Full text of "Recollections of the last ten years, passed in occasional residences and journeyings in the valley of the Mississippi, from Pittsburg and the Missouri to the Gulf of Mexico, and from Florida to the Spanish frontier : in a series of letters to the Rev. James Flint, of Salem, Massachusetts"

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RECOLLECTIONS

THE LAST TEN YEAKS,

PASSED IN OCCASIONAL RESIDENCES AND JOFRNEYINGS

IN THE

VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI,

FROM

PITTSBURG AND THE MISSOURI TO THE r.ILF OF Mr.Xiro, AND
FROM FLORIDA TO THE SPANISH FRONTIER:

A SERIES OF LETTERS

THE REV. JAMES FLINT, OF SALEM, MASSACHUSE1

BY TIMOTHY FLINT,

PRINCIPAL OF THE SEMINARY Of RAPIDS, LOUISIANA.

Forsan hnec olim mcminissi' jnvpfti

BOSTON :

• DMMINGS, BILLIARD, AND COMPANY,- (VASHINOT05 5TR1 i i.

1826.

DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, TO WIT :

District Clerk's Office.
BF.it remembered, that on the tenth day of March, A. D. 1826, and in the fiftieth
yc;ir of the Independence of the United States of America, Cu minings, Hilliard, ■$- Co.
of the said district, have deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof
they claim as proprietors, in the words following, to wit: —

" Recollections of the last ten years, passed in occasional Residences and Journeyings
in the Valle\ of the Mississippi, from Pittsburg and the Missouri, to the Gulf of Mexico,
;iuil from Florida to the Spanish frontier; in a series of Letters to the Rev. James Flint,
ol Salem, Massachusetts. By Timothy Flint, Principal of the Seminary of Rapide,
Louisiana. Forsan hxc olim meminisse juvabit."

In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, " An Act for
the cnco.i t of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the

authors and proprietors of such copies, (luring the times therein mentioned:" and also
to an Act, entitled, " An Act supplementary to an Act, entitled, ' An Act for the encour-
aentof learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors
anrl proprh^ors of Mich copies during the times therein mentioned ;' and extending the
■ is thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other
prints."

JNO. W. DAVIS,

Clerk of the District of Massachusetts.

TO THE

REY. JAMES FLINT, $c.

Salem, Mass., Sept 1825.
My Dear Friend,

Thesc letters are addressed to you in testimony of
a friendship, which commenced with our boyhood,
went with us to school, and followed us to the hails of
our Alma Mater — a friendship which was not less in-
tense, when our duties severed us wide from each oth-
er— a friendship which made itself felt beyond moun-
tains and ( rivers unknown to song,' — a friendship
which has survived changes of every sort, the wither-
ing touch of time and disease, and the still more fatal
influence of differing opinion.

To your wishes, to your kindness, and that of your
excellent townsman, endeared to me by the remem-
brance of kind offices of twenty-live years' standing,
they owe their birth. I may not be allowed here to
record his name. But in these days of refined selfish
r.ess, I may speak of munificence and kindness, which
have sustained me in suffering and disease, and which;
unsought and unsolicited, pursued me to the remoti I
regions of the West. You have also youf "Man of
Ross," whose name need not be given. The wish of
such friends, that I should tell the story of what I have
seen and suffered, imposed obligations that were to
me as laws. 1 have made this humble attempt to ful-
fil your wishes. It is not an effort of book-matin
1

that I now offer you. I have striven to depart from
the common fashion of emptying the contents of one
book into another, and serving them up to you in a
new form. Whether it will make for or against this
work, it is not for me to say ; but I can assert, with
perfect confidence, that I have not consulted a book on
m v subject, from the commencement to the close of it.
Bearing this in mind, and that I write from recollec-
tion only, you will find an excuse for unintentional
mistakes. To have given it the finish and the correct-
ness, which so strongly mark the productions of the day,
would have required vigor of health, leisure, and tran-
quillity ; and you well know, that I have had neither.
That it was written under the pressure of disease,
with a trembling hand and a sinking heart, will, at
least, disarm your criticism. Such as it is, I consign
it to you, and turn on my weary steps, and carry
back to my distant home, emotions that no words
could express, and a confident persuasion that the
friendship which Ikis been so tried, and so uncommon,
will last as long as we shall last, and be renovated,
and rendered unchangeable, in a better existence.

Praying God to impart to friends so dear to me, all
good things for time and eternity,

1 am, most affectionately, &C.

THE AUTHOR.

LETTERS.

LETTER I.

Alexandria, RcJ River, Oct. 1

Dear Sir,

You are kind enough to suppose that sonic details
of what 1 have seen, enjoyed, and sullen d, in the val-
ley of the Mississippi, during ten years' journeying, and
occasional residence in that region, might be of suffi-
cient interest for publication. I have been so much
accustomed to deference to your judgment, as to sup-
pose at times, that the capability, which you supposed,
must exist. Often I have taken up the task, and a>
often it has fallen from my hands. There are such
showers of journals', and travels, and residences, and
geographies, and gazetteers ; and every person, who
can in any way fasten the members of a sentence
together, after having travelled through a country, is
so sure to begin to scribble about it, that I have felt a
kind of awkward consciousness at the thought <>l
starting in the same beaten truck. And yet I cannot
certainly be classed with those writers of travels, wl:<»
travel post, or are wafted through a country in a steam
boat, and assume, on the ground of having thus tra-
versed it, to know all about it. Nor can this be pro-
nounced an effort of book-making, in which tie- con
tents of other books are served up in another foltn. It
Will probably be my most obvious fault, to have c
suited no others' writings or opinions, and to have re-
lied too much for interest and instruction, on what L

have myself seen and felt. I have, as you know,
drunk of every eonsiderable stream that yields tribute
to the Mississippi, far from the parent ehannel ; have
traversed the country in all directions; have resided a
considerable time in the northern, middle, and south-
ern divisions, and in the discharge of duties, which
necessarily brought me in contact with all classes of
the inhabitants ; so that, as far as long and familiar
observation of the country can qualify one to describe
it, I am so qualified. I speak not of the vicissitudes of
disease and suffering which I have endured ; of the
trials and privations which I encountered. The re-
trospect is too gloomy for myself, and would, probably,
be neither of interest nor use to my readers.

Another discouragement has occurred, in thinking
of the task which you propose. Had I originally
contemplated such a work as this, I should have kept
a regular and detailed journal. The duties which I
assumed when I first visited this country, compelled
me to keep such a journal for some years. This
manuscript, together with many others, was blown
away in a hurricane which occurred on the Arkansas,
in which every part of the house where we resided
was penetrated by the wind and the rain; and in
which the suffering and danger of a sick family pre-
cluded anxiety upon any other score. It was a detail,
too, of religious duties, and they are necessarily so
uniform, that a page or two will serve as a sample of
all tin; rest. I have felt the less regret at the loss of
these materials, from reflecting, that a traveller who
CO pies •from a daily journal will hardly fail to copy
much that, is trivial and uninteresting. But the inci-
dents that have remained fresh in my memory for the
period often years, must have excited a vivid impres-

sion when they occurred, and must have had, in th*
narrator at least, their share of interest.

On my return to my native country after so ninny
years of absence, you were aware how many acquaint-
ances were importuning me for some information of
this sort. And you are aware, how much the feeble-
ness and dejection of a constitution, broken down by
so much wandering, toil, and disease, endured in the
wilderness, and in those sickly climes, disqualified me
for such a task. Nor is this intended to disarm criti-
cism, but simply to account lor deficiency cither of
manner or matter. For the rest, if in the follow in"-
pages the feelings of the writer occupy too conspicu-
ous a place in the view ofth.it severe ordeal, in which
the square and compass are applied to works of this
kind, let it be remembered, that these pages w ere chief-
ly intended for the eye of friends, to whom, it was well
known, such would be the most interesting parts of
the work. Let him that objects, too, be constituted in
any measure as I am, and let him have been placed
in the actual positions in which 1 have been placed,
and I would then hope, that my apology would be fur
nished.

LETTEB 11.

Vou are entirely informed of tin; circumstan
which induced me, after a laborious but secluded min-
istry of fourteen years, to leave that asylum, and
direct my course to the West. \ on remember the
miserable state ol" my health, and the hopes I < uter-
tained, that in a milder climate and a new order ol

things, I mi^ht regain my health and cheerfulness.

I remember but too faithfully, the bitter spirit of politi-
cal rancour, that rendered the condition of so many
ministers at that time so unhappy. With many
prayers on my own part, and that of my friends, that
these evils might not follow me, my family left the
land of their lathers the fourth of October 1815.
Toward the latter part of the month, we began to as-
cend the Allegany hills. In our slow mode of travel-
ling, we had had them in view several days. With
their interminable blue outline, stretching hill beyond
bill, and interposing to the imagination of such travel-
lers as we were, a barrier to return almost as impassa-
ble as the grave, it may easily be imagined with what
interest we contemplated them. It is, I believe, gene-
rally conceded to the inhabitants of New England,
that, perhaps, with the exception of the Scotch, they
have more national feeling than any other people.
We had broken all the ties that render the place,
where we first drew breath, so dear. Occasiomd
samples of the people and the country beyond these
liilU, not at all calculated to sooth our feelings, or to
throw pleasing associations over our contemplated
residence beyond them, had frequently met us. The
people on our route constantly designated them) by
the appellation of Li back-woodsmen," and we heard
these men themselves uniformly calling their baggage

II plunder. "' The wolf, the bear, and the bald eagle,
were tiK most frequent emblems in the tavern-signs,
near the acclivities of these mountains. The bald
eagle itself was soaring in the blue of the atmosphere,
high above the summits of the first ridge, and its shrill
and savage cries were sufficiently loud to reach our
ears.

We had, too, many " companions de voyage," ex-
act samples of the general character of New England
emigrants; poor, active, parsimonious, inquisitive, and
fully impressed that no country, in moral advantages,
could equal the country which they had left. They
felt, in common with us, their love for the dear homes
they had left, increasing as they receded from them.
In common with us, too, they calculated to have taken
a final farewell of those homes. When we had at last
reached the highest point of the first of the tlin e par-
allel ridges, before we began to descend a declivity,
which we expected would forever shield the Atlantic
country from our view; before we went "over the
hills and far away," it will readily be conceived, that a
familv which had been reared in seclusion, such as ours,
would be likely to drop "some natural tears," and to
take a lomz and anxious look at the land, which contain-
ed all their ties and charities. We tried to comfort each
other, as we steadily contemplated the blue summits
that were just before us, that we had a world in which
"to choose our place of rest, and Providence our
guide." But we had already wandered far enough
from home, to admit the full truth of the exclama
tion of Attala: "Happy they, who have not Been the
smoke of the stranger's fire."

LETTER III.

We passed these hills on the common route from
Philadelphia to Pittsburg. The first ridge was nol
very precipitous, and I should suppose, short of a thou-
sand feet above the level of its base. The grandi •

of these mountains, so impressive when their blue out-
line just touches the horizon in the distance, diminish-
es when you reach their summits. They have not the
pathless precipices, nor the rushing torrents, of the
mountains of New Hampshire and Vermont. But
whatever they wanted in sublimity, at the time when
we passed them, they more than made up in the diffi-
culty and danger of crossing them. I have no wish,
however, to fatigue you with the recital of our exer-
tions in lifting the carriage up precipitous ascents,
washed by the rains, and the still greater exertions
necessary to let it down again. We passed hundreds
of Pittsburg waggons, in the crossing. Many of them
had broken axles and wheels, and in more than one
place it was pointed out to us, that teams had plunged
down the precipices and had perished. In des< ending
the ridges, a winding road, just wide enough to admit
one carriage, was carried round the verge of the de-
clivity, perhaps for more than a mile. In this case, if
two carriages met, there would be no alternative but
to retreat to the commencement of the narrow wav.
To prevent this, it is necessary that the carriage, which
is commencing the ascent or descent, give notice by
blowing a horn, or sending a messenger in advance.

These people, who drive; teams between Philadel-
phia and Pittsburg; were to me, in their maimers and
way of living, a new species, perfectly unique in their
appearance) language, and habits. They devote them-
selves to this mode of subsistence for years, and spend
their lime continually on the road. They seemed to
me to be more rude, profane, and selfish, than either
sailors, boatmen, or hunters, to whose modes of living
theirs is the most assimilated. We found them addict-
ed to drunkenness, and very little disposed to assist

each other. Such was the aspect they presented to m.
We were told, there were honourable exceptions, and
even associations, who, like the sacred band of Thebes,
took a kind of oatli to stand by, and befriend each
other. I often dropped among them, as by accident,
that impressive tract, the " .Swearer's Prayer." I was
pleased to remark the result of their reflections, as they
read the tract, apart on their window-seats. In some
it seemed to produce a momentary thoughtfulness ; in
others a smile ; and again in others, a deep growl of
acquiescence, very like that which every one has heard,
who has attended a council of Indians, and heard them
express a kind of reluctant assent to terms proposed
to them.

In tiie valley, between the middle and the last of
the parallel ridges, we encountered a drove of more
than a thousand cattle and swine, from the interior of
Ohio ; a name which yet sounded in our ears like the
land of savages. The appearance of the swine and
cattle, in our eyes, had an unnatural shagginess, and
roughness, like wolves ; and such, you know, even
vet, are the impressions of multitudes of tin; Atlantic
people, with respect to that beautiful country. The
name of the country from which this drove came, add-
ed something, no doubt, to these associations. They
were from "Mad River." We Were told that the
chief drover, a man as untamed and wild in appear-
ance, as Robinson's mail, Friday, was taking them on
to Pennsylvania to fatten, previous to their being sold
in the Philadelphia market.

There is a considerable tract of table-land, before
you descend the last hill, and on this there was ;i pub-
lic house. Here we encountered a stage broken down.
The passengers had been drenched in rain. Thi

were a company of tinners, going to establish them-
selves somewhere in the West, and a printer from
Connecticut, with his young and beautiful wife, about
to commence a printing-office for a gazette in Ken-
tucky. This fine young woman, who had suffered
her share with the rest, gave us an example of natural
equanimity and philosophy. She was cheerful and
conversable, while the other women were querulous,
in tears, and out of temper with every thing about
"them, and full of all the tedious complaints with which
inexperienced travellers meet the incidental disasters of
their way.

Our journey from the beautiful Moravian settle-
ments in Pennsylvania had been rendered sometimes
tedious, and sometimes amusing, by the company of
a German Lutheran minister and his family, who had
been sent out to some Lutheran settlements on the 13i<r
Miami. He was recommended to us as an amiable
and exemplary man, and had been reared, I believe, in
Germany. A more singular specimen of a clergyman
could not well be presented to a New England min-
ister. He was a short, robust man, with a round and
ruddy face, with a singular expression, between cheer-
fulness and apathy. When travelling, he had con-
stantly in his mouth a pipe, in form much like that
musical instrument called a serpent, in which the
noke circulated through many circumvolutions, and

ally reached his mouth through a silver mouth-piece.
rode; a huge Pennsylvania horfie, apparently with
DO consciousness of want of feeling for his wife and
children, who, for the most prat, trudged along beside
their waggon on foot. When we arrived at the public
OUSe, and were seated to the substantial and sump-
.'jou< fare tint i^ furnished at the good houses in these

regions, and this family at the same time ordered theii
national diet, boiled potatoes, sour milk, and mush, we
could easily discover by the longing looks of the chil-
dren, that, all national preferences to the contrary, it
would have been easy to persuade them to exchange
their diet for ours.

I can scarcely hope to give you any impression
of our feelings when we began to descend the last
ridge, and the boundless valley of the Ohio began to
open upon our view. The finishing of the superb na-
tional road from Baltimore to Wheeling, and the pres-
ent ease and frequency of crossing the mountains, will
soon render it difficult to conceive what a new and
strange world opened at that time and place before the
imagination of an unpractised Atlantic traveller. In
such an unexplored and unlimited view of a country to
be our resting-place, and the field of our labours, where
there was no fixed point, no shelter for our hopes and
expectations, where all must necessarily be strange, a
country to which, in approaching, we had constantly
heard the term " back woods" applied, melancholy
thoughts and painful remembrances would naturally
arise in our minds. I fear that my family and myseli
feel more bitterly and painfully than is the common lot
to feel, the gloomy and depressing sensation of experi-
encing ourselves strangers in a strange land.

There are some very handsome villages on the
slopes of the hills as you approach Pittsburg. Penn-
sylvania abounds with them, especially on the east of
the Allegany ridges. Some of these, the names ol
which had only met us on an itinerary, astonished h
by their size and populousness. Others delighted U
with the beauty of their situations. East Pennsyha
nia is a beautiful country in every point of view. I

have no where seen ail agriculture apparently so
rich as here. In the permanence of their spacious
stone mansions and barns, the Germans seem to
have thought more of posterity than themselves ; and,
with old Cato, to have done all with a view to " pos-
teritv and the immortal Gods." To us, West Penn-
sylvania appeared to be peopled with a tall, hardy,
lank-looking race of men. The soil in many places
had the same hard and harsh features of rock and hil-
lock, which characterize our landscape. Except the
inhabitants in the immediate vicinity of Pittsburg, or
other manufacturing villages, they find indifferent mar-
kets for their produce, and their chances for making
money are very precarious. In healthiness, in the
difficulty of procuring the means of subsistence, in ab-
stemiousness, and in habits of rigid industry, we com-
pared them to our New England people. The inter-
mixture of Irish, Scotch, and Germans, has given them
a singular and rather ludicrous dialect, in which the
peculiarities of language of these several races are
mixed.

I may remark in conclusion, that the only disaster
worth recording, in our long journey to Pittsburg, oc-
curred just before we left the town. On a slight de-
clivity, we came in contact with a carriage rapidly
driving from town, and were upset in a moment. But
we arose from under the pressure of boxes, bundles,
and trunks, alarmed, indeed, but with very little per-
sonal injury.

LETTER IV.— PITTSBURG.

