate inference that the coal beds of North America are de- 
 rived not from such forest-trees as grow in our own times, 
 but from the tropical vegetation which the high tempera- 
 ture of the globe produced at that period, and from the 
 Sphagna or ilosses which grew in the immense areas of the 
 low, swampy ccjuntry which represented America when 
 this country first emerged from the ocean. We have al- 
 ready seen how progressively 'dry land' has been redeem- 
 ed from the ocean in every part of the world, and how, by 
 causes of a providential character inherent in our planet, it 
 has been gradually raised to a height above the water suffi- 
 cient for the economical uses of those destined to live upon 
 it. Amongst the instances of upheaval of the surface, may 
 be conspicuously named the elevation of mountain chains, 
 bearing along with them the once horizontal strata with 
 their associate minerals, and especially the system of the 
 Great Belt of the AUeghanies, which has divided the car- 
 boniferous area of the continent by coming up in the centre 
 of its axis, and leaving the upraised mineral deprived of its 
 bitumen by the influence of the cause which upheaved the 
 chain itself. That such was the modification of the sur- 
 face at that pec-Uiar period we can appeal to the highly 
 inclined state of the formations subjacent to the coal strata 
 everywhere, and to the general horizontality of the succeed- 
 JOig deposits." 
 
 From the State of Alabama to Pictou, in Nova 
 Scotia, the coal-bed.s, with some interruptions, 
 can be followed, in a north-east direction, for 
 about 1500 miles; and from Richmond, in Vir- 
 ginia, to Rock River, in the State of Illinois, ihey 
 are continually crossed at right angles for a dis- 
 tance of about 800 miles. The vast geographi- 
 cal extent of these carboniferous strata would 
 seem of itself to exclude the drifting theory ; the 
 objections to which are increased by the varying 
 nature of the mineral, and the manner in which 
 it is brought to the surface, as exhibited upon the 
 transverse line. At Richmond we find the coal 
 bituminous, and proceeding on that line in a di- 
 rection west-north-west to Rock River, we cross 
 the great Alleghany belt, where the coal is of the 
 anthracite or non-bituminous variety, and con- 
 forms to the rock strata in their flexures and 
 tilled state; but having passed this belt, the stra- 
 ta become horizontal, and the coal assumes the 
 same level position. Now these varieties of 
 coal found upon this transverse line appear to 
 belong to the same part of the geological series, 
 for the mineral is always found associated with 
 the same conglomerate grit and shale, except in 
 a few instances where it lies upon other beds of 
 the carboniferous rocks, and excepting the gran- 
 ite basin in the Richmond district. No argu- 
 ment, therefore, can be raised in favour of the 
 drifting theory, from the difference in any of the 
 circumstances which separate the anthracitic 
 and bituminous beds, althbugh a fair inference 
 may be raised that the anthracite coal was lifted 
 out of its horizontal position when the great Al- 
 leghany belt was upheaved, and that its non-bi- 
 tuminous quality is owing to the influence of the 
 calorific intensity which accompanied that up- 
 heaval. 
 
 The next link in this argument is the period 
 at which this great dynamic action took place. 
 We have before seen that the entire oolitic se- 
 ries is wanting in North America, and that, with 
 few exceptions, the coal formations are the latest 
 deposits there. Considering, therefore, the high- 
 ly inclined state of the subjacent formations, and 
 the horizontality of the succeeding deposits in 
 every known part of the world, we cannot but 
 admit the accordance of these disturbing opera- 
 tions of nature at the same period in both hem- 
 ispheres, and come to the conclusion that these 
 coal-fields were formed before the period of the 
 oolitic system, and, consequently, before mono- 
 cotyledonous plants or forest trees existed. From 
 these data, it would appear more consistent with 
 the progressive simplicity of the providential 
 plan for enlarging and preparing the surface of 
 this planet for the increasing wants of man, to 
 suppose that, immediately preceding the eleva- 
 tion of the Alleghany belt, the American conti- 
 nent had barely emerged from the ocean, and 
 was in a general marecageous state. From the 
 common tropical character of coal plants, wher- 
 ever found, we infer a high degree of tempera- 
 ture for the globe even in the northern latitudes, 
 and may suppose an extraordinary exuberance 
 of growth in the vegetable bodies of that period. 
 The plants, therefore, whose impression we find 
 in the coal shales, may have grown in the driest 
 parts of the nascent land; and where great 
 swampy basins or depressions existed, these, as 
 the land gradually rose, would become partially 
 drained, and be subsequently occupied with 
 s.j)hogna, or mosses. The causes which were in 
 action at that geological »period are f;ir from be- 
 ing understood, but we have abundant evidence, 
 