Many travellers and emigrants to this region, view
the first samples of the modes of travelling in the west-
ern world, on the Allegany at Oleanne point, or the
Monongahela at Brownsville. These are but the re-
tail specimens. At Pittsburg, where these rivers unite,
you have the thing in gross, and by wholesale. The
first thing that strikes a stranger from the Atlantic,
arrived at the boat-landing, is the singular, whimsical,
and amusing spectacle, of the varieties of water-craft,
of all shapes and structures. There is the the stately
barge, of the size of a large Atlantic schooner, with its
raised and outlandish looking deck. This kind of
craft, however, which required twenty-five hands to
work it up stream, is almost gone into disuse, and
though so common ten years ago, is now scarcely seen
Next there is the keel-boat, of a long, slender, and ele-
gant form, and generally carrying from fifteen to thin |
tons. This boat is formed to be easily propelled over
shallow waters in the summer season, and in low stages
of the water is still much used, and runs on waters not
yet frequented by steam-boats. Noxt in order are tin
Kentucky fiats, or in the vernacular phrase, " broad
horns," a species of ark, very nearly resembling a NVv,
England pig-stye. They are fifteen feet wide, and
from forty to one hundred feet in length, and carrj
from twenty to seventy tons. Some of them, that are
called family-boats, and used by families in descending
the river, are very large and roomy, and have comforta
bleand separate apartments, fitted up with (hairs, h
tables and stoves. It is no uncommon spectacle to s< i
a large family, old and young, servants, cattle, In.
horses, sheep, fowls, and animals of all kinds, bringing

to recollection the cargo of the ancient ark, all embark-
ed, and floating down on the same bottom. Then there
are what the people call " covered sleds," or ferry-
flats, and Allegan v-skiffs, carrying from eight to
twelve tons. In another place are pirogues of from
two to four tons burthen, hollowed sometimes from
one prodigious tree, or from the trunks of two trees
united, and a plank-rim fitted to the upper part.
There are common ski its, and other small craft,
named, from the manner of making them, "dug-outs,"
and canoes hollowed from smaller trees. These boats
are in great numbers, and these names are specific,
and clearly define the boats to which they belong.
But besides these, in this land of freedom and inven-
tion, with a little aid perhaps, from the influence of
the moon, there are monstrous anomalies, reducible to
no specific class of boats, and only illustrating the
-whimsical archetypes of things that have previously
existed in the brain of inventive men, who reject the
slavery of being obliged to build in any received form.
You can scarcely imagine an abstract form in which a
boat can be built, that in some part of the Ohio or
Mississippi you will not see, actually in motion. The
New York canal is beginning, indeed, to bring sam-
ples of this infinite variety of water-craft nearer to the
inspection of the Atlantic people.

This variety of boats, so singular in form, and most
of them apparently so frail, is destined in many instan-
ces to voyages of from twelve hundred to three thou-
sand milt's. Keel-boats, built at this place, start on
hunting expeditions for points on the Missouri, Arkan-
sas, and Red River, at such distances from Pittsburg
as these. Sneh are the inland voyages on these long
Streams, and the terms of the navigation are as novel

1.3

as are the forms of the boats. You hoar of the dan-
ger of" riffles," meaning probably, ripples, and plant-
ers, and sawyers, and points, and bonds, and shoots,
a corruption, I suppose, of the French "chute." You
hear the boatmen extolling their prowess in pushing a
pole, and you learn the received opinion, that a " Ken-
tuck n is the best man at a pole, and a Frenchman at
the oar. A firm push of the iron-pointed pole on a
fixed loir, is termed a " reverend " sot. You are told
when you embark, to bring your "plunder'' aboard,
and you hear about moving " ferncnst " the stream;
and you gradually become acquainted with a copious
vocabulary of this sort. The manners of the boatmen
are as strange as their language. Their peculiar way
of life has given origin not only to an appropriate dia-
lect, but to new modes of enjoyment, riot, and fight-
ing. Almost every boat, while it lies in the harbour
has one or more fiddles scraping continually aboard,
to which you often see the boatmen dancing. There
is no wonder that the way of life which the boatmen
lead, in turn extremely indolent, and extremely labori-
ous; for days together requiring little or no effort, and
attended with no danger, and then on a sudden, labo-
rious and hazardous, beyond Atlantic navigation :
generally plentiful as it respects food, and always so
as it regards whiskey, should always have seductions
that prove irresistible to the young people that live
near the banks of the river. The boats float by their
dwellings on beautiful spring mornings, when the
verdant forest, the mild and delicious temperature ol
the air, the delightful azure of the sky of this country,
the fine bottom on the one hand, and the romantic
bluff on the other, the broad and smooth stream rolling
calmly down the forest; and floating the boat gentlj

forward, — all those circumstances harmonize in the
excited youthful imagination. The boatmen are dan-
cing to the violin on the deck of their boat. They
scatter their wit among the girls on the shore who
come down to the water's edge to see the pageant
pass. The boat glides on until it disappears behind a
point of wood. At this moment perhaps, the bugle,
with which all the boats are provided, strikes up its
note in the distance over the water. These scenes,
and these notes, echoing from the bluffs of the beauti-
ful Ohio, have a charm for the imagination, which,
although I have heard a thousand times repeated, and
at all hours, and in all positions, is even to me always
new, and always delightful. No wonder that the
young, who are reared in those remote regions, with
that restless curiosity which is fostered by solitude
and silence, who witness scenes like this so fre-
quently, no wonder that the severe and unremitting
labours of agriculture, performed directly in the view
of such scenes, should beeomc tasteless and irksome.
No wonder that the young along the banks of the
great streams, should detest the labours of the field,
and embrace every opportunity, either openly, or if
minors, covertly, to escape and devote themselves to
the pernicious employment of boating. And in this
view we may account for the detestation of the inliab-
itants along these great streams towards steam-boats,
which arc every day diminishing the number of small
boats and boatmen, and which have already withdrawn
from the western waters, probably ten thousand from
that employment. And yet with all these seductions
tor the eye and the imagination, no life is so slavish,
none so precarious and dangerous. In no employment
<lo tin; hands so wear out. After the lapse of so very

short a period since these waters have been navigated
in this way, at every bend, and every high point of* the
river, you are almost sure to see, as you stop for a mo-
ment, indications of the a narrow house ;" the rude
monument, the coarse memorial, carved on an adjoin-
ing tree by a brother boatman, which marks that an
exhausted boatman there yielded his breath, and was
buried.

Pittsburg is a considerable town, generally built of
brick, and has been so often described as to render un-
interesting any new attempt of the kind. The site
is romantic and delightful. It is well known as a
manufacturing place, and once almost supplied the
lower country with a variety of the most necessary
and important manufactures. But the wealth, busi-
ness, and glory of this place are fast passing away,
transferred to Cincinnati, to Louisville, and other pla-
ces on the Ohio. Various causes have concurred to
this result ; but especially the multiplication of steam-
boats, and the consequent facility of communication
with the Atlantic ports by the Mississippi. There is lit-
tle prospect of the reverse of this order of things. The
national road, terminating at Wheeling, contributes to
this decay of Pittsburg. Her decline is not much re-
gretted, for she used to fatten on the spoils of the poor
emigrants that swarmed to this place. Accustomed
to scenes of parsimony, misery, and beggary, and to
transient and unprincipled men, occupied in the har-
dening pursuits of manufactures, she had been brought
to think all men rogues, misery the natural order of
things, and of course little entitled to commiseration,
and every way of getting money fair game. The
traveller was too apt to think of her as immersed in
'•' sin and sea-coal ;" for the constant use of fossil coal.

both for culinary and manufacturing purposes, lias
given a sooty and funereal aspect even to the buildings'";
of course much hospitality could not be expected
here. We were introduced, however, to the family ol
a minister, whose stately mansion and fine furniture,
gave us an impression of the opulence, if not of the
hospitality of the owner. But a New England minis-
ter expects in vain, in these regions, the simple, unaf-
fected, and ample hospitality, which constitutes so de-
lightful a trait in the character of the clergymen of
that country. I need only add, that the charges of
the hotel where we lodged, were, as I believe, double
of what would have been charged for the same fan;
at the same kind of house in Boston. It has been
said, that the decay of the business of this place has
been connected with its moral improvement, and il
in moral and humane institutions, and in the urbanity
and kindness of its manners, it now holds a respectable
competition with other places. That this order of
thinsrs may go on increasing is " a consummation d
voutly to be wished.5'

LETTER \.

Our first river voyage commenced in the early part
of November, on a beautiful autumnal afternoon. We
iiad waited a considerable time for the rising of the
river, for as yet no boat of any considerable draught
of water was able to descend. We had become im-
patient of remaining here, and embarked in a very
small flat-boat, laden with factory cottons and cutlery.
The owner was from Dorchester in Massachusetts,
ami probably his whole capital was embarked on this

bottom. He was as little experienced in this mode of
navigation as we were. Our notions of what we had
to expect on this voyage were formed from contem-
plating the gentle and equable current of this beautiful
river, and resulted in the persuasion, that the whole trip
would be an excursion of pleasure ami entire safety.
Hundreds of emigrants from the eastern country com-
mence this descent equally inexperienced.

About one o'clock in the afternoon we began to
float down the Allegany, and in a few moments we
were moving on the broad bosom of the Ohio, at the
point of junction nearly a mile in width. The au-
tumns of every part of our country are beautiful, but
those of the western country are pre-eminently so.
Nothing resulting from beauty of sky, temperature of
air, and charm of scenery, can surpass what was now
above us and around us. The bright sun, the mild
blue skv, a bland feeling of the atmosphere, the varie-
gated foliage of the huge sycamores which line tin:
banks of the Ohio, their loaves turning red and yel-
low, and finely contrasting with the brilliant white
of their branches, the unruffled stream, which reflect-
ed in its bosom the beautiful surrounding nature, — all
things conspired to give us very high anticipations from
bein"- walled down " la belle rivien We were con-
itulating each other, that this was indeed worth all
the toils and privations, we had endured in arriviog at.
the Ohio. But, alas for human calculations ! While
we were, notieing every object on the banks with such
intense interest, while the owner was seated amidst his
goods and wares, indulging probably in golden dreams
of easy, certain, anil great profits, while one of the
company that you know of, was completely given up
to reverie, at which you have so << ailed, — on a

sudden tho roar of the river admonished us that we
were near a ripple. We had with us that famous
book u The Navigator," as it is called. The boat be-
gan to exchange its gentle and imperceptible advance
for a furious progress. Soon after, it gave a violent
bounce against a rock on one side, which threatened
to capsize it. On recovering her level, she immedi-
diately bounced on the opposite side, and that in its
turn was keeled up. Instead of running to the oar,
we ran to look in the " Navigator." The owner was
pale. The children shrieked. The hard ware came
tumbling upon us from the shelves, and Mrs. F. was
almost literally buried amidst locks, latches, knives,
and pieces of domestic cotton. The gentle river had
not intended in this first alarm to swallow us up, but
only to give us timely warning, that too much tran-
quillity and enjoyment are not to be expected here.
We floated off from this ripple, which bore the omi-
nous name of " Dead Man's," into the smooth water,
with no other injury than the chaotic state of our
lading. But from that moment, adieu to our poetic
dreams of floating down the beautiful river in such
perfect safety. We were continually running to the
" Navigator,** astonished to find how full the river was
of chutes and ripples.

I might easily record a succession of disasters of a
like kind, sufficiently formidable to such fresh-water
sailors as we were, without a single pilot or waterman
on board. Sometimes we were jostling on the rocks
in the ripples. Sometimes we were driven furiously
along the chutes, and sometimes we stuck fast on the
sand-bars. One night we lay grounded on a rock in
.lie middle of the river, with the roar of a ripple in
hearing, just below us. Our fear was, that the river,

which was rising, would float us over these dangerous
falls in the night;* and you will easily imagine, that for
this night we gave " no sleep to our eyes."

At Beaver in Pennsylvania we exchanged this dan-
gerous and tedious mode of conveyance, for one more
suited to the present stage of the water. We purchas-
ed a large skiff. It has the advantage of being able to
run in any stage of the water, without grounding, and
is perfectly safe. In fine weather it furnishes a very
pleasant way of descending the river. But we soon
found that we had exchanged one inconvenience for
another. We could look round us indeed ; we went
forward securely. But at one time the sun beat in-
tensely upon us. At another we suffered from fogs
and rains. At every landing, too, where we stopped
to spend the night, and find lodging, we were obliged
to remove every article of lading from the boat, and
not too well assured, that some of the numerous ad-
venturers would not take away our boat during the
night.

In this manner we floated by many thriving villa-
ges, that had just risen in the wilderness, and many
indications of commencing settlement! The Ohio
broadened evidently at every advancing bend. The
bottoms diverged farther from the shores, and the fer-
tility of the soil increased. We remarked a curious
but uniform circumstance, which applies equally to
the Mississippi, and all its tributaries. It is, that with
few exceptions, where the bluffs of the river rise im-
mediately from the shore on the one hand, the bottoms
broaden on the other ; and when the bluff comment
at the termination of the bottom, th.it commenci l
the opposite shore. Thus they regularly alternate
with each other.

'._'*

At Steubenville, in Ohio, we remarked that the river
seemed to develope its character for broadness and
fertility. Here we first began to notice the pawpaw,
the persimon, and other new and beautiful shrubs and
plants, peculiar to this climate. Here, too, we saw
the most obvious proofs of the advance of this most
flourishing country, in population and improvement,
the more entire development of which has been so
astonishing within the last ten years. Where we now
saw a large village, with the spires of churches, an
entire street of large brick buildings, manufactories,
a market-house, and the bustle of a busy town, only
eighteen years before, there had been a solid and corn-
pact forest of vast sycamores and beeches. They
numbered already in this town four thousand inhab-
itants.

We were almost daily passing the mouths of boat-
able streams, which furnish lateral canals, some of
them hundreds of miles in extent, into the interior, on
which every year new towns and villages were spring-
ing up, and pouring the products of cultivation into the
Ohio. You understand, that it is not my intention to

into those details, which are best furnished by ge-
ipliics and gazetteers. My object is simply to pre-
senl you the observations and reflections, which ob-
truded themselves upon me, from nature, and the gen-
eral aspect of things. In the systems of geology and
world-making, which have furnished so much amuse -
m< in to the philosophers, or would-be philosophers of
the d;> i are aware, that there have been various

ingenious contrivances for the formation of this river,
and i!e immense valley in which it runs. Among
these theories, that of Mr. Volney, according to my best
recollection, for it is many years since I read it, sup-

poses that this valley was in former ages a vast lake.
The remains of the dike or barrier exist at present
at Louisville, and the falls of the Ohio. It is certain,
that the remains of river or lake formation exist,
wherever the earth is penetrated to any depth. I have
not seen in all this region a single bloek of granite.
The bluffs of the Ohio are carbonate of lime, mixed
often with the exuviae of marine animals. I have seen
cliffs, which contained millions of a small species of
muscle-shells, as distinct in the lime-stone, as if they
had been imbedded there but yesterday. 1 have pon-
dered and reflected much upon these remains of ma-
rine formation. But to relate the result of my conclu-
sions upon the subject, as it is not my object, so neither
would it, in my judgment, throw much light upon I
subject. I leave entirely to other writers to devise de-
vices, and to imagine causes, sufficient to form la!
and drain them, and to account for these indications
of marine formation. I cannot, however, help observ-
ing, that the "conclusion of the whole matter," in n
mind, was, that the bible solution of the matter, was
not only as satisfactory, but as plausible as any other,
and to me the most philosophical. God made the
earth to be inhabited. Such a river as the Ohio, such
lateral streams as pour into it, the mountains, who
outer limits form the rim of the basin, the thousand
devious channels, by which the ca i and fountains,
that pour from these mountains, find their way to tl
Ohio, are all necessary to the draining, the irrigation,
and the habitancy of the country, in this view, the
river and the valley must have been coeval, and form* d
not only together, but adjusted the one to the other.
There is a conformation of physical feature" in the
country every wh< - you approach the Ohio. I

'24

indicates to every one the vicinity of the river. The
bluffs and bottoms, as I have remarked, almost invari-
ably alternate, and are still opposite each other ; and
beyond them there is generally a considerable tract of
country, in the south, denominated "hammock-land,"
and in Ohio " second bottom ; " and beyond all this,
there are series of those singular hills, so unique in
their appearance and character, as to indicate to you,
at the distance of miles from the river, that you arc
approaching it. Still, beyond all this, there is another
strip of country appropriate to the distance which it
occupies from the river.

I need not inform you, that the Ohio runs, a consid-
erable distance, wholly in Pennsylvania; that after-
wards, the left shore in descending is the western limit
of Virginia, and the eastern of Ohio; that afterwards,
Kentucky is bounded on the left and Ohio on the right
shore; and that afterwards, first Indiana and then
Illinois bound on the right shore, and Kentucky oppo-
site on the left, until it enters the Mississippi. The
former and the latter river furnish excellent geographi-
cal limits to states on a scale corresponding to the
physical extent, grandeur, and ultimate moral destina-
tion of the country.

In descending we often met with boats loaded with
Kenhawa salt, an article extensively manufactured at
the salines on that river. Then; seems to have been,
at that time, a competition between the salines of
New York, and those of Kenhawa. Boats were then
ascending from the latter place to the highest boatable
waters of the Allegany. This region had formerly
been supplied with salt from the works in New York.

We found a new source of amusement in contem-
plating a set of twelve or fourteen hands, walking

slowly forward, and half bent, with the shoulder firmly
fixed against the knob of a Ions; pole, whose iron point
was set in the bottom, and thus apparently with great
labour propelling the boat against the stream. As soon
as they have walked the length of the boat, they raise
their pole, walk forward in Indian file, and renew
their " set," as the phrase is, again. I shall, however,
more naturally remark upon the mode of pushing a
boat against the stream in another place. It is a very
laborious and slow process, very expensive and trouble-
some. Steam-boats, save one, were not in use at this
time. I was obliged to move in my excursions, in a
keel-boat. I was compelled to know, to my cost, all
about pushing a boat up stream with a pole. u Quae*
que ipse miserrima vidi." Justly to appreciate the
value of steam-boats on these waters, one must have
moved up them, as long, as dangerously, and as labo-
riously, as I have done.

Charfestown is a considerable, and growing town,
on the Virginia shore, before you arrive at Wheeling.
It has important manufactories of Hour. At Wheeling,
the Ohio has received so many tributaries, as to be
navigable by keel-boats, and by steam-bouts with a
small draught of water, at all seasons of the year.
The town has many advantages for building boats
and small craft. It has abundance of fossil coal fof
manufacturing, and other purposes. The great na-
tional road strikes the Ohio here. It. h;is now large
piles of brick buildings, where eleven years since •Inn-
was but one miserable and straggling Street : and who-
ever looks upon the place, or i vcu considers its posi-
tion on the map, will perceive at once, ili.it it is
tined to become one of the largest towns on the 01
When we were there, its taverns were literal!} crowd-

ed with emigrants to the West, from every part of the
Union. We were all arrested here by the influenza,
which was then a most distressing epidemic on the
western waters. The house where we put up was
filled with the sick, with lamenting and mourning the
determination that had brought the patients to that dis-
tant and strange land. The objects of misery were so
multiplied, that there seemed little feeling or concern,
on the part of the people about them. My family had
their share of neglect, of homesickness, and of gloom.
Imagine a sickness of heart, more disheartening still
than the influenza ; imagine our expenses, and the little
attention paid to us in a house crowded with sick ; im-
agine a state of mind, in which the very mention of
our late home would fill the eyes of my children with
tears, — and you will have some idea of the character
of our long and sad sojourn at Wheeling.

LETTER VI.

It was now the middle of November. The weath-
er up to this time had been, with the exception of a
couple of days of fog and rain, delightful. The sky
has a milder and lighter azure than that of the north-
ern states. The wide, clean sau-.l-bars stretching for
miles together, and now and then a flock of wild
geese, swans, or sand-hill cranes, and pelicans, stalking
along on them : the infinite varieties of form of the
towering bluffs: the new tribes of shrubs and plants on
the shores; the exuberant fertility of the soil, evidenc-
ing itself in the natural as well as cultivated vegetation,
ia the height and size of the corn, of itself alone a

matter of astonishment to an inhabitant of the northern
states, in the thrifty aspect of the young orchards, lit-
erally bending under their fruit, the surprising size
and rankness of the weeds, and, in the enclosures where
cultivation had been for a while suspended, the matted
abundance of every kind of vegetation that ensued. —
all these circumstances united to give a novelty and
freshness to the scenery. The bottom forests every-
where displav tiie huge sycamore, the kina of the
western forest, in all places an interesting tree, but
particularly so here, and in autumn, when you see its
white and long branches among its red and yellow
fading leaves. You may add, that in all the trees that
have been stripped of their leaves, you see them
crowned with verdant tufts of the viscus or m isle toe,
with its beautiful white berries, and their trunks < n-
twined with grape-vines, some of them in size not
much short of the human body. To add to this union
of pleasant eireumstanees, there is a delightful tempe-
rature of the air, more easily felt than described. In
New England, when the sky was partially covered
with fleecy clouds, and the wind blew very gently from
the southwest, I have sometimes had the same s< liga-
tions from the temperature there. A slight degree of
languor ensues; and the irritability that is caused DJ
the rougher and more bracing air of the north, and
which is more favourable to physical strength and at •-
tivity than enjoyment, gives place to a tranquillity
highly propitious to meditation. There is som< thil
too, in the gentle and almost imperceptible motion. ;i-
you sit on the deck of the boat, and see the tree! ap-
parently moving by you, and new -roups of seem
still opening upon your eve. together with tie- view ol
these ancient and magnificent forests, which the ax<

has not yet despoiled, the broad and beautiful river, the
earth and the sky, which reader such a trip at this sea-
son (he very element of poetry. Let him that has
within him the " bona indoles," the poetic mania, as yet
unwhipt of justice, not think to sail down the Ohio un-
der such circumstances, without venting to the genius
of the- river, the rocks and the woods, the swans, and
perchance his distant beloved, his dolorous notes.

You have often given me ironical praise for my fan-
cied sympathy with nature. It is very true, that 1
ought under no circumstances to need flappers to re-
mind me of the skin calls of duty, to be, as the boat-
men here express it," " wide awake and duly sober/'
But during every fine day on this excursion, I as nat-
urally gave myself up to that kind of dreaming exist-
ence, called reverie, as a man exhausted with toil at
night yields himself v.}) to sleep. Sometimes, too, the
opening of a view, of more imposing and inspiriting
character, exalted the soul to " solemn thought and
heavenly musing." Let me be thankful for all that I
have enjoyed ; and the recollections of this descent are
recollections of novel and almost unmixed enjoyment,
and are indelibly engraven on my memory.

The climate of this country is admitted not to be
so favourable to physical energy and activity as the
keen northwest breeze of your climate. 1 see that
the emigrants from that country have lost something
of their native activity. There is something, also, to
in*' almost appalling in this prodigious power of vege-
tation. For there is with me, in some manner, an as-
sociation of this thing with the: idea of sickness. In-
deed I have now and then seen a person yawning and
stretching, apparently almost incapable of motion, and
with a peculiar, cadaverous countenance, who has,

they tell me, the fever and ague. But all this not-
withstanding, I have never seen a country to appear-
ance more fruitful in men, as well as corn. From the
cabins and houses tumble out, as you approach the

shore, a whole posse of big and little boys and girls;
and the white-headed urchins, with their matted locks,
and their culottes gaping with many a dismal rent,
stare at you as you pass. 1 have seen no where else
such hosts of children. The process of doubling pop-
ulation, without Malthus, and without theory, without
artficial or natural wants, goes on, I am sure, on the
banks of the Ohio as rapidly as anywhere in the
world. "Why should it not ? The climate is mild,
the cattle need little care or housing, and multiph
rapidly. Grain requires little labour in the cultivation*
and the children only need a pone of corn bread, and
a bowl of milk.

LETTER VII.

We landed at Marietta, just above the mouth of the
Muskingum. It is a considerable village. In tin
forms of the houses and the arrangements about them.
you discover that this is an establishment from New
England. A number of well informed and respectabb
emigrants from that country had preceded US, and had
just arrived in the village. Mr. R*, a pious and amia-
ble man, who has since deceased, was minister there.
I had letters to the venerable General Putnam, the
patriarch of this colony. We were here once more
in the society of those who had breathed the sanx
air, had contemplated the same SC< n» ly. and b<

reared amidst the same institutions with ourselves.
You ean imagine the rapidity of discourse, the at-
tempt of two or three to narrate their adventures at
the same time, and the many pleasant circumstances
attending the renewal of a long suspended intercourse
with congenial society.

There is something very pleasant and rich in the
aspect of the wide and level bottom here. There is a
fine steam- mill, built of stone, across the Muskin->um,
spouting up its column of vapour, and the accompani-
ment of boat-building and mechanic labours gives the
place an aspect of business and cheerfulness. The
place has however suffered more than once from in-
undation, which has much retarded the advancement
of its growth. We hear much of the flourishing and
populous settlement up the Muskingum, a river whose
banks are said to be pleasant and healthful. The riv-
er, which here falls into the Ohio, is broad, shallow,
and considerably rapid. The Ohio, as the phrase is,
backs it up, at times, to a considerable distance ; a
circumstance which occurs in all the rivers of the Ohio
and Mississippi, and results from the general levelness
of the face of the country. A laughable incident is
said to have occurred on this river, from this cause.
During the thick fogs that often happen here, it is well
nigh impossible for the boatmen to judge of directions,
or ascertain which way is up, or which way down the
river. In such circumstances, a boat came down the
Ohio near the Muskingum shore, was drawn into the
mouth of the river bv the current that was backing it
up. and was proceeding to ascend it in the log. When
ilii' hands had made some miles up the river, they
were hailed, am1 the usual questions, which by the
waj are \irx tedious, and very impertinent, were ask-

ed : viz. Where from? How laden? Who was the

captain? And where bound ? To this last question
the reply was, To New Orleans, and they were with
difficulty convinced, that they were making head-way
up the Muskingum. In effect, no commander of a

seventy-four is more punctiliously greeted with all this
kind of questioning than a flat or keel-boat, descend-
ing the Ohio. The boatmen relate, that it so happen-
ed, that a descending boat was able to answer truly to
these interrogatories in the following manner. Where
are you from? Redstone. What's your lading?
Millstones. What 's the captain's name ? Whetstone.
Where are you bound ? To Limestone.

I may here remark, that this kind of questioning of-
ten gives occasion to that rencontre of wit, that is
commonly called blackguarding. I have more than
once been compelled to smile, at the readiness or
whimsicality of the retorts in these trials of vulgarity,
between the people on shore and the boatmen. But.
I have much oftener been disgusted with the obscenity,
abuse, and blasphemy, which usually terminate the
contest. We are told, that this proceeds sometimes to
the length of exchanging musket shots. Such an
event recently occurred. A boatman in this way as*
sailed a man on the shore. The landsman proved
the more adroit blackguard of the two. In this keen
encounter of wits, whenever the man on the shore had
the best reply, as generally happened, be was cheered
by the hands on the boat, and their companion ridi-
culed. The boatman at length, exasperated beyond
all patience, seized a rifle and levelled at his antago-
nist on the shore, who with every mark of terror,
instantly sprang behind a tree. Nothing is so ludi-
crous, or so quickly disarms resentment in a boatman.

as any expression of tenor and cowardice. He ex-
claimed, that he had treed the game, and bursting into
laughter, he let his rifle fall.

Though this is in some sense a Yankee region, and
Ohio is called, on the opposite shore, the Yankee state,
you do not the less hear at all these towns, and every
where in this state, fine stories about Yankee tricks,
and Yankee finesse, and wooden nutmegs, and pit-coal
indigo, and gin made by putting pinetops in the whis-
key. The poor Irish have not had more stories in-
vented and put into their mouths. I might relate a
score of Vankee tricks, that different people assured
us had been played off upon them. I will only
remark, that wherever we stopped at night and re-
quested lodgings, we were constantly asked if we
were Yankees; and when we answered that we were,
we constantly saw a lengthening of visage ensue, but
were generally complimented in the end with granting
our request, and assurances that our appearance and
my profession answered for us. We were then com-
pelled to hear of impositions and petty tricks, and
small thefts, and more than all, departure without pay-
ing off bills, which, they alleged, had been practised
upon them by Yankees. The emigrants upon whom
these charges are fixed, which are probably magnified,
both in number and enormity, an? as often other
people, as Yankees. But as these last eminently
possess the power of talking, and inspire a sort of
terror by their superior acutcness, and as that terror
procures a certain degree of respect, many a block-
head from the southern and middle states has wished
to shine his hour, as a wise man, anil has assumed
this terrific name: and thus the impression has finally
been established, that almost all the emigrants who

pass down the river, are Yankees. The common reply
of the boat-men to those who ask. them what is their
lading, is, " Pit-coal indigo, wooden nutmegs, straw
baskets, and Yankee notions."

To return to Marietta. General Putnam was a vet-
eran of the revolution, an inhabitant of Marietta, one
of the first purchasers and settlers in the country. Ha
had moved here, when it was one compact and bound-
less forest, vocal only with the cry of owls, the growl
of bears, and the death-song of the savages. He had
seen that forest fall under the axe, — had seen commo-
dious, and after that, splendid dwellings rise around
him. He had seen the settlement sustain an inunda-
tion, which wafted away the dwellings, and in some
instances the inhabitants in them. The cattle and all
the improvements of cultivation were swept away.
He had seen the country suffer all the accumulated
horrors of an Indian war. He had seen its exhaustless
fertility and its natural advantages triumph over all.
He had seen Marietta make advances towards acquaint-
ing itself with the gulf of Mexico, by floating off from
its banks a number of sea vessels built there. He had
seen the prodigious invention of steam-boats experi-
mented on the Ohio, and heard their first thunder, a-
they swept by his dwelling. lie had survived to sir
them become so common, as to be no more objects <>!
curiosity. He had witnessed a hundred boats, ladi n
for New Orleans, pass by in the compass of ;i few
hours. He had surrounded his modest, but eonimo-
dious dwelling with fruit-trees of his own planting : and
finer, or more loaded orchards than hi-, no country
could offer. In the midst of rural plenty, and endear-
ed friends, who had grown up around him, — far from
the display of wealth, the bustle of ambition and in-
5

trigue, the father of the colony, hospitable and kind
without ostentation and without effort, he displayed
in these remote regions, the grandeur, real and intrin-
sic, of those immortal men, who achieved our revolu-
tion. Of these great men, most of whom, and Gene-
ral Putnam among the rest, have passed away, there
seems to have arisen a more just and a more respect-
ful estimate. Greater and more unambitious men, no
age or country has reared. Cato's seems to have been
their motto — u esse quam videri."

At the close of November we departed from Ma-
rietta. The days were still delightful. But the
earth in the morning was whitened with frost. The
advanced season admonished us, that we could no
longer go on safely or commodiously, in an open
boat. We purchased a Kentucky flat, of forty tons
burthen, subject however to the incumbrance of a fam-
ily, who had been already insured a passage in it. A
few hours before sunset we went on board with a num-
ber of passengers, beside my family, and I introduced
my family to the one that was already on board. He
proved to be a fine, healthy-looking Kentuckian, with a
young and pretty wife, two or three negro-servants, and
two small children. He was a fair specimen of the
rough and frank Kentucky character of men of his
class : an independent farmer, who had swarmed from
the old homestead hive in Kentucky. Land, there, he
said, had already become too scarce and dear. He
wanted elbow-room, did not wish to have a neighbour
within three miles of him, and was moving to the upper
Mississippi) lor range. It had become too dark on
board for him to distinguish my family or profession.
11 So," said he, " I find I am chartered on a rail-splitting
yankee," adding an epithet that I omit. Some one

politely mentioned to him my profession. I lis wife
observed in the phrase of the country, " My husband
swears hard. His father and mine are both religions.
I should be forever thankful to yon. if you would eure
him of the habit of swearing." I remarked, that since
we were thrown together, and were under the neces-
sity of occupying the same boat for some days, it
would be extremely gratifying to me if lie would de-
sist from the habit, at least while we were together.
The usual remarks were added, on the folly and
vulgarity of swearing, and its utter want of temptation.
He replied, that it was not his habit to swear in the
presence of ministers, or gentlemen, to whom he knew
it was offensive. He continued, in an earnest tone, to
state that all his relatives were religious, and that he
was almost the single stray sheep from the flock : he had
often tried to " gel religion," as the phrase is here ; he
had laboured as hard for it, as he ever had at rolling
logs, and that whatever was the reason, do all he could,
to him it would never come ; and now, if it would come
to him of itself, good ; but if not, that he meant to try
for it no more. He pledged himself, in conclusion, that
he would abstain from swearing while with me, as fai
as he could remember to abstain, and he faithfully re-
deemed his pledge. He proved an excellent steersman
for the boat, and a kind and friendly, if not a pleasant
companion. He had been many years a boatman on
the Ohio, the Mississippi, and its waters; and had ;i
great fund of interesting narrative appertaining to his
numerous voyages.

He became very much amused in stirring up tin
national feeling in my children, by speaking against
New England and ridiculing Yankees. He had serv-
ed in the late war, on the Canada frontier, and bad

many pleasant stories about their ingenious knaveries.

He generally concluded these details with a song, the

burden or chorus of which was,

" Thej will put pine -tops in their whiskey,
And then they will call it gin."

This song he would extend to a number of stanzas,
singing them with the utmost extent of his voice. One
of the children of nine years, whose patriotic blood
had become too warm to bear all this, assailed him
in the most earnest manner, palliating or denying
every charge. In the height of the argument, we had
drifted near the Ohio shore. "Oh!" said he to my
daughter, " look there now, at the cruelty of the Yan-
kees ! There is a man ploughing with two cows. At
night, after working them all day, he will turn them
out and milk then). Do you think it is in the heart of
a Kentuckian to be so cruel and avaricious?" Our
child appealed to me, if the team in question were
cows. Indeed, at the distance of the field, the oxen
had the appearance of cows, and to keep up the spirit
of the argument, I admitted that they appeared to be
cows.

Tin' next morning our daughter had her revenge
upon Kentucky. We were iloaling by a large stone
house on the Kentucky shore. The master was
lounging in the piazza. The usual salutation pass-
ed:— " Halloo, the boat ! " To which the reply was,
" Halloo, the house ! Have you any potatoes to sell
to our boat ? " " None. Have you any whiskey
aboard that boat ? " " Plenty," answered our captain,
although in fact we had none. " Well, I will trade
sonic potatoes for whiskey." " What do you ask for
your potatoes ? " " A dollar a bushel." That is to
say, he asked three times a fair price. The answer

was, that it was too high a price. "Well, I will let
you iiave a bushel of potatoes for a gallon of whis-
key ! ' The whiskey would have been worth thirty-
three cents. He continued to bawl out, that he would
let us have a bushel for half a gallon, and finally for a
quart We took occasion to remind our captain, that if
the Kentuckians did not work their cows, and then milk
them for beverage, they seemed to have no small fond-
ness for beverage of another sort.

Nothing very material occurred to us on our way
to Cincinnati, except that we encountered, while float-
ing by night, a severe thunderstorm, always an im-
pressive scene by night, and particularly so in one of
these frail boats, which lies like a log amidst the
waves, in profound darkness, and a stream a mile in
width. Besides the unpleasant sensations to my fam-
ily, to whom this was a new scene, the rain that pour-
ed in torrents, drenched every part of the boat, so th.it
with the roar of thunder and the dashing of the waves
without, and the terrors of my children within, we
passed a very uncomfortable night.

LETTER VIII.— CA\Y7.V V. 1TI.