164 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 in numerous parts of the world, that portions of 
 the surface were subject to frequent submert^ion 
 and re-appearance, becoming submarine and 
 terrestrial liy turns.'and receiving additional de- 
 posits every time they were depressed. In this 
 manner a bed of sphagnum, 100 feet deep, being 
 submerged, would re<eive a deposit of earthy 
 matter that would press it down ; and upon 
 coming to the surface again its growth might be 
 repeated, and the area be again submitted to 
 submersion and receive a new sedimentary de- 
 posit. I have seen beds of sphagnum in JNonh 
 America probed for sixty feel without coming tu 
 the bottom, all of them connected with lakes or 
 ponds in a partial state of desiccation, and which, 
 if acted upon by similar causes, would end in 
 the production Of similar phenomena. This 
 probably was the case with the coal basin in the 
 Richmond district, the seams there being separ- 
 ated by earthy deposits, and the basin itself at 
 length filled up with near 100 different beds of 
 sedimentary matter. Everything concurs to 
 prove that 'these were not rieposiied simultane- 
 ously, but that their deposition was effected at 
 distinct intervals; for they are not only fVequent- 
 ly different in their nature and quality, but in 
 various seams of bitii'.ninous shale, some of 
 which are at least 100 feet ;:bove the coal, fossil 
 coal plants — of which I made an ample collec- 
 tion—are found, of great ber.tuy. The dynamic 
 periods, then, must have been succeeded by pe- 
 riods of repose sufficiently long to have permit- 
 ted the growth of equiseta, calamites, and oth- 
 er plants, whose impressions are found there. 
 These may have grown in the shaly mud where 
 their impressions are now seen; but whether or 
 not, it is impossible to escape the conclusion 
 that immense periods of time are involved in the 
 structure of this coal-field. 
 
 It is a matter of great utilitarian consideration 
 tor the United States to have it ascertained 
 whether this coal-field forms part of a line con- 
 necting those carboniferous localities lying far- 
 ther to the south in North Carolina, Georgia, 
 and ilabama, which run parallel with the coal 
 strata to the west. Those in Alabama are well 
 known ; but of those in Georgia only obscure 
 indications have hi to existed. As far as 1 
 have been able to r e myself acquainted with 
 them, all these co' .rata trend in the same mag- 
 netic direction r .\.E. S.W.; and as they are 
 all on the east SK,eof the Alleghany belt, it may 
 be that hereafter they may be found to be upon 
 the same magnetic line, and to be contempora- 
 neous. If this should be the case, the coal-fields 
 of North America will exhibit the singularly in- 
 structive geolnoical phenomenon of a carbonif- 
 erous area, 1500 miles long and 800 miles broad, 
 divided into two bituminous districts by an ele 
 vated belt, in which the central part of the coal 
 has lost its bitumen through the agency of the 
 force which lifted it up. 
 
 Having finished my observations at this place, 
 I had the happiness of rejoining my family the 
 evening of the day of my departure from Rich- 
 mond, after accomplishing a tour of at least 
 3000 miles. 
 
 CONCLUDING CHAPTER. 
 
 The manner in which Mr. Jefferson has been 
 alluded to in the preceding pages, may, perhaps, 
 be deemed unjustifiable by those who, unac- 
 
 quainted with the details of the life and charac- 
 ter of that celebrated person, have formed their 
 opinions of him either from those who have eulo- 
 gised him for the conspicuous part he took in en- 
 couraging his fellow-countrymen to throw ofl 
 their allegiance to Great Britain, or from other 
 writers, who, in their admiration of the talents 
 for which he was distinguished, have ranked 
 him amongst the most conspicuous benefactors 
 of human liberty. But, if proofs can be adduced 
 that no one, in or out of America, has gone fur- 
 ther to poison the ears of men with principles 
 ■itterly subversive of the well-being of society, 
 ihe claims which have been set up for him to 
 the gratitude of mankind will appear somewhat 
 questionable. 
 
 United as the world is in an unqualified ad- 
 miration of the virtues of Washington, it is to- 
 tally inconsistent with the respect due to the 
 memory of that great man to attempt to place 
 Jefl^erson, as has lately been done,* upon a par- 
 allel with him; especially when evidences have 
 been for some time before it, which sufficiently 
 prove that the evils which have interrupted the 
 prosperity of the United States are owing to a 
 departure from the precepts and the moral exam- 
 ples of the former, and that the principles of Jef- 
 ferson have been the direct cause of that fatal 
 deviation. Injurious as these principles have 
 been to America, the extent to which they have 
 been enabled to disturb mankind can never be 
 appreciated until they are stated in some detail; 
 and as — perhaps hastily — a passage has been 
 printed from the MS. journal whence this work 
 has been taken, which it is too late now to recall, 
 the best justification for the expression of an 
 opinion so hostile to the reputation of Mr. Jef- 
 ferson will be afforded by a sketch of his career, 
 the facts of which will be drawn from the pages 
 of his very able biographer.t 
 