Eleven years since, this was the only place thai
could properly be called a town, on the course of the
Ohio and Mississippi, from Steubenville to Natchez,
a distance of fifteen hundred miles. It is far otlx rw i -
now. But even then you cast your eye upon a lai
and compact town, and extended your view over the
river to the fine buildings rising on the slope of tin
opposite shore, and contemplated the steam-manufac-
tories, darting their columns of smoke aloft. All this

moving picture of wealth, populousness, and activity,
has been won from the wilderness within forty years.
In 18 15-1 1) it contained between eight and nine
thousand inhabitants, handsome streets, a number of
churches, one a very large one, — a very spacious
building for a Lancastrian school, and other public-
buildings, and two commodious market-houses. On
the opposite shore rose a considerable village ; an ar-
senal of brick, some handsome mansions, and one or
two country-seats, that rose still farther in the dis-
tance. The buiidings on each side were placed in po-
sitions, that displayed them to the best possible advan-
tage, on gentle slopes rising gradually from the shores
of the river. While I am writing, it is supposed to
contain between sixteen and twenty thousand inhabit-
ants, with the increase of every appendage to city
comfort, beauty, and opulence, in more than a com-
mensurate proportion with its increasing population.
Jt. is a fund for proud anticipation, to minds that sym-
pathize with the welfare of their country and of man.
This great stale, which was, within my memory, an
unbroken wilderness, is now, at farthest, only the
fourth state in the union in point of numbers. There
are not, probably, on (he earth seven hundred thousand
human beings, who in the mass are more comfortably
led and clothed, than the population of this state. I
looked upon this fresh and nourishing city, outstretched
under my eye. and compared in thought its progress
willi that of the imperial Petersburg, — where a great
iiui intelligent despot said, uLet there be a city," and a
city arose upon a Golgotha, upon piles of human bones
and skulls, that gave consistency to a morass. The
awe of a numberless soldiery, the concentered resour-
ces of thirty millions of slaves, the will of the sovereign,

who made the same use of men that the mason dot -
of bricks and mortar, must all conspire to form a city
in that place. Droves of peasants are transplanted
from the extremities of Asia to people it. Imperial
treasures are lavished to furnish inducements to entice
the noblesse to build and reside there. A despotic
court displa}'s there Asiatic magnificence, and squan-
ders the means of ministering to its caprices and its
pleasures. The result of all these concurring causes
is the erection of one splendid city in the midst of a
desert : and more human beings, probably, perished in
this unnatural forcing of a city, than inhabit it at this
day.

How different are the fostering efforts of liberty.
Sixteen hundred miles from the sea, in half an age, this
flourishing and beautiful town has emerged from the
woods, and when as old as Petersburg now is, will prob-
ably, in wealth and population, emulate the imperial
city. No troops are stationed, no public money lav-
ished here. It is not even the state metropolis. The
people build and multiply imperceptibly and in silence.
Nothing is forced. This magnificent result is only the
developement of our free and noble institutions, upon
a fertile soil. Nor is this place the solitary point,
where the genius of our institutions is working tins
result. Numerous cities and towns, over an extent of
two thousands of miles, are emulating tin- growth of
this place. The banks of the Ohio arc destined short-
ly to become almost a continued village.'. Eleven yean
have produced an astonishing change in this respect;
for at that distance of time, by far the greater propor-
tion of the course of the Ohio was through a forest
When you saw this city, apparently lifting its head
from surrounding woods, you found yourself at a la

to imagine whence so many people could be fur-
nished with supplies. In the fine weather, at the com-
mencement of winter, it is only necessary to go to the
market of this town, and see its exuberant supplies of
every article for consumption, in the finest order, and
of the best quality ; to see the lines of wagons and
the astonishing quantities of every kind of produce, to
realize, at once, all that you have read about the
growth of Ohio.

In one place you see lines of wagons in the Pennsyl-
vania style. In another place the Tunkers, with their
long and flowing beards, have brought up their teams
with their fat mutton and fine flour. Fowls, domes-
tic and wild turkeys, venison, those fine birds which
are here called partridges, and which we call quails,
all sorts of fruits and vegetables, equally excellent and
cheap, — in short, all that you see in Boston market, with
the exception of the same variety of fish, and all these
things in the greatest abundance, are here. In one
quarter there are wild animals that have been taken
in the woods; cages of red-birds and parroquets ; and
in another, old ladies, with roots, herbs, nuts, mittens,
stockings, and what they call " Yankee notions."
My judgment goes with the general assertion here,
that no place, in proportion to its size, has a richer or
more abundant market than Cincinnati.

I found in this town great numbers of emigrants,
most of them from the north. They were but too
often wretchedly furnished with money, and the com-
forts almost indispensable to a long journey. It seem-
ed to have been their impression, that if once they
could arrive at the land of milk and honey, supplies
would come of course. The autumn had been unu-
sually sickly. The emigrants had endured great ex-

posure in arriving here. Families were crowded into
a single, and often in a small and uncomfortable apart-
ment. Many suffered, died, and were buried by char-
ity. Numerous instances of unrecorded suffering, of
the most exquisite degree, and with every agonizing
circumstance, occurred. The parties often were
friendless, moneyless, orphans, infants, widows, in a
strange land, in a large town, as humane as might be
expected, but to which, unfortunately, such scenes of
suffering had become so frequent and familiar, as to
have lost their natural tendency to produce sympathy
and commiseration. The first house which I en-
1 tered in this town, was a house into one room of
which was crowded a numerous family from Maine.
The husband and father was dying, and expired vvliile
I was there. The w ife was sick in the same bed, and
either from terror or exhaustion, uttered not a word
during the whole scene. Three children were sick of
fevers. If you add that they were in the house of a
poor man, and had spent their last dollar, you can fill
out the picture of their misery. It is gloomy to reflect
that the cheering results of the settlement of our new
states and territories, are not obtained without num-
berless accompaniments of wretchedness like this.
No charitable associations are more needed than so-
cieties to aid emigrants in cases like this, to be located
at the great resorts of departure and embarkation.
Perhaps our government, whose charities arc in general
so considerate and efficient, ought to interpose, and
see that the emigrating family have means, in the or-
dinary course of things, to carry them to their point of
destination, and if they have not, either to aid them,
or prevent the heads from exposing children, and per-
sons unconscious of their exposure, to certain misery.
6

As I contemplated residing here until the ensuing
spring, I took a house, and began to make excursions
in the vicinity, and to inspect the town. The position
is a pleasant one, and the adjoining country very fer-
tile. An astonishing growth of weeds, and tangled
vegetal ion in the enclosed lots and fields, attest, the
qualities of the soil. There are a great many hand-
some gardens, neatly laid out, and ornamented with
the most vigorous and luxuriant growth of vines, orna-
mental shrubs, and fruit-trees. As you recede from
town and the Ohio bottom, the country becomes
agreeably uneven, and undulating, though apparently
as rich as the bottom. These elevations are so abrupt
and considerable, that you have seldom many houses
in view from the same point. Some of the sites for
the farms, in the vicinity of the town, are delightfully
romantic. The experiment has abundantly verified,
that speculation and wealth, without natural advan-
tages, in the United States, cannot force a town. Eve-
ry thing, with us, must be free, even to the advance-
ment of a town. Nothing will grow vigorously in
our land from artificial cultivation, nor unless nature
works at the root. If speculation, as is said, founded
this flourishing town, it happened for once to select
the plaee, where nature and tin; actual position of
things called for one. It is intermediate between the
two Miamies, iu the centre of a very rich region of coun-
try, where points of river and road communication,
from the most fertile districts and remotest sections of
the state, terminate. The result demonstrates, that the
wonderful improvement of the town only keeps pace
wiih the advancement and cultivation of the country.

The great state, of which this town is the natural,
though not the political metropolis, spreads froni the

lakes on the north, to the Ohio on the south, on
which it fronts tor many hundred miles. In the north-
west, where it joins Indiana ; on Mac! river, and
on the Scioto, it evidences its proximity to the prairie
region of the west. These prairies are but diminutive,
though fertile copies of the more western ones. The far
greater proportion of this state is thickly timbered with
a heavy and deep forest, the classes of whose trees
and shrubs have been often described, and are well
known. One remark may convey some general idea
of the forest. There are very few evergreens, or tere-
binthine trees, if we except some few cypress trees, and
all the trees are deciduous. With the exception, per-
haps, of Illinois, this state affords the greatest bodies
of good laud in America. On its whole wide surface,
there is scarcely any land so hilly, sterile, or marshy,
as with moderate labor may not be subdued, drained,
and cultivated. Toward the north there are indeed)
extensive tracts of marshy country; but, when drained
as they will easily be, they w ill become the most pro-
ductive lands. Besides this tract there are no iride
morasses, no extensive inundated swamps, no sterile
mountains, or barren plains* The whole region scums
to have invited that hardy and numerous body of free-
holders, that inhabit it, to select themselves moderate,
and nearly equal-sized farms, and to dot and intersperse
them over its surface. And in respect of the smalln
of the farms, the number and equality of them, and
the compactness of its population, not confined) ;is is
the case farther west, to the water-courses, but diffused
over the whole state, it compares very accurately
with its parent, New-England.

To an eye, however, that could contemplate the
whole region from an elevated point, it. would, even

jet, exhibit a great proportion of unbroken forest, only
here and there chequered with farms. And jet in the
country-towns, and in the better settled districts, any
spectacle that collects the multitude, a training, an ordi-
nation, an election, the commencement of any great pub-
lic work, causes a rush from the woods and the forests,
which, like the tenanted trees of the poets, in the olden
time, seem to have given birth to crowds of men, women,
and children, pouring towards the point of attraction.
The greater part of the land, in the settled districts, is
taken up, as the phrase is. But the population has
yet, by no means, advanced towards the density of
which it is capable. The gigantic strides, by which
this state has swept by most of those that witnessed its
birth, seem to justify all the proud anticipations of the
most sanguine patriots, and even the turgid predic-
tions of fourth of July orators. If its progress for the
future should correspond with that of the past, in one
century it will probably compare with the most popu-
lous and cultivated regions of Europe.

It is generally denominated in the western country
the Yankee state. Although I should not suppose,
from my means of observation, that the greater propor-
tion of its inhabitants were actual emigrants from
New England, it is clearly the last region, in advan-
cing west, where the institutions of that country seem
to have struggled for the ascendency. The prevalent
modes of living , of society, of instruction, of associa-
ting for any public object, of thinking, and enjoying,
among the middling classes, struck me, generally, to
be copies of the New England pattern. There is
a more familiar, and seemingly a more cheerful inter-
fefcourse between the two sexes, than in the other
western states. The people more naturally unite them-

selves into corporate unions, and concentre their
strength for public works and purposes. They have
the same desire for keeping up schools, for cultivating
psalmody, for settling ministers, and attending upon
religious worship; and unfortunately the same disposi-
tion to dogmatize, to settle, not only their own faith,
but that of their neighbour, and to stand resolutely,
and dispute fiercely, for the slightest shade of difference
of religious opinion. In short, in the tone of conversa-
tion, the ways of thinking and expressing thought up-
on all subjects, in the strong exercise of social inclina-
tion, expressing itself in habits of neighbourhood, to
form villages, and live in them, in preference to that
sequestered and isolated condition, which a Kentuck-
ian, under the name of " range," considers as one of
the desirable circumstances of existence ; in the thou-
sand slight shades of manner, the union of which so
strongly marks one people from another, and the de-
tails of which are too minute to be described, by most
of these things, this is properly designated "the Yan-
kee state."

The people of Cincinnati evince a laudable desire to
belong to some religious society. When I arrived
there the methodists appeared to be the prevailing de-
nomination. They are strongly marked with the pe-
culiarities of their sect. They had a number of hiy-
preachers, some of them among the most wealthy peo-
ple in the town. Unhappily this community of preach-
ers produced its natural effect, in creating partisans
for the favourite preacher. One good result /lowed
from their union of wealth and zeal. Among the em-
igrants that were in distress, they sought out those ol
their own denomination, and relieved them. It would
be a desirable thing, that the religious of other denom-

inations had more of this "esprit du corps," and felt
that their community of profession, imposed obliga-
tions of this sort towards their suffering brethren in a
Strange land. It was painful to observe, that they,
but too often, brought this strong fellow-feeling in aid
of political, and other projects, that had been previ-
ously marked out in conclave by their leaders.

This town begins already to emulate the parent coun-
try in the bitterness of contest about ministers. There
were hot disputes in the Presbyterian church. I attend-
ed the session of a Presbytery, assembled professedly
to heal these divisions. The ministers took the atti-
tude, and made the long speeches of lawyers, in dis-
cussing the dispute before this tribunal. They availed
themselves of the same vehement action, and pouring
out a great deal of rather vapid declamation, proceeded
to settle points, that seemed to me of very little impor-
tance. The whole scene presented, it may be, a suffi-
cient modicum of talent for the bar, but manifested
much want of the appropriate temper, so strongly re-
commended by St. John the divine. 1 opened one of
the polemical pamphlets of religious controversy,
with which the press began to teem, in this town ;
and if memory serves me, the first remark in the
pamphlet was, " It beats the devil." The mode of ex-
pressing it may not be so coarse, but it is humiliating
to consider, that a like spirit is apt to infuse itself into
all religious disputes.

Some of the ministers whom I heard preach here,
were men of considerable talent and readiness. They
were uniformly in the habit of extemporaneous preach-
ing, a custom which, in my judgment, gives a certain
degree of effect even to ordinary matter. Their man-
ner had evidently been formed to the character of the

people, and indicated their prevailing taste ; and had
taken its colouring from the preponderance of the
Methodists, and the more sensitive character of the
people of the south. They did not much affect dis-
cussion, but ran at once into the declamatory. Some-
times these flights were elevated, but much oftener not
well sustained. For the speaking, the whole was, for
the most part, moulded in one form. They commen-
ced the paragraph in a moderate tone, gradually ele-
vating the voice with each period, and closing it with
the greatest exertion, and the highest pitch of the voice.
They then affected, or it seemed like affectation, to
let the voice down to the original modulation, in order
to run it up to the same pitch again.

I learned with great pleasure that they were gene-
rally men of enlightened zeal, and entire sanctity of
general character. The morals of this place, too, con-
sidering its age, and the materials, and the manner of
its formation, are astonishingly regular and correct
Few places have a more strict police, more efficient
regulations for the enforcement of rules and good
order. There were many institutions that had com-
menced, and many that were contemplated, whose ob-
ject was the diffusion of religious knowledge, instruc-
tion, and charity. The ladies had formed a bible and
charitable society. The members were highly re-
spectable, and the society was in efficient and useful
operation. Genuine benevolence and unostentatious
charity marked their exertions. What devolopemeut
the lapse of ten years may have given to the embryo
projects of humane institutions, which were now in
discussion, I am not informed to say. But the town
has a character for seriousness, good order, public
spirit, and christian kindness, corresponding to its im-
provement in other respects.

The state was doing, and has done much for the
interests of literature in general, and for the establish-
ment of free schools. There is an university at Athens.
I am not informed of its present state. It is well
known, that most of the institutions in the west, that
are dignified with the name of colleges, are little more
than primary schools. Even these are of immense
importance. There is a general and anxious con-
sciousness, on the part of parents, that their children
must be instructed. The provision, which the general
government has made for the establishment of schools,
is well known ; and in Ohio, it ought to be productive.
It is matter of regret, that this provision, which looks
so noble in the enactment, has as yet been almost
wholly inefficient.

Efforts to promote polite literature have already
been made in this town. If its only rival, Lexington,
be, as she contends, the Athens of the west, this place
is struggling to become its Corinth. There were,
eleven years since, two gazettes, and two booksellers'
shops, although unhappily novels were the most salea-
ble article. The rudiments of general taste, were,
however, as yet but crude and unformed. The prev-
alent models of grandeur, beauty, and taste, in com-
position and style, were those that characterized
fourth of July orations, in the first years of our Inder
pendence.

You would, perhaps, wish to hear something of the
distinguished men, with whom I met in this place, and
its vicinity. This kind of personal delineation, how-
ever fashion may have rendered it common, and al-
though it be generally the most acceptable article in
the narrative of a traveller, is not only in general an
invidious, but a very difficult task. You meet in this

place with many well informed people, from all the
different states, and even regions of the old world.
The collisions of minds, that bring together different
opinions, that have been swayed by different preju-
dices, and have been compelled by comparing them
with other prejudices, which have become obvious to
them when seen in another, to lay them aside ; the re-
sults of different modes of education and thinking com-
pared together; — all these things tend to form a soci-
ety, when it becomes new moulded and constituted in
such a state of things, more free from prejudices, and
in some respects more pleasant, than in those older
countries, where the population, manners, opinions,
and prejudices, are more generally of one class. Ar-
dent and powerful minds are more generally allured to
the scene of speculation and adventure, which these
new countries offer. If such minds are common here,
as they evidently are, it will be asked, why there is so
much bad taste visible in the literary productions of
this region and time. One reason probably is, that
the most incompetent are commonly the most forward,
and their efforts the most prominent and visible. We
observe, too, in such cases, that an unwarrantable dis-
dain keeps back the better informed and more power-
ful minds from displaying themselves. That the false
taste, which was prevalent in the newspapers, in the
pulpit, the bar, and the legislative hall, was the result,
neither of the want of talents nor taste, was sufficient-
ly obvious in all the private circles.

My duties and my travels occupied me in such ;i
manner, as to allow me few opportunities for taking
individual estimates of character. Chance brought me
in contact, and afterwards into considerable intima
with a gentleman, of whom very different portraits

have been drawn, General H. Of his urbanity, and
general hospitality and kindness, I entertain the most
grateful recollections. I could desire no attentions,
no facilities for discharging my duty, which he did
not constantly proffer me. His house was opened for
public worship. He kept an open table, to which
every visiter was welcomed. The table was loaded
with abundance, and with substantial good cheer, es-
pecially with the different kinds of game. In these
respects his house strongly reminded me of the pic-
tures, which my reading had presented me, of old Eng-
lish hospitality. He is a small, and rather sallow-
lookin0" man, who does not exactly meet the associa-
tions that connect themselves with the name of gene-
ral. But he grows upon the eye, and upon more inti-
mate acquaintance. There is something imposing in
the dignified simplicity of his manners. In the utter
want of all show, and insignia, and trappings, there is
something, which finely comports with the severe
plainness of republicanism. On a fine; farm, in the
midst of the woods, his house was open to all the
neighbours, who entered without ceremony, and were
admitted to assume a footing of entire equality. His
eye is brilliant. There is a great deal of ardour and
vivacity in his manner. He has a copious fund of
that eloquence which is fiited for the camp and for
gaining partisans. As a commander, vou know in
what different lights he has been viewed. Having no
capacity to form an adequate judgment upon this
point, I can only say, that my impression was, that his
merits in this respect had not been sufficiently appre-
ciated.

At the bar, I heard forcible reasonings, and just con-
ceptions, and discovered much of that cleverness and

dexterity in management, which are so common in the
American bar in general. There is here, as elsew lure,
in the profession, a strong appetite to get business and
money. I understood, that it was popular in the
courts to be very democratic ; and while in the oppo-
site state a lawyer is generally a dandy, he here affects
meanness and slovenliness in his dress. The lan-
guage of the bar was in many instances an amusing
compound of Yankee dialect, southern peculiarity, and
Irish blarney. " Him " and " me," said this or that,
u I done it," and various phrases of this sort, and images
drawn from the measuring and location of land pur-
chases; and figures drawn from boating and river
navigation, were often served up, as the garnish of
their speeches. You will readily perceive, that all
this has vanished before the improvements, the in-
creasing lights, and the higher models, which have
arisen in the period that has elapsed between that
time and this.

Dr. D., a man, I am told, like Franklin, originally
self-taught, has made very laudable efforts for the pro-
motion of science. He is himself a scientific physi-
cian, a respectable scholar, and natural-historian. He
has written very accurate and detailed " Sketches of
Cincinnati," and the region in its vicinity. His book
conveys very exact and specific information upon tfie
subjects, on which it professes to tri tt i would re-
fer you to it for more detailed and exact geographi-
cal and statistical information about thi> r< gion.

There was a circle of ladies here, to whom I have
before referred, of superior information and respecta-
bility, of dignity of deportment, ami affectionate kind-
ness of character, of which we experienced such af-
fecting demonstrations as are well remembered; even

after this interval of time. The elegance of the houses,
the parade of servants, the display of furniture, and
more than all, the luxury of their overloaded tables,
would compare with the better houses in the Atlantic
cities. If there be any difference, it is that in these
new towns, there is a gaudiness and glitter, the result
of too great a desire to produce a striking effect upon
the eye, which betray a want of just taste.

Every new inspection of the town, and every ex-
cursion in its vicinity, gave me more imposing views
of its resources and anticipations. Improvements are
rising every day. Carpenters, masons, boat-builders,
mechanics of all descriptions were numerous, and
found ample occupation, and there were daily calls for
more.

In making remoter journies from the town, beside
the rivulets, and in the little bottoms, not yet in culti-
vation, I discerned the smoke rising in the woods, and
heard the strokes of the axe, the tinkling of bells, and
the baying of dogs, and saw the newly arrived emi-
grant either rearing his log cabin, or just entered into
possession. It has afforded me more pleasing reflec-
tions, a happier train of associations, to contemplate
these beginnings of social toil in the wide wilderness,
than, in our more cultivated regions, to come in view
of the most sumptuous mansion. Nothing can be
more beautiful than these little bottoms, upon which
these emigrants, if I may so say, deposite their house-
hold gods. Springs burst forth in the intervals be-
tween the high and low grounds. The trees and
shrubs are of the most beautiful kind. The brilliant
red-bird is seen flitting among the shrubs, or, perched
on a tree, seems welcoming, in her mellow notes, the
emigrant to his abode. Flocks of parroquets are glit-

tering among the trees, and grey squirrels are skipping
from branch to branch. In the midst of these primeval
scenes, the patient and laborious father fixes his family.
In a (?w weeks they have reared a comfortable cabin,
and other out buildings. Pass this place in two years,
and you will see extensive fields of corn and wheat ; a
young and thrifty orchard, fruit-trees of all kinds, the
guaranty of present abundant subsistence, and ol future
luxury. Pass it in ten years, and the log buildings will
have disappeared. The shrubs and forest trees will
be gone. The Arcadian aspect of humble and retired
abundance and comfort, will have given place to a
brick house, with accompaniments like those that at-
tend the same kind of house, in the older countries.
By this time, the occupant, who came there with, per-
haps, a small sum of money and moderate expectations)
from humble life, and with no more than a common
school education, has been made, in succession, mem-
ber of the assembly, justice of the peace, and finally,
county judge. He has long been in the habit of
thinking of a select society, and of founding a family.
I admit, that the first residence; among the trees affords
the most agreeable picture to my mind; and that
there is an inexpressible charm in the pastoral simpli-
city of those years, before pride and self-consequeo
have banished the repose of their Eden, and whin you
witness the first struggles of social toil with the barren
luxuriance of nature.

To the eye of a Kentuckian, the lofty skeletons of
dead trees, the huge stumps that remain after cultiva-
tion has commenced, are pleasant circumstances in
this picture. They are, doubtless, associated in Ins
mind with remembrances of his own country, and
with the virgin freshness and exuberance of the soil.

To me, however, these are the most disagreeable ap-
pendage of a new farm, in the timbered region ; and it
is for this reason, that 1 am so much more pleased
with the prairie regions farther west; where there are
no dead trees, nor stumps, but a clear stage, »' tabula
rasa," and the first aspect of cultivation is as smooth,
as soft, as beautiful, as it will be, after the lapse of a
century. The configuration of the face of the coun-
try, its gentle undulations, and occasionally its deep
rallies, and that beautiful variety, by which nature
produces such an infinite diversity in its landscapes,
will render this a delightful country, when sufficient
time shall have elapsed, to consume all these trees,
stumps, and logs. At present, the prairie regions
of Ohio, on the Scioto and Mad River, and the coun-
try between the two Miamies, are the most beautiful-
and populous in the state. The whole course of the
Scioto is through a rich and highly cultivated re-
gion. On its banks is situated the wry neat and
handsome town of Chilicothe. Still higher on this
river is Columbus, the seat of government. It is pre-
dicted, that this river, united with lake Erie by a
canal, will unite the lakes with the Ohio.

LETTER IX.

Having exhausted the immediate interest of the
most prominent objects of curiosity in Cincinnati and
its vicinity, at the commencement of March, I set out
on a proposed tour through the state of Indiana, on
its front upon Ohio, and then crossing the Ohio, to
return to my family, through the state of Kentucky.
The weather was mild, and the buds of the trees and

shrubs were beginning to swell. The previous weatli
er, from the tenth of December, had been more than
usually severe. The mercury had frequently fallen
below cypher. The people had a way of accounting for
this as they had for many other calamities, by saying,
that the hard winter had been im ported by the Yan-
kees, of whom unusual numbers had arrived the pre-
ceding autumn and winter. The Big Miami was the
limit on the front, between the state of Ohio, and the
then territory of Indiana. General Harrison's fine
plantation is in the delta, which this river makes with
the Ohio. Having crossed this river into Indiana, I
found myself on the vast and fertile bottom made by
the two rivers. I descended this bottom to Lawrence-
burg, at this time one of the principal villages in the
territory. The soil here, and for a considerable dis-
tance on all sides, is highly fertile, but exposed to in-
undation, which, together with its having a character
for unheakhiness, has hitherto kept this place in the
bark ground. The position evidently calls for a con-
siderable town.

I here obtained letters of introduction through the
territory, and the next morning I plunged into the
deep forest below this town. I remember well the
brightness and beauty of the morning. A white frost
had covered the earth the preceding night. Dense
white banks of fog, brilliantly illuminated by a cloud-
less sun, hung over the Ohio. The beautiful red-bird)
that raises its finest song on a morning like this, was
raising its mellow whistle among the copses. Column!
of smoke rose from the cabins amidst the treea into
the higher regions of the atmosphere. A cheerful
accompaniment to all similar scenery, and which has
impressed me, in its echoes ringing and dying away

in the distant forests, as having a very peculiar effect
in tiie deep bottoms of the Ohio and Mississippi, is the
loud and continued barking of the numerous packs of
dogs that arc kept there. They evidently feel animat-
ed by the cheering influence of such a morning,
feel that these vast forests are their proper range ;
and by these continued barkings that echo through
the woods, thev seem to invite their masters to the
hunt and the chase.

On the margin of a considerable stream, whose
name, I think, is the Hogan, a sufficiently barbarous
name, I encountered the first bear that I had met in
the woods. He seemed as little disposed to make ac-
quaintance with me, as I with him.

In this whole day's ride, I was continually coming
in view of new cabins, or wagons, the inmates of
which had not yet sheltered themselves in cabins.
Whenever my course led me from the bottoms of the
Ohio, I found the bluffs, which invariably skirt the
bottoms, very ridgy, and the soil but indifferent, and
of what is here classed as second rate, and covered gen-
erally with a species of oak, called post oak, indica-
ting a cold, spungy, and wet soil ; into which, softened
as it was by the frost coming out of it, my horse
sunk at every step up to the fetlocks ; yet in this com-
paratively poor and ridgy soil, I could hear on all
sides the settler's axe resounding, and the dogs bark-
ings— sure indications, that the land had been, as the
phrase is, " taken up."

Few incidents, that occur to me as matters of in-
terest, remain on my memory of this long trip on the
Indiana shore. Most of the newly arrived settlers
that 1 addressed, were from Yankee land. As usual,
I refer you to books, that treat professedly upon that

subject for precise geographical information. The in*
habitants tell me, that, notwithstanding I see so much
ordinary land in this extent upon the Ohio, there are
vast bodies of the richest land in it, particularly up
the Wabash and its waters, where the prairies in the
vicinity of Fort Harrison are said to vie with the
richest and most beautiful of the Illinois and Missouri.
The greater portion of the fertile lands was as yet un-
redeemed from the Indians. The country was evi-
dently settling with great rapidity. The tide of emi-
gration from the northeast was setting farther west.
Ohio had already received its first tide and the wave
was rolling onward. The southern portion of the emi-
gration seemed to entertain no small apprehension,
that this also would be a Yankee state. Indeed the
population was very far from being in a state of mind,
of sentiment, and affectionate mutual eon fidence, fa-
vourable to commencing their lonely condition in the
woods in harmonious intercourse. They were form-
ing a state government. The question in all its
magnitude, whether it should be a slave-holding state
or not, was just now agitating. I was often compi-
led to hear the question debated by those in opposite
interests, with no small degree of asperity. Many
fierce spirits talked, as the clamorous and passionate
are accustomed to talk, in such cases, about opposi-
tion and " resistanee unto blood." But the preponder-
ance of more sober and reflecting views, those habits
of order and quietness, that aversion to shedding blood,
which so generally and so honorably appertain to the
American character and institutions, operated in th
wildernesses, among these inflamed and bitter spirits,
with all their positiveness, ignorance, and clashing
feeling, and with all their destitution of courts, and

the regular course of settled laws to keep them from
open violence. The question was not long after
finally settled in peace.

From the observations, which I made, which were
however partial, and confined to the southern front
of the state, I should have placed this state, in point
of qualities of soil, behind Ohio, Illinois, or Missouri.
But it is here a general impression, that this state has
large districts of the most fertile character. These
tracts are admitted, as a melancholy drawback, ap-
pended to this great advantage, to be sickly. At the
time I am writing, this state is supposed to contain
nearly three hundred thousand inhabitants, a rate of
increase considerably more rapid, than that of the
states still farther west. It has a very extended front
on the Ohio, extends back to the lakes, and its cen-
tral outlet is the Wabash, a river highly favourable
to boat navigation. At a considerable distance up
this river is Vincennes, which, when I was there, was
the principal village in the state. It is situated pleas-
antly on the Wabash, surrounded by a beautiful and
extensive prairie. This place is now surpassed by
Vevay, which has grown to be a considerable town. It
possesses circumstances of peculiar interest. When I
was there, the village had just commenced. 1 was
lodged in the house of a respectable Swiss gentleman,
who had married a wife from Kentucky. Such are the
unions that result from bringing together the mountain-
eers of Switzerland, and the native daughters of the
west. The people were prompt and general in at-
tending divine service. The next evening, there was a
warned meeting of the inhabitants, and the object was
to locate the town-house, a market, and first, second,
and third streets. 1 attended the meeting. The

night was dark and rainy. The deep and rich bottom,
the trees of which had but just been cut down, was so
muddy, that my feet sunk at every step in the mud.
Huge beech and sycamore trunks of trees so impeded
these avenues and streets, that were to be, that I doubt
if a chaise could have made its way, by day light and
the most careful driving, amidst the logs. When you
hear about market-houses, and seminaries, and streets
No. 1, 2, and 3, in the midst of a wilderness or fall-
en logs, you will have some idea of the language ap-
propriate to a kind of speculation, almost peculiar to
this country, that is to say, town-making. You will
infer from this, too, what magnificent ideas these
people have with respect to the future. I learned in
recently ascending the Ohio, that these splendid an-
ticipations are now realized, that the town- house,
market, and streets actually exist, and that instead
of huge sycamore trunks, they have now blocks of
brick buildings. Its relative position, with respect to
the state, and to Cincinnati and Louisville, is favoura-
ble to its future advancement.

But what gave peculiar interest to this place was,
that it was the resort of a flourishing colony from
Vevay in Switzerland. Although this people could
not bring here their glaciers and their Alps, in affec-
tionate remembrance of their ancient home, they have
brought hither their vines, their " simulatam Tro-
jam,*' their Vevay on the Ohio in the midst of Ameri-
can forests. I had seen vineyards in Kentucky on a
small scale. But this experiment on such a noble
scale, so novel in America, was to me a most inter-
esting spectacle. I was delighted with the frank and
amiable character of the inhabitants, giving me back
the images and recollections of them, from early rca-

ding. At that time they principally cultivated a
blue grape, which, I think, they called the "cape
grape. ' The wine from that grape was not pleasant
to me, though connoisseurs assured me, that it only
wanted age to be a rich wine. A position more un-
like that, in which they had cultivated the wine in
their own country, could scarcely be found. There
they reared it on sharp declivities of gravelly soil,
levelled in terraces. It was here on a bottom of a
loamy and extremely rich soil, on a surface perfectly
level, and at the foot of a high bluff. The vine grows
here, indeed, in the rankest luxuriance, and needs
severe pruning. It overloads itself with an exube-
rance of clusters, which still want the high and racy
flavour of the grape of the hills of Switzerland. But
they are introducing other vines, particularly the
sweet water-grape of Madeira. The cultivation is
understood at this time to be in a very prosperou
state. From what I have seen, I believe it would
prosper still more, if they should cultivate a grape,
more indigenous to the soil; the " pine woods r
grape of Louisiana, or the rich grape of Texas.

At a small town at the mouth of Kentucky river,
I crossed into that state. 1 had for some part of the
day's ride, for a companion, a very interesting young
man from Suabia in Germany. Highly gifted and
educated, he entertained and expressed very differ-
ent views of this country from those of most of the
European travellers of this class, that we find here.
Neither given to indiscriminate praise nor censure,
he saw and admitted how different an asylum these
free and fertile regions offered to his poor country-
men, from the overpeopled and oppressed countries
of Europe.

In ascending the Kentucky, I was profoundly im-
pressed with that spectacle, which has been so often
described, the stupendous height of its limestone
banks, from which you look down upon the waters
rolling darkly below, as in a subterranean cavern. I
was struck, also, with the immense numbers of those
carrion birds, called turkey buzzards, which I saw on
the trees, oa the banks of this river. There were
also great numbers of parroquets, and other birds.
Kentucky has a great many handsome villages. Eve-
ry county in the fertile districts has at least one such.
On the banks of the Ohio, which are exposed to
fever and ague, the inhabitants have a pale and sal-
low cast of countenance. As soon as you depart
from the Ohio, and find yourself in the region of bills
and springs, you will nowhere see fairer and fresher
complexions, or fuller and finer forms, than you see
in the young men and women, who are generally ex-
empted from the necessity of labour. They have a
mild and temperate climate, a country producing the
greatest abundance, and sufficiently old to have pos-
sessed itself of all the comforts of life. The people
live easily and plentifully, and on the " finest of the
wheat." The circumstances, under which they are
born, tend to give them the most perfect develope-
ment of person and form. It struck me, that the
young native Kentuckians were, in general, the larg-
est race that I had seen. There was obvious, at
once, a considerable difference of manners between
the people of this and the opposite states, that do not
possess slaves. The villages are full of people, that
seem to have plenty of leisure. The bell of the court-
house— for their villages were generally destitute of a
church — would, on a half hour's previous notice, g

erally assemble a full audience, to what is here tech-
nically called " a preaching." It was easy to see, in
the complexion, manner, and dress of the audience,
a greater exemption from personal labour, than I had
witnessed elsewhere. Striking marks of rustic opu-
lence appear impressed upon every thing here.
There is a great difference in the manners of the tav-
erns here, from those of the Atlantic towns. The
public houses assemble a great number of well-dressed
boarders, townsmen, and strangers. The meals are
served up with no small degree of display and splen-
dour. The lady hostess is conducted by some dandy
to her chair, at the head of the table, which seems to
be considered a post of no small honour, and which
she fills with a suitable degree of dignity.

I felt grieved to see so many fine young men ex-
empted from labour, having no liberal studies and
pursuits to fill up their time, and falling, almost of
course, into the prevailing vices of the West — gam-
bling and intemperance. I endeavoured, more than
once, as opportunity offered, gently to start the dis-
course in the strain of remonstrance and admonition.
The parents lamented the fact, and the children were
ready more frankly to confess the charge, than to re-
form. They spoke of their failing with the tone of
penitents, who confess, deplore, but mean to sin
again.

On an evening, when I performed divine service, a
young man had misbehaved, through intoxication.
His minister, a Baptist, reproved him in the morning,
lie did not palliate or deny the charge; admitted
that it was shamel'ui ; but said, that being a prodigal
in a good and respectable family, he was subject in
consequence to bitter reflections, and that, particular-

]y, the evening before, he had felt a painful sinking
before he went to hear the word, and had found it
necessary to take a little of the cheering juice of the
grape : and that his optics, as he had often felt before,
had been so disordered, that he saw tilings double.
He ended by saying, that the minister, whom he had
often seen in the same predicament, must know how
to make his excuse.

The ease and opulence, that are so visible in the
appearance of the people, are equally so in the
houses, their appendages, and furniture. Travelling
through the villages in this fertile region, where the
roads are perfectly good, and where every elevation
brings you in view of a noble farm-house, in the midst
of its orchards, and sheltered by its fine groves of
forest and sugar-maple trees, you would scarcely re-
alize, that the first settlers of the country, and they
men of mature age when they settled it, were, some
of them, still living. Every thing is young or old
only by comparison. The inhabitants, who are more
enthusiastic and national than the other western
people, and look with a proud disdain upon the
younger states, designate their own state, with the
veneration due to age, by the name of "Old Ken-
tucky." To them it is the home of all that is good,
fertile, happy, and great. As the English are said
to go to battle with a song extolling their roast beef,
instead of saying their prayers, so the Kentuckian,
when about to encounter danger, rushes upon it, cry-
ing, " Hurra for old Kentucky." Every one in the
western country lias heard the anecdote, that a Meth-
odist preacher from this state, in another state, was
preaching, and expatiating upon the happiness of
heaven. Having gradually advanced towards trie

cap of his climax, " In short," said he, " my brethren,
to say all in one word, heaven is a Kentuck of a
place."