 To render the subject more clear to those of 
 the present generation who are but imperfectly 
 acquainted with the history of the old British 
 colonies, and the circumstances which led to the 
 establishment of their independence, the author 
 of this work proposes in the first instance to give 
 a slight review of their condition introductory to 
 the period when Mr. Jefferson bore so conspicu- 
 ous a part in the affairs of his country. A state- 
 ment of the principal causes which led to a relax- 
 ation of the connexion of Great Britain with 
 those colonies, and finally to their separation, 
 cannot but be instructive to the lovers of our an- 
 cient monarchy, especially at this time, when 
 other dependencies of the crown are rapidly 
 growing up into importance, and will soon be- 
 come so vitally interwoven with her power and 
 ihe influence she exercises in preserving the 
 peace of the world, that the importance of at- 
 taching- them to her as well by their svmpathies 
 as by their interest, is one of "the gravest ques- 
 tions for her statesmen. The descendants of our 
 common fi)refathers who colonised North Amer- 
 ica were at all times, as they are now, proud of 
 their origin ; but the strength the mother country 
 derived from that pride, was from the first more 
 than counteracted by the seeds of disaffection 
 that were too rankly sown there, and which, al- 
 most unheeded and unchecked, only waited to 
 be strong enough to overcome a feeling of at- 
 tachment that derived its support as much from, 
 that pride as from afl^ction. 
 
 Statesmen of the Time of George III. Third Series, p. 
 1237. London, 1843. 
 ' t Vide Professor Tucker's Life of Jefferson. London, 183T 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 165 
 
 The original British colonists of North Amer- 
 ica may be divided into two classes,— those en- 
 terprising and speculalive adventurers who went 
 to Virginia in pursuit of wealth, and the Puri- 
 tans, who left their native country for the sake 
 of enjoying freedom of opinion. The southern, 
 or Virginian colony, became in all material cir- 
 cumstances a copy of ihe mother country. Re- 
 ligion was established "according to the form 
 and discipline of the Church of England;" each 
 parish had its glebe and parsonage, and primo- 
 geniture and entails were the law of the land, 
 indeed, Ihe broadest foundations appeared to 
 have been laid lor a loyal administration of the 
 province, if the government at home, attending 
 carefully to the development of its prosperity, 
 had given to those individuals, distinguished for 
 their intelligence and the stake they held there, 
 a just share of the honours and advantages of 
 their territorial government. 
 
 This, however, was not done, and the distinc- 
 tions due to the colonial aristocracy being exclu- 
 sively lavished upon the needy hangers-on of 
 the aristocracy of the mother country, the seeds 
 of disaffection were sown, and appeared in their 
 season. Although dissatisfaction was evinced on 
 this account in "Virginia at an early period, yet 
 the first germ of American aversion to monar- 
 chical government is to be traced to the Puritans 
 ■who settled the northern colony of Massachu- 
 setts. The sole object for which the leaders of 
 this class expatriated themselves was to be out 
 of the reach of what they deemed an intolerable 
 spiritual tyranny; and as the church and the 
 temporal authority by which its power was en- 
 forced were equally odious in their eyes, the love 
 of spiritual and political independence became 
 rooted in them. The consequent attachment to 
 democratic principles formed a permanent fea- 
 ture in their religious and civil government, and 
 continued unabated, but dormant, until 1775, at 
 which period they first assumed an attitude of 
 rebellion to the monarchy of England. 
 
 Passing over the colonization of other parts of 
 North America, of the Carolinas, and Georgia, 
 of Pennsylvania and New York, the Atlantic 
 frontier of North America became gradually 
 occupied with an enterprising people, rejoicing 
 in absolute freedom from all restraint, enjoying 
 all the privileges of the representative form of 
 government, and indulging from time to time in 
 the excitenients peculiar to colonial govern- 
 ments, derived from causes both real and ima- 
 ginary. Although the differences in religious 
 opinion were seldom the subject of open and ac- 
 tive dissension amongst them, yet those also 
 were spreading at the same time, sectarianism 
 and democracy going hand in hand and waiting 
 their day. 
 
 Thus did these colonies grow in strength and 
 importance until the middle of the eighteenth 
 century, when a danger menaced them which 
 united the planters of the South with the h;irdy 
 farmers and merchants of the North, in defence 
 of their country. 
 
 France, at this period, had drawn a military 
 cordcm from Cluebec, by the way of the lakes 
 and the rivers Ohio and Mississippi, to New 
 Orleans, and had encouraged the tribes of sav- 
 age nations under her influence, to fall upon the 
 defenceless families that had gradually advanced 
 into the interior from the coast. Her intention 
 was to subdue the British colonies, and her 
 preparations were of the most formidable kind. 
 This peril was imminent, and the colonies must 
 
 inevitably have succumbed, but for the protect- 
 ing arm of the mother country. A bloody and 
 expensive war now began, in which some of 
 the colonists engaged with vigour, but the bur- 
 den of the contest lell upon the mother country, 
 which had to iurnish troops, money, and arms. 
 The delt-at of Braddock's army in 1755, a part 
 of which was saved by the firmness and judg- 
 ment of Colonel Wasiiington, then a loyal pro- 
 vincial ofiicer, increased the general dismay.* 
 But as has so frequently occurred in our history, 
 upon those great occasions which have called 
 forth the power of Great Britain, France was 
 attacked when she least expected it, at the very 
 seat of her colonial strength, and the immortal 
 victory of the plains of Abraham, so dearly pur- 
 chased by the life of Wolfe, was followed by the 
 peace of 17G3, and the abandonment by France 
 of all her possessions in North America. 
 