At this time the people were in the height of their
sugar-making, a kind of Saturnalia, like the time of
vintage in France. The cheerful fires in the groves,
the respectable looking ladies, who were present with
their servants, superintending the operations, es-
pecially when seen by the bright glare which th ir
fires cast upon every object by night, rendered it a
very interesting spectacle.

In advancing towards Frankfort, I generally per-
formed divine service every night, and found it ne-
cessary only to give the usual half-hours notice, to
assemble a large audience— a sufficient proof, that
the people have abundance of leisure, and that they
have the usual portion of curiosity. New England
has every where at the south the reputation of being
the land of troublesome inquisitivenesss ; but it strikes
me, that this people possess the spirit at least in an
equal degree. A stranger, if understood to be such,
is exposed to being annoyed with questions by the
country people, and especially to be invited to " swap
horses,'7 as the phrase is. Horse trading, indeed,
seems to be a favourite and universal amusement
through the country.

I entered Frankfort in a violent shower of rain.
The town, seen through such a medium, did not show
to advantage. Contemplated by the bright sun of
the next day, it seemed not a large, but a neat town,
having many houses that showed taste and opulence.
Having been some time the metropolis, it was of
course a growing place. The inhabitants, male and
female, were remarkable for their display in their

dress. I performed divine service in the capitol.
The audience was numerous, and gaily dressed. A
gentleman preached in the afternoon, who was a
judge, had been a member of congress, and was a
preacher in the Baptist profession. I had never yet
seen a man, discharging the duties of a christian min-
ister, so splendidly dressed. He delivered an eloquent
and impressive sermon, garnished, however, with
some tricks of oratory, probably learned at Washing-
ton, that might have been spared. The venerable
governor, to whom I had letters, was not in town.
You have read, that he distinguished himself in the
late frontier war. He is remarkable for his attention
to the institutions of religion, for his excellent moral
character, and for the simplicity and plainness of his
habits. Having seen all that struck me as matter of
interest in this town and vicinity, after two days'
stay I took the road to Lexington. It is a fine road,
and I remarked the same series of good houses, pleas-
ant farms, and by night the bright fires of the sugar-
camps, which had struck me before, in travelling
through the country. Vegetation is just beginning to
unfold. The aspect of the landscape is fertile and
pleasant. The air is soft. I scarcely recollect to
have had a more pleasant ride, than that from Frank-
fort to Lexington.

LETTER X.—LEXLYGTO.V.

Lexington is situated in the centre of what the
Kentuckians affirm to be the finest body of land in the
world. I believe no country can show finer upland ;
and for a great distance from the town, plantation ad-

joins plantation, in all directions. The timber is of
that class that denotes the richest soil. The wheat
fields equal in beauty those of the far-famed county of
Lancaster, in Pennsylvania. I am now in the region
where the farmers designate their agriculture by the
term, " raising a crop." Where farmers, with a small
number of hands, turn their attention, equally, to all
the different articles raised in a country, this kind of
farming is not called "raising a crop." They do this,
when a planter, with a gang of negroes, turns his prin-
cipal attention to the staples of the country — hemp,
flour, and tobacco. The greater part of the boats from
this state are loaded with these articles. But the small
farmers, also, send to market quantities of the same
assortment of products, as are carried from Ohio.
Many of these articles are now faithfully inspected,
and bear a respectable competition with the same arti-
cles in the market, from the Atlantic states. The
"country is not, to be sure, the same paradise that the
" Mountain Muse," and other pastoral poems, and
i( Histories of Kentucky," have represented it. There
is a balance of inconveniences and defects, appended
to all earthly paradises. But when the first emigrants
entered this country, in its surface so gently waving,
with such easy undulations, so many clear limestone
springs and branches, so thickly covered with cane,
with pawpaw, and a hundred species of flowering
trees and shrubs, among which fed innumerable herds
of deer, and buffaloes, and other game, as well as wild
turkeys and other wild fowl, and this delightful as-
pect of the country directly contrasted with the sterile
regions of North Carolina, which they had left, no
wonder that it appeared to them a paradise. I was
much amused to see the countenances of some of the

hoary patriarchs of this country, with whom 1 staid,
brighten instantly, as they began to paint the aspect of
this land of flowers and game, as they saw it when
they iirst arrived here. Enthusiasm and strong ex-
eitement naturally inspire eloquence, and these people
becoaie eloquent in relating their early remembrances
of the beauty of this country. Indeed, the first settle-
ment of the country, the delightful scenes, which it
opened, the singular character of the first adventurers,
who seem to have been a compound of the hero, the
philosopher, the farmer, and the savage ; the fierce
struggle, which the savages made to retain this de-
lightful domain, and which, before that struggle was
settled, gave it the name of " the bloody ground,'" —
these circumstances, conspire to designate this country,
as the theatre, and the time of its settlement, as the
period, of romance. The adventures of Daniel Boon
would make no mean show beside those of other he-
roes and adventurers. But although much lias been
said in prose, and sung in verse, about Daniel Boon,
this Achilles of the West wants a Homer, worthily to
celebrate his exploits.

Lexington is a singularly neat and pleasant town,
on a little stream that meanders through it. It is qoI
so large and flourishing as Cincinnati, but has an air oi
leisure and opulence, that distinguishes it from tin
busy hustle and occupation of that town. In the cir-
cles where I visited, literature was most commonl) the
topic of conversation. The window-scats presented
the blank covers of the new and most interesting pub-
lications. The best modern works had been generally
read. The university, which has since become
famous, was, even then, taking a higher Standing, than
the other seminaries in the western country. There

was generally an air oi ease and politeness in the social
intercourse of the inhabitants of this town, which evinc-
ed the cultivation of taste and good feeling. In effect,
Lexington has taken the tone of a literary place, and
may be fitly called the Athens of the West. One un-
pleasant circumstance accompanied this prevalence of
literary conversation. Smatterers, who mixed in ihese
circles, without reading and without reflection, caught
from conversation a few loose ideas of the systems and
discussions of the day. Chemistry, geology, religion,
— all subjects, profane and sacred, passed in review
before them. Each subject, in its turn, furnished ma-
terials for doubting, theorizing, and finally settling the
question. In such minds, such an order of things
would naturally excite a most active fermentation.
Hence, the conversation was apt to take the form of
dogmatism and disputation.

Dr. B. at this time presided over the university,
with great diligence and effect. The several classes in
the institution were engaged in the same studies with
the pupils of the eastern colleges. Classical literature
had been, as yet, but a matter of secondary considera-
tion. The institution at this time has high fame as a
seminary, and the number of students, especially med-
ical ones, is respectable. A bitter feud seems to have
been excited in respect to the religious principles, sup-
posed to be inculcated there. A very great majority
of the ministers of the state, of all denominations, are
in opposition to those supposed opinions. It is to be
regretted, that the interests of literature should in this
way be associated with religion.

In all the churches of this town, I observed full and
attentive audiences, and a greater resemblance to
the regular addictedness to attending public worship.

which prevails in New England, than I had seen since
I left it. To all the objects of christian charity, that
began about that time to be started at the North, they
gave a prompt and liberal attention. A revolution
seems about this time to have taken place in the taste
of the people, in respect to the requisites for pulpit elo-
quence. It had been the custom to prefer that kind
of speaking, to which allusion has been made, when
speaking upon the same subject in regard to Cincin-
nati. Great power of voice seems to have been the
first attribute, and to have occupied, in their estima-
tion, as great a space in good speaking, as delivery did
in the judgment of Demosthenes. They had the same
way of running a tune from low and moderate tones,
up to the highest pitch of the voice; and then gradu-
ally to subside to low and temperate modulation.
Two or three young clergymen from the North,
of educated and disciplined minds, and accomplished
speakers, had passed through the state, had preached
frequently, and been highly popular. The people had
heard piety and good sense expressed in a calm and
equable manner. These men had been above the
spasmodic tricks of oratory. The more gentle forms
of pulpit elocution that prevail at the North, had in
this way obtained the ascendancy. It will be readily
conceived by those who have heard the late most ac
complished and pious Mr. L., whose sudden decease at
New Orleans was so much regretted, what effect his
thrilling addresses would have upon so ardent and en-
thusiastic a people, a.s those of Kentucky.

It is well known, that a jealousy, almost a hatred
of Yankees, prevailed among the mass of this people,
during the late war. This feeling, which had been
fostered for years, seemed to be now dying aw a v.

The popularity of these ministers had doubtless con-
tributed to extinguish it. A respectable traveller
from New England, was sure to receive every de-
served courtesy. Indeed, the natural progress of
literature and philosophy, which are diffusing their
lights on all sides, is to do away these bitter and bane-
ful jealousies. Fatal will it be to the several members
of this great confederation, if the better informed, and
those who give tone to public feeling and sentiment,
do not feel the necessity of attempting to eradicate
every fibre of this root of bitterness from our soil.
In times of danger and excitement, which may come
even to us, nothing is so terrible as this feeling, excit-
ing distrust and destructive suspicion in the cabinet
and in the field. There is but too much of this feel-
ing yet existing, as I shall have occasion to remark
elsewhere. A native of the North has no conception
of the nature and extent of this feeling, until he finds
himself in the South and West. I have felt grieved to
see, that too many of our books of travels, and most
of the accounts of the West, carried to the East, tend
to foster this spirit toward these regions, on our part.
The manner in which the slave question is agitated,
keeps the embers glowing under the ashes.

In my whole tour through this state, I experienc-
ed a frank and cordial hospitality. I entered it with
a share of those prejudices, which I had probably fos-
tered unconsciously. I was aware how strongly they
existed in the minds of the people, with regard to the
inhabitants of the North. The general kindness with
which I was every where received, impressed me so
much the more forcibly, for being unexpected. The
Kentuckians, it must be admitted, are a high minded
people, and possess the stamina of a noble character.

It cannot be said correctly, as is said in journals and
geographies, that they are too recent and too various
in their descent and manners, to have a distinct char-
acter as a people. They are generally of one descent,
and are scions from a noble stock — the descendants
from aflluent and respectable planters from Virginia
and North Carolina. They are in that condition in
life, which is, perhaps, best calculated to develope
high-mindedness, and self-respect. ^Ve aim not in
these remarks at eulogy, but to pay tribute, where
tribute is due. It is granted, there are ignorant, sav-
age, and abandoned men, among the lower classes in
Kentucky. Where are there not such ? There is a
distinct and striking moral physiognomy to this
people ; an enthusiasm, a vivacity, and ardour of char-
acter, courage, frankness, generosity, that have been
developed with the peculiar circumstances under which
they have been placed. These are the incitements to
all that is noble in a people. Happy for them, if they
learn to temper and moderate their enthusiasm, by re-
flection and good sense. " O fortuuatos nimium, sua
si bona nurint." Happy for them, if the) more
strongly felt the necessity of training their numerous
and ardent youth to virtue and industry. Possessed
of such physical and moral capabilities, and from their
imperfect education, their habits of idleness, evirava
gance, and gambling, but too likely to turn their per
verted and misapplied powers against themselves and
their country, every thing depends upon the restrain
ing influence of right views, on the part of the pan D
There is a loud call for the stern exercise of parental
monition and authority. No single effort could have
such an immense bearing upon the future destinies ol
this state, as an effort to repress gambling and dissipa

lion, and to render those who practise these vices, con-
temptible in the eyes of the young. A more alarming
prospect cannot be opened to a country, than to have
a great many active, intelligent, and high-spirited
young men, without object or pursuit, let loose with
all their passions, and all their ambition, to prey upon
society. In individual cases this impression has
doubtless been felt, for great exertions are making, by
individuals to educate their children. Private tutors
are employed. New seminaries are started. But still
the villages are but too much filled with idle and dis-
sipated young men, whose downward course inspires
so much the more regret, from their possessing fine
forms, great health and energy of body, and activity
and capacity of mind.

Upon none of the western states is the obligation to
labour for the disciplining, purifying, and, if I may so
say, of redeeming the young, so solemnly imposed, as
upon this. The fathers of the young men, in many
instances, had high standing and influence in the state
from which they emigrated. Not a few of them
obtained fame, in the war of the revolution. Their
children inherit their fame, and that confident and
uncontrolled spirit, which is so often observed to be-
long to the Virginia character. They seem to feel
that they have an hereditary claim to command, place,
and observance. This perfect repose of self-confi-
dence is in fact their good star. I have often seen one
of these young men, in the new states farther west,
with no other qualifications than that ease and perfect
command of all that they knew, which result from
self-satisfaction, step down into the '■• moving water,"
before the tardy, bashful, and self-criticising young man
from the North had made up his mind to attempt to

avail himself of the opportunity. l< Sua dextra " is the
constant motto, self-repose the guardian genius of the
Kentuckian. which often stand him in stead of better
talents and qualifications. It is at last discovered, that
in our country, the confident and bustling take place
and office by violence.

Besides, Kentucky is proudly exalted, as a common
mother of the western states. It seems to be general-
ly understood, that birth and rearing in that state,
constitute a kind of prescriptive claim upon office, as
formerly birth in Old Spain did, to office in her colo-
nies. Hence, from the falls of St. Anthony to the
gulph of Mexico, and from the Allegany hills to the
Rocky Mountains, the character of this state has a
certain preponderance. Her modes of thinking and
action dictate the fashion to the rest. The peculiar
hardihood, energy, and enthusiasm of her character,
will tend long to perpetuate this empire. It is only
necessary to have been as deeply familiar as I have
been, with the language and feelings of the people of
all walks, in these immense regions, to have seen the
traces of this preponderance of her character ; to have
seen her stamp marked upon the prevalent fashions.
No one, at this time of the day, can fail to ha\e fore-
seen, what this vast valley is one day to become*
The sober and thinking men of this state, aware of
their bearing upon its future character, will feel how
earnestly they arc bound to watch over a rising gen-
eration, which will possess such an influent e.

Their enthusiasm of character is very observable, in
the ardour with which all classes of the people express
themselves, in respect to their favourite views and
opinions. The feelings of the people naturally Un<\
to extremes. Hear them rate their favourite preacher
10

He is the most pious and powerful preacher in the
country. Their orators and their statesmen, in elo-
quence and abilities surpass all others. The village
politicians have an undoubting and plenary faith, that
whatever measures the Kentucky delegation espouse
in Congress, not only ought to prevail, but will pre-
vail. The long line of superlatives, the possession of
the best horse, dog, gun, wife, statesman, and country,
are felt to belong to them in course ; and an ardent
healthy race of young men, not enough travelled to
have become the victims of a fastidious and self-criti-
cizing spirit, not afflicted, as is common with the un-
travelled, with bash fulness, and yet possessing the
crude rudiments and first principles of all kinds of
knowledge, — such are qualified, according to their
early habits and the impulses given them, to become
the blessings or the scourge of their country. So long
as Kentucky aspires to stamp the impress of her char-
acter and institutions upon the country that is growing
up in the valley of the Mississippi, and so long as she
has this aptitude for doing it, so long ought all her
" good and true men,*' to overlook these young men,,
that she sends abroad, to form the character and fill
the offices of the other western states.

The Kentucky planters assert, that whatever article
Old Kentucky turns her chief attention to raising, is
sure to glut the market for that year. It would be
remarked, perhaps, that flour, hemp, or tobacco, were
low in the market. They immediately find a solution
in the fact that the Kentucky crop has arrived. In
truth, the astonishing productiveness of their good
lands, and the great extent of their cultivation, almost
justify such conclusions.

I should be glad to give you some general ideas of the
state of religion and morals. But a journey of a few
weeks, would enable me to convey but very loose and
general ideas upon the subject. I had much conversa-
tion with the ministers and members of the different
denominations. Their estimates were apt to be grad-
uated to their denomination, and to vary as I consult-
ed different ones. There is a considerable number of
permanent societies. The Baptists and Presbyterians
seemed to be the prevailing seer-;: though the Meth-
odists were labouring with their usual zeal and suc-
cess. They find considerable impediment to their
progress, in their general and decided opposition to
slavery; a point upon which this people is peculiarly
sensitive. This and the neighbouring state of Tennes-
see have given origin to a new sect, called " Cumber-
laud Presbyterians." I am not sufficiently informed of
their tenets, to be able to give you an idea of the >.hadcs
of difference between them and the Presbyterians from
whom they seceded. They describe themselves, in
point of speculation, to agree with the Arminians. In
their manner of preaching7 and especially in their vo-
ciferosjsness, they copy the Methodists, hut outdo their
model. They seem to possess the juvenile ardour and
confidence, that appertain to most of the new sects,
and have the same zeal to make proselytes. Tin---:
that 1 heard preach were more deficient in literature
and discipline than the Methodists. They are making
great exertions to establish a seminary, where tin-
rough timber, which they work into the sanctuary,
may be hewed with the " a.\e of the prophet

The people are eager to attend public worship, es-
pecially when performed by strangers. This insatia-
ble curiosity, this eagerness for novelty, which is so

discQuraguig to the settled clergy, and which so strong-
ly marks the American people generally, is a passion in
this state. The people have an excitability and viva-
city, like the French. Unhappily enthusiasm is likely
to be fickle. Feelings that are so easily and highly
excited, are apt soon to subside. It is melancholy to
consider, that the ancient character for permanence,
which our societies used to have, is passing away in
all directions. The tie between minister and people,
which used to be considered like the matrimonial, is
now easily dissolved, and the divorce is granted for
trifling causes. It is eminently so here.

I shall have occasion elsewhere, to remark upon
the moving or migratory character of the western
people generally, and of this state in particular.
Though they have generally good houses, they might
almost as well, like the Tartars, dwell in tents. Every
thing shifts under your eye. The present occupants
sell, pack up, depart. Strangers replace them. Be-
fore they have gained the confidence of their neigh-
bours, they hear of a better place, pack up, and follow
their precursors. This circumstance adds to the insta-
bility of connexions, and more especially the ministe-
rial one, which requires such a length of time to ac-
quire its proper strength. Although I universally
heard religion spoken of with respect, — although they
seem to admit, that in some form, it is necessary to
the peace and order of society, yet they think much
less of the. necessity of a minister, than the people' at
the North. A marked proof of it is, that it is by no
means universal, or considered indispensable, to have a
minister attend at funerals. You know with what
horror it would be regarded at the North, the carry-
ing off the dead without the voice of prayer. It is a
common omission here.