 This glorious termination of an arduous strug- 
 gle, and the removal from the colonies of every 
 apprehension from their powerful and dangerous 
 neighbour, was hailed at the time as an auspi- 
 cious event that would consolidate for ever their 
 union with the mother country. Hard terms 
 had been imposed upon France at that peace, 
 but the interest and safety of the colonies appear- 
 ed to require them. Few, or none, at the mo- 
 ment of triumph adverted to the fact that in mor- 
 als, as well as in physics, extremes are ever 
 ready to meet, and that like the pendulum, 
 which, when it is hurrying to one extreme point 
 of its oscillation, is only preparing to return to 
 the other, the actions of men often lead to results 
 diametrically opposed to those towards which, 
 they seemed to be advancing. A striking proo 
 of this was now about to be given, and England 
 was to receive an unexpected lesson as to the 
 policy of burdening herself with expensive wars 
 for the protection of colonies, the leading men 
 of which she had not propitiated; and who, be- 
 ing dissatisfied at heart with the neglect they 
 had been treated with, found, in their own re- 
 sources, and in their distance frotn the mother 
 country, strong inducements to oppose her au- 
 thority. 
 
 If at the close of the seven years' war, and 
 the subversion of the Fr^SBh dominion in Can- 
 ada, the King's ministers had turned their atten- 
 tion to a reform in the proprietary governments 
 suited to the period, and had conferred distinc- 
 tions upon the leading men of the colonies, a 
 strong party would have existed there in favour 
 of securing to England some return for the im- 
 portant service she had rendered them ; evea 
 [)ublic opinion, which, in America, as elsewhere, 
 is generally little more than the influence of em- 
 inent individuals operating upon the masses, 
 would probably have concurred in its propriety. 
 But this was neglected, and the Stamp Act, a 
 measure founded in justice when we consider 
 the immense and costlv efforts England had 
 made for her transatlantic subjects, was vainly 
 attempted to be forced upon them. 
 
 The historians who have justified the resist- 
 ance of the colonies to the mother country, have 
 
 * Nothing- contrilnitpd more to embolden the colonists 
 when they subsequently considered the chances of licing- 
 able to resist the authority of the crown, than the circum- 
 stances attending this disastrous defeat of a well-appointed 
 army, by an ambush of French and Indians not amounting- 
 to 450 men. Dr. Franklin, alluding to it in his autobi- 
 ography, says : "This whole transaction gave us Ameri- 
 cans the first suspicion that our evalted ide.is of the prow- 
 ess of Rritish regular troops had not been well 'oiuided." — 
 ' Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin,' vol. i., p. 220. 
 
166 
 
 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 not treated this particular grievance in a very 
 ingenuous manner; they have omitted to ex- 
 plain that the King's government had given to 
 them the option of contributing in any manner 
 they pleased a part of the expenditure incurred 
 on their account, and that to this they had given 
 a mo.•^t direct refusal: even Dr. Franklin, who 
 has been considered by the world as the highest 
 authority for the facts connected with these ne- 
 gotiations, has not only stated that the colonies 
 were menaced with the Stamp Act, and that Mr. 
 Grenville refused to permit any contribution to 
 come from their " good will," but in the letter 
 where he professes to give " the true history of 
 that transaction," has kept out of sight the equi- 
 table propositions made by Mr. Grenville before 
 that Act was imposed.* This is an important 
 point in the history of the causes which have 
 been alleged to justify the colonies in taking up 
 arms. 
 
 Mr. Burke, who was agent for New- York, 
 publicly denied in the House of Commons that 
 an option had been given ; but there is a paper, in 
 the ' Historical Collections of Massachusetts,' 
 which fully proves the fact. This paper was 
 written by Mr. Israel Mauduit, one of the agents 
 for Massachusetts, and at that time an intimate 
 friend of Franklin's; the original of it is now in 
 the possession' of the Historical Society of that 
 State, and is entitled 'An account of a Confer- 
 ence between the late Mr. Grenville and the sev- 
 eral Cohny Agents, in the year 1764, previous to 
 the passing the Stamp Act.'t There is therefore 
 
 * "But this gentleman (Mr. Grenville), instead of a de- 
 cent demand, sent them a menace that they should certain- 
 ly be taxed, and only left them the choice of the manner." 
 
 "But he (Mr. Grenville) chose compulsion rather than 
 persuasion, and would not receive from their good will 
 what he thought he could obtain without it." — Letter from 
 Dr. Franklin to Wm. Alexander, Esq.; Life of Franklin, 
 vol. i., p. 324. London, 1818. 
 
 t This paper appears to have been written in consequence 
 of Mr. Burke's speech, and the following is an extract from 
 it : — 
 
 " I shall give a plain narration of facts which fell within 
 my own knowledge, and which, therefore, I think it a debt, 
 due from me to Mr. Grenville's memory, to relate. In the 
 beginning of March, 1764, a number of resolutions, relative 
 to the plantation trade, were proposed by Mr. Grenville, and 
 passed in the House of Commons. 
 
 " The fifteenth of these was, ' That, towards the further 
 defraying the said expenses, it may be proper to charge cer- 
 tain stamp duties in the said colonies and plantations.' 
 
 " The other resolutions were formed into the Plantation 
 Act ; but the fifteenth was put off till the next session, Mr. 
 Grenville declaring that he was willing to give time to con- 
 sider of it, and to make their option of raising 'that, or some 
 other tax. The agents waited separately on Grenville upon 
 this matter, and wrote to their several colonies. At the end 
 of the session we went to him, all of us together, to know 
 if he still intended to bring in such a bill. He answered, 
 he did ; and then repeated to us in form, what I had before 
 heard him say in private, and in the House of Commons : 
 'that the late war had found us seventy milloins, and left 
 us more than one hundred and forty millions in debt. He 
 knew that all men wished not to be taxed ; but that in these 
 unhappy circumstances, it was his duty, as a steward for 
 the pulilic, to make use of every just means of improving 
 the public revenue : that he never meant, however, to 
 charge the colonies with any part of the interest of the na- 
 tional debt. But, besides that public debt, the nation had 
 incurred a great annual expense in the maintaining of the 
 several new conquests which we had made during the war, 
 and by which the colonies were so much benefited. That the 
 American civil and military establishment, after the peace 
 of Aix la Chapelle, was only 70,OOOZ. per annum. It was 
 now increased to 350,000Z. This was a great additional 
 expense upon an American account ; and he thought, there- 
 fore, that America ought to contribute towards it. He did 
 not expect that the colonies should raise the whole, but some 
 part of it he thought they ought to taise, and this stamp 
 duty was intended for that purpose. 
 
 " ' That he judged this method ot raising the money the 
 easiest and most equitable ; that it was a tax which would 
 fall only upon property, would be collected by the fewest 
 
 no room left for a doubt that the colonies had 
 every opportunity afforded them of choosing 
 their own manner of discharging a debt, the jus- 
 tice of which could not be denied, and which, if 
 they had consented to its being the subject of a 
 negotiation, would most probably have been re- 
 duced to an equitable amount, susceptible of a 
 very easy liquidation. 
 
 The Stamp Act having no friends in America, 
 was the signal lor insurrection secretly fomented 
 by those who had been neglected; and the spirit 
 of disatiection was fostered by the vacillatory 
 policy of the King's ministers." Relieved from 
 their apprehensions of French conquest, and con- 
 scious of their strength, the colonies now Ibrmed 
 plans for turning against the mother country the 
 energies which had been awakened in them by 
 their late dangers; and from the passing of the 
 Stamp Act to the breaking out of the rebellion, 
 the misunderstanding increased. All the kind 
 I'eelings which the protection given to the colo- 
 nies had produced were effaced; every measure 
 that appeared to promote British commercial in- 
 terests was resisted, and the whole energies of 
 America becoming at length directed against the 
 Crown, France, which had so many motives for 
 crippling the power of England, and which had 
 never pardoned her the hard terms she had re- 
 ceived at the peace of 1763, united her arms to 
 those of America, and the independence of the 
 colonies was accomplished. 
 
 England retired from the scene of her disasters 
 with at least some consolation. She had laid the 
 broad foundation of a nation gifted with her own 
 courage, intelligence, and enterprise; and al- 
 though it was severed from her dominion, men 
 of experience soon began to see that the future 
 commercial intercourse with the United States 
 
 officers, and would be equally spread over America and the 
 West Indies, so that all would bear their share of the pub- 
 lic burthen.' He then went on : 'I am not, however, set 
 upon this tax. If the Americans dislike it, and prefer any 
 other method of raising the money themselves, I shall be 
 content. Write therefore to your several colonies, and if 
 they choose any other mode, I shall be satisfied, provided the 
 money be but raised.' Upon reading over this narration with. 
 Mr. Montagu, who was then agent for Virginia, and pres- 
 ent at this conference with Mr. Grenville, I have his au- 
 thority to say that he entirely assents to every particular. 
 All these i)articulars I had before heard from Mr. Grenville, 
 in the House of Commons, and at his own house ; and had 
 wrote to the Massachusetts Assembly accordingly. 
 
 " The following extracts contain their answer on this 
 head : — 
 
 " 'Sir, Boston, June, 14, 1764. 
 
 " 'The House of Representatives has received your sev- 
 eral letters. 
 