Of their statesmen and public speakers, except their
ministers, I cannot speak from personal knowledge.
They have one star, at least in the estimation of every
genuine son of the West, of the first magnitude. When
I was at Lexington, he had just returned from Client,
had been fatigued with receiving company? and I of
course did not desire an introduction. It would,
therefore, be assuming too much to speak of him. It
seems to be generally conceded, that as an orator, he
received his diploma from nature. In the depth and
sweetness of his voice, it is said he has no compeers :
and in the gracefulness of his enunciation and manner.
few equals. Although he was not publicly educated,
yet it is far from being true, that he is not a scholar,
and that he is not possessed of classical taste and dis-
cernment. But, because the report has gone abroad,
that he is an orator nature-taught, there arc hundreds
of idle and arrogant young men in the West, who
draw a most preposterous conclusion against classical
learning, and especially Latin and Greek. They de-
cry colleges of course, and the long and patient dis-
cipline and training of these institutions. Even were
it true, that the gentleman in question is nor a classi-
cal scholar himself, a great and intellectual man he
undoubtedly is, and he shows his estimate of tin- im-
portance of these studies, by engaging and employing
the best classical scholars lor the instruction of his
children. Were it otherwise, it would \>f absurd to
infer from one brilliant Specimen of success without
training, that it is unnecessary. For the one prize
obtained, there would be a thousand blanks. Brilliant
and successful as he may be, it does by no means ap-
pear, that he would not have been more so, had In-
added to native vigour, feeling, eloquence, tone, and

manner, the high finish, polish, and discipline of clas-
sical instruction. If he now thrills his audience at
Washington, what limits could have been assigned to
his success, had he grafted upon his own fine stock
the perennial scions of the Greeks and Romans.

The geography of Kentucky is generally known.
The great outlets are Maysville, at the upper part of
the state, and Louisville, just below the falls of Ohio,
in the lower division. Both are noted stations, espe-
cially the latter, for the shipment of Kentucky produce.
Louisville is more frequented by steam-boats, than
any other port on the Ohio. In New Orleans more
are up for that place than any other. It is seldom
that many days elapse in that city, without offering a
steam-boat conveyance to Louisville. This trip,
which in the ancient modes of boating, used to be
three times the length of a voyage across the Atlantic,
is now often performed in twelve days. Accustomed
to see the steam-boat with its prodigious and untiring
power, breasting the heavy current, of the Mississippi,
the Kentuckian draws his ideas of power from this
source ; and when the warmth of whiskey in his
stomach is added to his natural energy, he becomes in
succession, horse, alligator, and steam-boat. Much of
his language is figurative and drawn from the power
of a steam-boat. To get ardent and zealous, is to
« raise the steam." To get angry, and give vent and
scope to these feelings, is to " let off the steam." To
encounter any disaster, or meet with a great catastro-
phe, is to " burst the boiler." The slave cheers his
oxen and horses by bidding them " go ahead." Two
black women were about to fight, and their beaux
cheered them .to the combat with " Go ahead and buss
e boiler."

As the climate of the southern front of Ohio, the
state of Kentucky in general, of Missouri and Illinois,
are nearly similar, 1 have reserved the remarks which
occurred to me upon this subject, that I might give a
general view of it, for another place. On this journey,
in the middle of March, turnip-greens were brought to
the table. Currant and gooseberry shrubs were in
half leaf. Early peach-trees in southern exposures
were in full flower. On clear clays, after the sun had
ascended the sky, the temperature was delightful.
Early in the morning and evening, there was a chill
in the atmosphere, not unlike that produced on the
Atlantic shore by the northeast wind in clear days.

After a succession of visits and residences of a day
or two, in very amiable, hospitable, and kind families,
I returned, in the practice of the usual duties of
preaching in the villages in the evening, by the way
of Georgetown, North Bend, and General Harrison's
plantation, to my family in Cincinnati.

LETTER. XL— CAYf/.V. V. 777.

After reposing a few days, I found the spring snf
ficiently advanced to render travelling in a boat pleas
ant and comfortable. The roads through the country
were yet scarcely passable. Steam-boats, except one
unwieldy, unsafe, and slow, there were none-. I pur
chased and lilted up a keel-boat, in which we pro-
posed to embark for St. Louis. One of the most
unpleasant circumstances attending the life, which 1
lead, is that we naturally form intimacies, which are
extremely painful in the breaking. We find friends

from whom wo are loath to depart. We had unex-
pectedly found many friends. My family had been
intimate with many excellent ladies, " mothers in Is-
rael," the advocates of " eve good work." We
found so much pain in the parting from these excel-
lent people, who had lavished kindnesses upon us, and
whom we expected to see no more, that it in some
sense renewed the anguish of our original separation
from home. In effect, on returning to Cincinnati after
an absence of ten years, I find that the greater num-
ber have passed "the bourne." I have so long and
so often experienced the anguish of breaking off these
ties, which, however pleasant, are so transient and
frail, that I have ended by finding gloomy thoughts
connected with every effort to form a new acquaint-
ance.

When we embarked, our friends attended us to the
shore, where we found they had made many kind
provisions for our comfort on the voyage. We re-
ceived the last demonstrations of kindness, and em-
barked, the twelfth of April 1316. Our keel-boat was
between eighty and ninety feet in length, was fitted
up with a small but comfortable cabin, and carried
seventeen tons. It was an extremely sultry afternoon
when we embarked, such as often occurs in that re-
gion when the temperature is high summer heat.
Nothing could exceed the grandeur of the vegetable
kingdom on the banks of the broad and beautiful
Ohio. The magnificent beeches, cotton- trees, and
sycamores, had developed all the richness of their foli-
age. The shrubs and trees were enlivened with the
glittering plumage of their feathered tenants, and
were "prodigal of harmony." The river, full almost
to the summit of its banks, swept along an immense

volume of water, and its aspect had nothing in com-
mon with thejclean and broad sand-bars and shallow
waters of the channel down which we descended in
autumn. We found the current, too, had more than
twice the rapidity. We could not tire in extending our
sight to the farthest stretch of vision, over a surface of
forest, clothed with a depth of verdure, with a richness
of foliage, and a grandeur of size and height, that char-
acterize the forest bottoms at this point of the Ohio.

We commenced this trip, like that of our first em-
barkation on the Ohio, with the most cheering auspi-
ces. We experienced in a couple of hours, what has
so often been said and sung of all earthly enjoyments,
how near to each other are the limits of happiness and
trouble. Banks of thunder-clouds lowered in the
horizon, when we left Cincinnati. They gathered
over us. and a violent thunder-storm ensued. We
had not time to reach the shore before it burst upon
us, attended with strong gusts of wind. The gale was
too violent for us to think of landing on a bluff, and
rock-bound shore. We secured, as well as we could,
the open passage into midship, and made arrant
ments for scooping out the water, which the boat took
in from the waves. We had some ladies passengers
on board, whose screams added to the uproar without.
I was exposed to the storm on the deck, readj occa-
sionally to assist the " patron," as he is called, of the
boat, whenever he found himself unable, from the
violence of the wind, to manage the helm. The peals
of thunder were incessant, and the air was in a blaze
with the flashes of lightning. We frequently saw
them apparently dart into the river. The storm con-
tinued to rage with unremitting fury, for more than an
hour. Such storms, to a frail keel -boat, loaded like

u£

ours to the water's edge, are always dangerous, and
sometimes fatal. The patron, who had -been for many
years in this employment, and who had been, as he
said, boat-wrecked half a dozen times, kept, indeed,
perfectly cool. But his countenance manifested great
anxiety. We weathered the storm, however, with no
other inconvenience than getting drenched with rain,
and hearing the frequent and earnest assertions of our
passengers, that they would never expose themselves
to the danger of such a storm again. Indeed, had
my family been at all superstitious, as we had often
during the winter considered it our duty to return to
New England in the spring, we might have thought
so gloomy a commencement of a voyage still farther
west, and still farther from our country, as ominous of
the misfortunes which afterwards befel ur in that re-
gion. But, as the atmosphere brightened, as happens
to beings so dependent upon external nature for the
tone of our minds, our thoughts began to brighten,
and our strength and courage for pursuing our journey
were renewed. We lauded in the evening, near the
mansion of General Harrison, and were most hospita-
bly received by him.

Next day the northwest wind, as happens with you,
after a violent thunder-storm in the spring, blew with
such violence, that we were obliged to lay by for
the day, not daring to encounter the waves of the
river. We passed the day pleasantly in receiving the
hospitalities of the general, and in hearing his children
examined by their private tutor. I was pleased to
find that their tutor was an accomplished scholar, and
that the children must have been faithfully disciplined.
Their proficiency in geometry, especially, had been
uncommon. Next day we left our passengers at

Lawrenceburg, where we passed the night. Ar thi^
place, my daughter, in playing- with some misses of
her years, that belonged to the village, in stopping on
hoard fell into the river. A gentleman who was prov-
identially there, plunged in, and rescued her, as she
rose, from drowning. A parent will need no informa-
tion, how I felt, in respect to that stranger, and the.
providence that sent him to her release.

From this place to Shawnoe-town nothing occur-
red in our descent worth mentioning. This is an un-
pleasant looking villagej that had but just emerged
from an inundation, before our arriving there. It has
a bank, and is a place of some importance from two
causes. The salt, that is made at the neighbouring
saline, is exported from it, and the outfits for keel-
boats, descending the Ohio, and purposing to ascend
the Mississippi, used to be made here. In our descent
to this town, we had been delighted with the singular
forms of the Ohio bluffs, which sometimes tower aloft
with an imposing magnificence. A remarkable cave
in the rock, in one of these bluffs, is rather a striking
curiosity. We see the usual desire of travellers to
perpetuate their names and exploits, in the carving of
names on the projections of this cave. There are
names here, engraven in the solid me stone, the letters
of which are of such a size and distinctness, as to be
capable of being read at a considerable distance.

At this town we made our final arrangements for
ascending the Mississippi. Nine hands would baye
been considered the usual complement for carrying
such a boat as mine up the Mississippi We descend-
ed to the mouth of the Ohio, without noting any oc-
currence except a thunder-storm, for which we laid by.
The Ohio was so broad anil safe, that we floated

night and day, and were carried west nearly a hun-
dred miles in the twenty-four hours. We still had
often on one side bluff-banks; and the verdure of the
unknown herbage, the novelty and diversity of beauti-
ful flowers that we had never seen, that grew on these
steep and deeply wooded slopes, were a source of un-
failing delight. My children contemplated with unsa-
ted curiosity the flocks of parroquets fluttering among
the trees, when we came near the shore.

As it respects our position, we have yet Kentucky
on the left shore, and above Shawnoe-town, Indiana
on the right, to the mouth of the Wabash, and from
that, Illinois to the mouth of the Ohio. Below Shaw-
noe-town, the beauty of the Ohio banks begins to dis-
appear. The bluffs subside. Cultivation becomes
more unfrequent. The country begins to exhibit the
sombre aspect of swamp and inundation, beyond the
reach of the eye. You look abroad on the right and
on the left, upon a vast forest of lofty trees, covered
with the largest and most verdant foliage, with a sur-
face of perfect regularity, raising the impression of a
vast green and level roof, formed by branches of huge
and living columns, that rise out of the water. The
singularity of such a prospect excites a momentary
feeling of pleasure, from its freshness and grandeur.
But it soon becomes dreary to the eye, from its sad
monotony, and from mental associations with it, of
fever and ague, and musquitoes, and consignment to
perpetual destitution of human habitations.

Indeed there are solitary cabins of wood -cutters,
who hx their dwellings on piles or blocks, raised above
the inundation, who stay here to supply the steam-
boats with wood. In effect, to visit this very portion
of the river in the autumn after the subsiding of the

spring-floods, to see its dry banks, its clean sand-bars,
and all traces of the inundation gone, except its marks
upon the trunks of the trees, one would have no sus-
picion of the existence of such swamp and overflow
as it now exhibits.

LETTER XII.

The twenty-eighth of April, 1816, we came in
sight of what had long been the subject of our conver-
sations, our inquiries, and curiosity, the far-famed
Mississippi. It is a view, which has left on my mind
a most deep and durable impression, marking a pe-
riod, from which commenced a new era in my ex-
istence. We had been looking forward to this place
as the pillars of Hercules. The country on this side
had still some unbroken associations with our native
land. This magnificent river, almost dividing the
continent, completely severed this chain. We were
now, also, to experience the novelty of propelling a
boat against the current of one of the mightiest and
most rapid rivers in the world. The junction of the
Ohio and Mississippi does not impress that idea of
physical grandeur, which fills lip your anticipations.
But allow the fancy to range the boundless forests
and prairies, through which it brings down the sweep-
ing tribute, which it has collected from distant and
nameless mountains, and from a hundred shores, and
you will not contemplate this mighty stream without
an intense interest. A sharp point, almost at right
angles with either river, mingles their waters in the
midst of deep and ancient forests, where the eye

patiatcs over vast and swampy woods, perhaps titty
miles in extent. Turn the point, and your eye catches
the vast Mississippi, rolling down his mass of turbid
waters, which seem, compared with the limpid and
greenish-coloured waters of the Ohio, to be of almost
a milky whiteness. They exactly resemble waters in
which white ashes have been mixed and remain sus-
pended. A speculation was get up, to form a great
city at the delta, and in fact they raised a few houses
upon piles of wood. The houses were inundated, and
when we were there, " they kept the town," as the
boatmen phrased it, in a vast flat boat, a hundred feet
in length, in which there were families, liquor-shops,
drunken men and women, and all the miserable appen-
dages to such a place. To render the solitude of the
pathless forest on the opposite shore more dismal,
there is one gloomy-looking house there.

Having turned the point, and made our boat fast to
the young willows, we reposed to give scope to our
own contemplations. Our hands demanded the usual
compliment, and having received it in moderation, pro-
nounced themselves sufficiently cheered to begin their
task. The margin of the stream is marked with a
beautiful growth of low willows and cotton- woods,
and the river, though it had overflowed the banks,
and wus high among the trees, was, from twenty to
thirty feet from the shore, not very swift. We began
10 pull the boat up the stream, by a process, which, in
the technics of the boatmen, is called "bush-whack-
ing." It consists, by commencing at the bow, to
seize a handful of bushes, or a single branch, and to
pull upon them and walk towards the stern, as the boat
ascends. The crew follow each other in this way in
11 to the stern, and walk round to the bow,

on the opposite side. The banks slope so rapidly,
that the "setting pole" is not long enough, in the
general way, for use on the opposite side, and they
commonly pot two hands to the oars. Whenever we
come to a point, and have to encounter the full force
of the current, we cross the river, in order to get into
the easier current upon the opposite shore. We shall
remark, elsewhere, upon the singular but almost uni-
form configuration of the western rivers, by which
they are scooped out into points and bends. When
the rive'- is low, there is a sand-bar opposite the bend,
and the current is invariably much stronger in the
bend, than over the sand-bar.

We mark a very obvious difference between the
aspect of the Ohio and the Mississippi. The breadth
of the two rivers is nearly the same ; and they present
at their junction nearly the same appearances of swamp
and inundation. They have much the same growth
on their b;mks ; and yet they have a character very
unlike each other. The Ohio is calm and placid, and
except when full, its waters are limpid to a degree.
The face of the Mississippi is always turbid ; the cur-
rent every where sweeping and rapid ; and it is lull of
singular boils, where the water, for a quarter of an acre,
rises with a strong circular motion, and a kind of hiss-
ing noise, forming a convex mass of waters above the
common level, which roll down and are incessantly
renewed. The river seems always in wrath, tearing
away the banks on one hand with gigantic fury, with
all their woods, to deposite the spoil* in another place.

To form any adequate ideas of our impressions of
this new scene which I am attempting to record, you
will naturally bear in remembrance what kind of fam-
ily it was, that was. viewing it. We were not accus-

tomed to travelling. We had been reared in stillness
and seclusion, where we had contemplated the world
rather in books than in reality. The Mississippi, too,
at that time was to the great proportion of the Ameri-
can people, as it was to us, the " ultima Thule" — a
limit almost to the range of thought. This stream,
instead of being ploughed by a hundred steam boats,
had seen but one. The astonishing facilities for trav-
elling, by which it is almost changed to flying, had
not been invented. The thousand travellers for mere
amusement, that we now see on the roads, canals, and
rivers, were then travelling only in books. The still-
ness of the forest had not been broken by the shouting
of turnpike-makers. The Mississippi forest had sel-
dom resounded, except with the cry of wild beasts,
the echo of thunder, or the crash of undermined trees,
falling into the flood. Our admiration, our unsated
curiosity at that time, would be matter of surprise at
the present, to the thousands of hacknied travellers on
this stream, to whom all this route, and all its circum-
stances, are as familiar as the path from the bed to the
fire.

For myself, I shall never forget my first impressions
upon beginning to ascend this river, on the banks of
which I have passed so many years, and suffered so
many misfortunes, — and at the period of life, too,
when time is most valuable, and impressions the deep-
est. The scene was entirely novel, and we beheld
every thing, ;is though the water, the plauts, the trees
of the Mississippi, would be different from the same
things elsewhere. Our first advances on the stream
were well calculated to satisfy such expectations of
gratified curiosity, as we had formed. The day was
beautiful, the temperature soft and genial. The vege-

table kingdom on the banks, had the peculiar grandeur
of its empire in thai region, which must be seen, and
not described, in order to be felt. Even the small
willows, which we grasped ill our hands, as we wire
drawing the boat up the stream, were full of flowers,
which when crushed, yielded out that fragrance which
19 peculiar to them ; a fragrance like the odour of
burning coffee, and a few other aromatics, raising the
ideas of nectar and ambrosia.