 " ' The actual laying the stamp duty, you say, is deferred 
 till next year, Mr. Grenville being willing to give the prov- 
 inces their option to raise that, or some equivalent tax, de- 
 sirous, as he was pleased to express himself, to consult the 
 ease and quiet, and the good will of the colonies. 
 
 " ' If the ease, the quiet, and the good will of the colo- 
 nies are of any importance to Great Britain, no measures 
 could be hit upon that have a more natural and direct ten- 
 dency to enervate those principles than the resolutions you 
 enclosed. 
 
 " ' The kind offer of suspending the stamp duty in the 
 manner, aud upon the condition, you mention, amounts to 
 no more than this, that if the colonies will not tax them- 
 selves as they may be directed, the Parliament will tax 
 them. 
 
 " ' You are to remonstrate against these measures, and, 
 if possible, to obtain a repeal of the Sugar Act, and prevent 
 the imposition of any further duties or taxes on the colonies. 
 Measures will be taken that you may be joined by all the 
 other agents.' 
 
 " One of those measures was the printing this letter, and 
 sending it to the other colony assemblies. 
 
 " After their own express acknowledgment, therefore, 
 no one, I suppose, will doubt but they had the offer of rais- 
 ing the money themselves, and that they refused it, which 
 is all that I am concerned to jirove."— Historical Oollectisnt 
 of Massachusetts, vol, ix. p. 268. 
 
TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 167 
 
 wou;d be more advantageous to the mother coun- 
 try than it could have been if they had remained 
 in a colonial state. But that which gave the 
 greatest satisfaction to all men of reflection sub- 
 sequent to the establishment of this new govern- 
 ment amongst the nations of the earth was, that 
 the youn? republic was to be organised under 
 the influence of the man whose conduct, during 
 the struggle and after its termination, had raised 
 him to the highest renown wherever civilization 
 existed; for never had there been an instance in 
 history where the private and public virtues of 
 a chief had seemed to give a more certain guar- 
 antee to the world for the future character ol a 
 people, in the first days of their national exist- 
 ence, than those which had illustrated the career 
 of George Washington. 
 
 But whilst so glorious a future was open to 
 the United States under his guidance, and as if 
 a good and evil principle- must be always con- 
 flicting, it was their misfortune to possess anoth- 
 er man eminent for his qualifications, and for 
 the influence they had given him over a great 
 portion of his countrymen ; one, however, who 
 had cherished from his youth upwards, what 
 are now called rcvolutionanj views for the estab- 
 lishment of liberty. Perhaps the most interest- 
 ing truth which history reveals to us, is that that 
 degree of national freedom which unites good 
 men in the preservation of lile, property, and or- 
 der, is inherent to the calm and regular progress 
 of society, and cannot be forced onwards by the- 
 oretical impulses. Mr. Jefferson thought other- 
 wise; his maxim was not to assist the natural 
 growth, and train and guide what he had found 
 planted by the wisdom of other times; but whilst 
 he rooted up what already existed, to bring for- 
 ward new and experimental varieties, suited to 
 the tastes of theoretical reformers and superfi- 
 cial philosophers. 
 
 Mr. Jefferson was born in Virginia in 1743, a 
 period at which the colonists there looked exclu- 
 sively to the mother country as their mode). The 
 church of England in that province was not only 
 established by law, each parish having a cler- 
 gyman with a fixed salary, a glebe, and a par- 
 sonage-house, but the eldest sons of the opulent 
 planters were usually sent to England to receive 
 their education. Their tastes were thus formed 
 for English arts, literature, and politics ; and as 
 the right of primogeniture existed, they natural- 
 ly became the patrons of liberal pursuits on their 
 return to their native country. Society in this 
 colony was at that time upon an excellent foot- 
 ing ; the upper classes were distinguished from 
 the others as much as they were in any other 
 country, and were respected by the people. 
 
 Mr. "Jefferson, who did not belong to any of 
 the old Virginian families, commenced the study 
 of the law under one of the most violent oppo- 
 nents of the measures of the crown, and at an 
 early period took an active and zealous part upon 
 every occasion when dissatisfaction was to be 
 expressed with the British government. In the 
 measures of the colonial burgesses and delegfates 
 that led to the final rupture with Lord Dunmore, 
 in 1775, he took a very prominent part; and in 
 1776 he retired from the Congress to which he 
 had been elected, in order to become a member 
 of the Legislature of his native State, where he 
 could have a belter opportunity of carrying out 
 his own revolutionary innovations. His talents 
 and influence were now universally recognised, 
 and enabled him to carry his measures against 
 the leading families in the province, who feared 
 
 the man, but had not the courage to oppose him. 
 Almost as soon as he had taken his seat, he 
 brought in a bill to convert estates in tail into 
 lee simple, avowing as his reason that he wish- 
 ed "to make an opening for the aristocracy of 
 virtue and talent."* In the committee to which 
 this matter was referred, he met with some op- 
 position, which he answered by staling, 
 
 "That the eldest son could have no claim, in 
 reason, to twice as much as his brothers or sis- 
 ters, unless lie could cat Lxoice as much, or do double 
 work."t • 
 
 The next step which he took, and which very 
 naturally followed the abolition of entails, was 
 to procure the destruction of the church estab- 
 lishment, and to place all religious sects en the 
 same footing of voluntary contribution. Vari- 
 ous enactments were made for the accompplish- 
 ment of this measure, the first of which suspend- 
 ed the laws which provided salaries for the cler- 
 gy: in 1779 these laws were all unconditionally 
 repealed, and the final enactment on church mat- 
 ters authorized the overseers of the poor to sell 
 the glebe lands, as they became vacant. 
 
 Having accomplished his favourite object of; 
 bringing down to the general level all the estab- 
 lished families of his native state, as well as the 
 Episcopal church, Mr. Jefferson's field of actioa 
 was again transferred to the concerns of the na- 
 tion, and in 1784 he joined his colleague, Dr. 
 Franklin, at Paris, as joint minister to France. 
 After remaining there some time, he paid a vis- 
 it, in 1786, to Mr. Adams, the American minis- 
 ter in London, and was presented at court, where, 
 he says, he was " ungraciously received." Jf 
 we are to judge from the bitterness of some of 
 his expressions to his correspondents, it is prob- 
 able he made no secret of the dislike he cherish- 
 ed to England. Speaking of the country, in one 
 of these letters, he says: 
 
 "Her hatred is deep-rooted and cordial, and 
 nothing is wanting with her but the power to 
 wipe us and the land we live in out of existence."! 
 In one of his letters, written in 1786, is the fol- 
 lowing curious passage, a part of which is re^ 
 markable for its prophetic character: 
 
 " American reputation in Europe is not such as 
 to be Jiatt-ering; ta its citizens. T*o circumstan- 
 ces are particularly objected to us : tlie non-pay- 
 vicnt of our debts, and the want of energy in our 
 gnvenment. They discourage a connexion with us. 
 I own it to he my opinion that good will arise 
 from the destruction of our credit. "§ 
 
 Upon another occasion he endeavours to stim- 
 ulate that national vanity and self-sufficiency 
 which are often so conspicuous in young coun- 
 tries, and to cherish in his fellow-citizens that in- 
 flated feeling of superiority over other nations, 
 which many of them were even then beginning 
 to attribute to their own, saying: 
 
 "If all the sovereigns in Europe were to set 
 themselves to work to emancipate the minds of 
 j their subjects from their present ignorance and 
 prejudices, a thousand years will not place them 
 on that high ground on which our common peo- 
 ] pie are now setting out. Ours could not have 
 j been so fairly placed under the control of the 
 common sense of the people, had they not been 
 j separated from their parent stock, and kept from 
 j contamination, either from them or the other 
 I people of the (dd world, by the intervention of so 
 wide an ocean. '11 
 
 * Tuclver's Life of Jefferson, voL i.,p. 97. Lii 
 t Il)id., p. 112. tlbitl., p. 9IH. 
 
 t Ibid., p. 231. II Ibid., p. 240. 
 
168 
 
 TEAVELS IN AMERICA. 
 
 During his residence in France, Mr. Jefferson 
 was intimately connected with the leaders that 
 •were preparing the French revolution ; and from 
 the fbllovviiig passage in a'letter respecting some 
 disturbances in Massachusetts, which he wrote 
 from Paris in 1787 to a friend, it would seem 
 thai all the steps necessary to carry out the views 
 of these men were already familiar to his mind : 
 
 "What country before ever existed a century 
 and a half without a rebellion 1 And what coun- 
 try can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not 
 warned from tim^ to time that its people preserve 
 the spirit of resistance! Let them lake arms. 
 The remedy is lo set them right as to facts, par- 
 don and pacify them. What signify a few lives 
 lost in a century^ two 1 The tree of liberty must 
 be refreshed, f/onjjMme lo time, vnth the blood of pa- 
 triots and tyrant^. It is its natural manure.'''* 
 
 This sentiment has been lately attributed to 
 another quarter. Immediately on the Conven- 
 tion having voted the death of Louis XVI. in 
 1792, Barere, now justly esteemed the most infa- 
 mous of all the terrorists, rose and addressed the 
 Assembly in a speech containing the following 
 pa.ssage: — 
 
 " The tree of liberty, as an ancient author re- 
 marks, flourishes when it is watered with the 
 blood of all classes of tyrants. "t 
 
 The able authorof the article entitled' Barfere's 
 Memoirs,' in that number of the 'Edinburgh Re- 
 view' from which this pa.ssage is taken, ob.serves, 
 in quoting it, " We wish that a note had been 
 added to inform us from what ancient author 
 Barere quoted. In the course of our own small (!) 
 reading among the Greek and Latin writers, we 
 have not happened to fall in with trees of liberty 
 and watering-pots full of blood; nor can we, 
 such is our ignorance of classical antiquity, even 
 imagine an Attic or Roman orator employing 
 imagery of that sort. In plain words, when Ba- 
 rere talked about an ancient author, he was lying, 
 as he generally was when he asserted any fact, 
 great or small. Why he lied on this occasion 
 we cannot guess, unless, indeed, it was lo keep 
 his hand in." 
 
 It is, indeed, evident enough that we need not 
 go to antiquity for such a sentiment; jargon of 
 that kind about the tree of liberty could belong lo 
 no author more ancient than Mr. .TefTerson, who, 
 it is to be remarked, at the time he expressed 
 himself thus, was not a very young enthusiast, 
 having already reached the mature age of forty- 
 four years. Barere, no doubt, veiled his authori- 
 ty, because it was not convenient to quote the 
 American minister. 
 
 In 1789, when the Etats-Generaux met, Mr. 
 Jefferson, who still represented the United States, 
 drew up a charter of rights for the French peo- 
 ple, but, although Lafayette and others gave it 
 their sanction, it was not adopted. 
 
 What chance the public creditor would have 
 Tinder Mr. Jefferson's first principles of govern- 
 ment may be gathered from his opinions, as we 
 find them recorded by his biographer:? 
 
 " He (Mr. Jefferson) insists thnt the use of the 
 earth belongs to the living generation, and that 
 the dead have no more right than they have pow- 
 er over it. In the application of this principle, 
 he maintains that no generation can pledge or 
 
 Tiiolier'sLifpot'.TeflFerson.viil. i.,p. 2S2. Londoo, 1837 
 t Eiliiil>urgh Review. April, 1844, p. 997. 
 t Tucker's Life of Jefferson, vol. i., p. 324-5. 
 
 ** TH 
 
 encumber the lands of a country lieyond the av- 
 erage term of its own existence, which term, by ~- 
 relerence to the annuity tables of Buffon, he' es- ' 
 tiiTiates first at thirty-four years, and afterwards 
 reduces to nineteen years. By reason ol'ihis re- 
 striction, founded in nature and the first princi- 
 ples of justice, he maintains that every law, and" 
 even constitution, naturally expires at the expira- 
 tion of this term; and that no public debt can be 
 contracted which would be rightfully binding on 
 the nation after the same lapse of time." 
 
 This egregious argument — which was very 
 ably refuted by Mr. Madison, in a letter to Mr. 
 Jefferson— is the germ of that "first principle" 
 called " repudiation," which he bequeathed to 
 his country; a principle which, if admitted into 
 civilized life, would strike at the root of that nat- 
 ural feeling inherent in all rightly disposed com- 
 munities, viz., to protect the interests and wel- 
 fare of that posterity of which their own chil- 
 dren form a part. 
 
 In the year 1794, Mr. Jefferson, at the age of 
 56, left the Cabinet of President Washington, in 
 which his opinions found but little support, and 
 retired to his .seat in the country, ostensibly to 
 enjoy rural pursuits and domestic happiness. 
 Professing to despise distinctions and employ- 
 rrtents, he declared to a friend that he was so 
 weaned from public pursuits that he should 
 "never take another newspaper of any sort,"* 
 yet at this very time his house was not only the 
 general rendezvous of the most active opponents 
 of Washington's administration, and the point 
 where all their political measures were concert- 
 ed, but from thence Mr. Jetferson himself wrote 
 the bitterest attacks for the democratic journals, 
 upon the administration of the man to whom he . 
 continued to profess in public the most devoted 
 aita'-htnent. Of the philosophic tone of his mind, 
 and of the sincerity of his abandonment to rural 
 pursuits, the following extract of a letter to a 
 Mr. Tench Coxe, written soon after he had 
 reached his country seat, Monticello, furnishes 
 an admirable example: 
 
 "Over the foreign powers, I am convinced 
 they (the French) will triumph completely, and 
 I cannot but hope that that triumph, and the con- 
 sequent disgrace of the invading tyrants, is des- 
 tined, in the order of event.s, to kindle the wrath 
 of the people of Europe against those who have 
 dared to embroil them in such wickedness, and 
 to bring, at length, kings, nobles, and priests, to the 
 scaffolds, ichich they have been so long deluging with 
 human blood. I am still loarm wheriever I think of 
 t/iese scoU7idrcls."f 
 
 With this example and these precepts before 
 us, we need not be surprised that having suc- 
 ceeded in weaning a majority of the people from 
 their confidence in Washington's principles of 
 government, he should at length have achieved 
 his object of being raised to the supreme power; 
 and that his opinions so largely sown in the 
 minds of a great portion of his countrymen, 
 should have produced in them a scornful con- 
 tempt of all the regular governments of Europe, 
 the proscription of the most respectable of their 
 own countrymen, and the accomplishment at 
 length of those fatal acts which are at this day 
 so injurious to the honour and character of Re- 
 publican America. 
 
 * Tucker's Life of Jefferson, vol. i., p. 
 t Ibid., vol. i., p. 532. 
 
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