On the other side, the river had only so far over-
flowed its banks, as to leave the tall and verdant
meadow7 grass, and water plants of the most tender
green, above the water. Innumerable multitudes and
varieties of water-fowl, of different forms, and plu-
mage, and hues, were pattering in the water among
this grass ; or were raising their several cries, as we
frightened them from their retreat. We easily ob-
tained as many as we wished ; and when roused to the
wing by our guns, they soon settled down in another
place. Flocks of that species, called wood-ducks,
were continually flying between the river and the
woods, where, in the hollows of the trees, they were
rearing their young. The huge sized cotton-woods,
so regular and beautiful in their form, so bright in a
verdure surpassing that of northern trees, wen? in
themselves objects of curiosity. To us, under such
circumstances, this novel and fresh scene revived those
delightful images of youth, the spring-time of exist-
ence, which are most fondly cherished and longest
remembered.

In the excitement of this cheerful and new mode of
travelling, I forgot sickness and sorrow, and the appal-
ling prospect of carrying a young and helpless family,
without friends, and but slenderly provided with re-

sources, to a now and an untried world. Perhaps the
first half day that we passed in ascending the river under
every favourable omen, was the happiest period that
we ever experienced, as it respects mere physical en-
joyment. Let those deride our excitement then, and
that which I now feel, only in th^ recollection of our
delight, who are not capable of entering into similar
feelings, and placing themselves in the position ol a
family constituted like mine. Alas! neither we nor
any other will furnish but short and few occasions for
derision of this sort. This unnatural excitement soon
gave way. We soon found ascending the Mississippi,
in this way, calculated to excite any feelings, rather
than those of tranquil enjoyment. But for this day,
at least, we were happy. The illusion had not given
place to the sad reality. The first blulfs that we pass-
ed, so delightful in contrast with the long and dreary-
region of swamp, that we had passed through, the
shrubbery on the declivities, the novelty and freshness
of every thing that we saw, were charming. Our first
encampment, where we lay by for the night ; the
cheerfulness of the boatmen, who had had their full ra-
tions, their bright fires on the shore, the careless and
satisfied manner in which they threw themselves at
the foot of the trees for their repose ; a way of going
forward so entirely untried, and so pleasant, — were
adventitious circumstances of gaiety and enjoyment.
Since I have been two hundred days on the Mississippi
and its waters, associations of toil, of peril, and diffi-
culty of all descriptions in the ascent, intimate ac-
quaintance with all the objects and scenery, then
so new, have removed all this charm. I have been
astonished, at a subsequent passing this same portion
of the river, and then too under pleasant circum-

stances, how much of the zest and enjoyment of such
scenes are taken away with their novelty.

No employment can be imagined more laborious,
and few more dangerous, than this of propelling a
boat against the current of such a river. It may not
be amiss to record some of the circumstances of labour
and peril ; for the growing disuse of all other but
steam-boats, will soon render these descriptions but
little more than matter of past history. At one time
you come to a place in the current, so swift that no
force of oars and poles can urge the boat through it.
You then have to apply, what is commonly called
here a " cordelle," which is a long rope fastened at
one end to the boat, thrown ashore, and seized by a
sufficient number of hands to drag or track the boat
up the stream. But, owing to the character of the
river, and the numberless impediments in it and on its
banks, this "cordelle*' is continually entangling among
the snags and sawyers, between the boat and the
shore, and has often to be thrown over small trees,
and carried round larger ones. Of course it requires
great experience and dexterity to be a good leader of
a cordelle. The service is extremely well adapted to
the French boatmen. Sometimes you are impeded by
vast mass's ol trees, that have lodged against sawyers.
At other times, you find a considerable portion of the
margin of the shore, including a surface of acres, that
has fallen into the river, with all its trees upon it.
Just on the edge of these trees, the current is so
heavy as to be almost impassable. It is beside the
question, to think of forcing the boat up against the
main current any where, except with an uncommon
number of hands. Therefore any impediments near
the shore, must either be surmounted, or the river

crossed to avoid them. It not unfrequently happens,
that the boat with no small labour, and falling down
the stream from the strength of the current, crosses
the river to avoid such difficulties, and finds equal ones
on the opposite shore.

Sometimes you are obliged to make your way
among the trunks of trees, and the water boiling
round jour boat 'ike that of a mill-race. Then, if the
boat " swings/*' as the phrase is, that is, loses her
direction, and exposes her side to the current, you are
instantly carried back, and perhaps strike the snags
below you, and your boat is snagged, or staved. We
were more than once, half a day, struggling with all
our own force, and all that we could raise on the
bunks, to force the boat through a single rapid, or by
one difficult place. We were once in imminent peril,
not only of our boat, but, such was the situation of
the place, if we had been wrecked there, of our lives*
Severer fatigue, or harder struggling to carry a point,
I never saw endured, than in this case.

1 would not wish to tire you, by attempting to enu-
merate ail the difficulties and dangers of this sort, that
we encountered. Should I even attempt it, my mem-
ory would not reach them ; and a boatman only
would be able to describe them in the proper techni-
cals, which you of course would not understand. He
would enumerate difficulties, which depend for their
character upon the peculiar stage of the water, and
the manner in which the sand-bars and wreck-heaps
are situated. These wreck-heaps are immense piles
of trees, amassed by the waters, at points, and in dif-
ficult places. Let no deluded emigrant imagine, that
he can work a boat up this river, without great pa-
tience, expense, and labour, and after all, without dan-

ge r. The danger and fatigue, in this kind of boating,
are undoubtedly greater than those of sea navigation.
Let the emigrant, then, who ascends this river, make
the proper estimates of trouble, expense, and danger,
in advance ; and arm himself with the requisite pa-
tience and resources. Above all, let him have a full
complement of faithful and experienced hands. I do
not remember to have traversed this river in any con-
siderable trip, without having heard of some fatal
disaster to a boat, or having seen a dead body of some
boatman, recognised by the red flannel shirt, which
they generally wear. The multitudes of carcasses of
boats, lying at the points, or thrown up high and dry
on the wreck-heaps, demonstrate most palpably, how
many boats are lost on this wild, and, as the boatmen
aiways denominate it, "wicked river."

I am sure that it would seem tiresome repetition, if
I were to attempt the detail of our pleasures, our
" moving accidents," our " hair-breadth escapes," for
we had them ; and more than all, of our gratified cu-
riosity. The most retired regions of Hindostan, or
central Africa, could not have more keenly excited the
sense of novelty and freshness. Every stopping-place
opened upon us its little world of wonders. I had, as
you know, travelled in the northern parts of the Unit-
ed Slates, and had seen the Indians of Canada and
New York. But the Indians that we now saw,
though perfectly resembling the former, in form and
countenance, had, on closer examination, an untamed
savagene;>s of countenance, a panther-like expression,
utterly unlike the tame and subdued countenance of
the northern Indians. At first view, my family con-
templated the Shawnoe Indians too much as objects
of terror, to receive much pleasure from the spectacle.

But wild deer, frequently seen swimming the river, or
scouring the bluffs above us, not only gratified curiosi-
ty, but gave us strong impressions of the character of
the country we were visiting. When at night, after
having surmounted the difficulties and dangers of the
day, and after the point had been carefully considered,
which of the hands had laboured most, been most effi-
cient, or shown most courage and coolness, which had
been most willing to swim on shore with the cordelle in
his teeth, in short, which one had excelled in the points
of a boatman's excellence, — and these points of prece-
dence were often no easy matters to settle, — when
mutual congratulations had passed round, that we had
performed a good and a safe day's journey, after they
had had their rations, they would then throw them-
selves at the foot of a tree. They then begin in turn
to relate their adventures. Some of them had been to
the upper world on the Missouri, a thousand leagues
from the point we now occupied. Others had been
above the falls of St Anthony. Another had been in
the Spanish country, through which he had penetrat-
ed by the almost interminable courses of the Arkan-
sas and Red River. It will need no stretch of im-
agination to believe, that such trips, in such regions,
among Indians and bears, and that non-descript race
of men, Canadian and Spanish hunters, men in whose
veins, perhaps, the blood of three races is mixed,
must be fruitful in adventure. It would be incredible
to any one who had not seen such men, and had full
opportunities to become acquainted with their charac-
ter, the hardihood and endurance of which they are
capable. A hunt of months at the foot of the Rocky
Mountains, at an immense distance from civilized man,
without bread or salt, in constant dread of the Indians

and white bears, — such is the lonely sojourn in the
pathless deserts, in which these men patiently pursue
their trapping, and contract a dexterity, a capacity to
avail themselves of circumstances to circumvent the
Indians and the game, an unshrinking spirit to suffer,
almost beyond humanity. When one was wearied
with his tale, another was instantly ready to renew
the theme. Sometimes we had details of their dusky
loves; that no feature of romance might be wanting.
These stories, told by boatmen stretched at the foot of
a tree, j.ist below which was the boat, and the wave
of the Mississippi, and interlarded with the jargon of
their peculiar phrase, or perhaps interrupted by the
droll comment, or the incredulous questioning of the
rest, had often to me no small degree of interest ; and
tricked out in the dress of modern description, would
have made very tolerable romances.

In advancing up the stream, at a great distance be-
fore us we see the "Grand Tower." This is an
object in the river, the more striking, from its being
the last in the line of precipices, between that point
and the gulf of Mexico. It is a noble and massive
pyramid of rock, rising perpendicularly out of the bed
of the river, in which it forms an island. Around it
the river foams and boils, throwing from its base a
kind of spiral current across the river. Opposite " the
Tower'1 is another bold bluff, on the Illinois shore,
called the " Devil's oven." This, too, throws off an-
other sweeping current, and between these currents
the passage is difficult, and at some stages of the wa-
ter, dangerous. The tower is stated to be one hun-
dred and fifty feet in height. On its summit are a
few solitary cedars. On the whole it is an imposing
spectacle.

The first inhabited bottom, as you ascend from the
mouth of the Ohio, has the name of Tywapety, and
the next, "Bois Brule," or, as it is humorously called,
" Bob Ruly." The Americans use, in this way, very
little ceremony with French names. For nearly forty
miles above the mouth of the Ohio, the shores of the
river are too often inundated, to be inhabited. The
first continued bluffs appear on the west side. They
are often of an astonishing regularity, and tower
more than two hundred fret in perpendicular height.
They shoot out at their summits into pinnacles and
spires, as Mr. Jefferson remarked of them, not unlike
those of cities. The " Cornice rock " is so regular
in its curves, and marked at the top of the entabla-
ture with appearances at a little distance so like den-
udes, that it reminds us of the regularity with which
nature operates, in the smaller scale of crystalliza-
tion. On the summits of these cliffs, in the warm
weather, there are generally encountered more or
less snakes. In two instances the boatmen on the
tops of the cliffs, when cordelling the boat directly at
the base of these rocks, disengaged snakes from their
retreats, and they fell from an immense elevation on
to the deck of our boat.

We had a most severe trial in passing round the
most difficult place, that we had yet encountered,
called " the Sycamore root." At this stage of the
water, it was a formidable place. A heavy mass of
the river sweeps along through a kind of basin scoop-
ed out of the rock. Our boat was in this current,
and we struggled with all our force to get through it,
for some hours, without advancing a foot against the
impetuous current. The situation of my family,
that I had sent round the point by land, that they

might avoid the danger, was scarcely less distressing
than ours. They were near enough to speak to us,
to see the how of the boat, white with the loam of the
wave, and to be assured by the man who conducted
them, that if we '•swung" back upon the rock, our
boat would be crushed like a potters vessel. At
length, by applying a cable to a windlass on the
shore, with great labour, we escaped safely into the
calmer water.

We went safely through a very dangerous place,
only to encounter danger in a place and under cir-
cumstances where there was not the slightest indica-
tion of danger. We were ascending in a gentle cur-
rent a channel between an island and the main shore.
The bowsman was conversing with a barefooted
nymph on the shore. Too attentive to her ques-
tions, he neglected his boat. She struck a sawyer,
pointing down stream. It penetrated her bow, be-
tween wind and water, beating in a hole, large enough
to admit the body of a man. We stopped it as well
as we could, with blankets, and ran the boat immedi-
ately on shore. The boat was partially unloaded,
and at a distance of some miles, we found tools, mate-
rials, and a workman for repairing it.

The inhabitants on this portion of the river are
what the French call « petits paysans," or small
planters. They fix themselves on beautiful bottoms,
of a soil of extreme fertility. The weeds, the trees,
the vegetation generally, indicate a fertility still
greater than that of the Ohio bottoms. There is by
no means the same degree of industry and enter-
prise, as there. The inhabitants seem indolent,
yawning as if under the constant influence of fever
and ague: which, in fact, thev often have. Their
13

young men, and too often their young women, are but
too ready to take passage in the ascending or de-
scending boat. They arrogate to themselves the
finish and the entireness of the Mississippi character^
of which they aver the Kentuckians have but a part.
They claim to be the genuine and original breed,
compounded of the horse, alligator, and snapping
turtle. In their new and " strange curses," you dis-
cover new features of atrocity ; a race of men placed
on the extreme limits of order and civilization. I
heard them on the bank, entering into the details of
their horrible battles, in which they talked with a
disgusting familiarity about mutilation, as a common
result of these combats. Indeed I saw more than one
man, who wanted an eye, and ascertained that I was
now in the region of " gouging.7' It is to be under-
stood, that it is a surgical operation, which they think
only proper to be practised upon black-guards, and
their equals. They assured us that no " gentleman"
ever got gouged. I heard them speaking of a tall,
profane, barbarous, and ruffian-like looking man, and
they emphatically pronounced him the "best" man
in the settlement. I perceived that according to
their definition, the question about the " best" man
had been reduced to actual demonstration. I found,
on farther inquiry, that the "best" man was under-
stood to be the best fighter, he who had beaten, or,
in the Kentucky phrase, had "'whipped" all the
rest.

We pass, at this point of the river, a succession of
beautiful bottoms, alternated with bluffs, and in some
instances, we have seen the bluffs on troth sides of the
river. We go on at the rate of about twelve miles a
day. We have the same regular succession of strug-

gling with logs and sawyers, pressing through swit'l
places, of crossing the river from one point to anoth-
er, and occasionally lying by on account of the wind ;
for when it blows strong against the current of the
Mississippi, it raises waves too high to be encoun-
tered by a boat like ours. A circumstance much to
be dreaded, is the fastening a boat under a falling-in
bank or a tree, which, if the wind should rise by
night, might, in this tender and crumbly soil, uproot,
the tree, and throw it upon the boat, bringing not only
instant and complete ruin to the boat, but destruc-
tion to them that are aboard. Many such tragic oc-
currences have happened. A number of people have
been instantly crushed to death. The catastrophe
occurs, it may be, far from the haunts of men, unno-
ticed and unrecorded. We often hear by night the
terrific, crash of trees, undermined by the river, or
uprooted by the wind, as they fall into the flood.

Before we arrived at St Genevieve, the first vil-
lage on the Mississippi, as you ascend it, we pass-
ed the mouths of a number of small creeks. We no-
ticed the Kaskaskias, a river which runs through the
central, and best inhabited parts of the state of Illi-
nois. It passes by a town of its own name, one of the
oldest French establishments, out of Canada, in
North America. It is said to be older than Phila-
delphia. It is a pleasant village, and was then the
seat of government, and issued a weekly paper. St.
Genevieve is also a considerable village, almost
wholly French, on the Missouri or west side of the
river, a mile up a small creek, called the Gabourie.
In this place we were introduced to amiable and pol-
ished people ; and saw a town evidencing the posses-
sion of a considerable degree of refinement. Here

100

we first see the French mode of constructing houses*
and forming a village. The greater proportion of
the houses have mud walls, whitened with lime^
which have much the most pleasant appearance at a
distance. Their modes of building, enclosing, and
managing, are very unlike those of the Americans.
Here the French is the predominant language. Tra-
ces, too, of their regard for their worship begin to be
seen. You see the Catholic church. On the ridges
of the houses, or over the gates, you frequently see
the wooden cross.

As I remained principally in the country of the Mis-
souri for six years, 1 propose to speak of that coun-
try with some particularity ; being that part of the
western country with which I am best acquainted. I
shall not therefore enter into much detail of what we
saw between this and St. Louis. 1 shall only remark,
as a very prominent feature in the shore, opposite St.
Genevieve, that there commences below Kaskaskias a
very rich and wide bottom, called the " American bot-
tom." It has a skirt of wood two or three miles in
width. Still farther from the river, and beyond the
timbered land, is a most beautiful prairie of the richest
land, from two to four miles in width. Beyond this
are lofty and perpendicular stone bluffs, the bases of
which appear evidently to have been once worn with
running water. This charming skirt, partly timber-
ed, partly prairie, and every where limited by this
kind of bluff, extends from this point to a considerable
distance above St. Louis. On the western shore, it
is generally bluff; and where there is a bottom, it is
very narrow. These bluffs, which are very lofty and
diversified, between St. Genevieve and Hereulaneum,
slope from a very bold and commanding front on the

101

river to singular shaped hills, sometimes bounded at
die foot by a wall of a mile or two in extent, and from
four to six feet high, as smooth and regular as though
it had been faced by a mason. Near Herculaneum, on
the pinnacles of these bluffs, are erected shot-towers.
The lead in a state of fusion, falls three hundred feet
into water at the foot of the tower. The particles of
lead receive their division in passing through a sieve,
and acquire their circularity in falling.

Between Herculaueum and Carondelet, to which
the French have given the more familiar name of
kt Vuide Poche," or Empty Pocket, we pass the mouih
of the Maramec. This is a considerable stream,
which traverses the mine district, and winds among
the hills two hundred miles, before it mingles its wa-
ters with the Mississippi. In arriving at Carondelet,
we had remarked two small villages on the opposite
shore, and we have here in view on that side, Caho-
kia. an ancient and considerable French village, with
a Catholic church. On the twenty -fourth of May,
we arrived at St. Louis on a very beautiful morning,
without any considerable accident, and all in good
health.

LETTER XIII.— ST LOUIS.

I am now near the central point of the great valley
of the Mississippi ; the largest valley or basin drained
by one river, on the earth. From the Allegany ridges
eastward, to the dividing ridge of the Chepywan or
Rocky Mountains, from whose eastern declivities flow
the waters of the Missouri, on the west, is supposed to
be twenty-five hundred miles in a right line, and

102

double that distance, by the courses of the Ohio and
Missouri. From the eminences that divide the waters
of hed River of the north, Saskashawin and Slave
Lake from those of the upper Mississippi, to the
gulph of Mexico on the south, is more than three
thousand miles. In its width, in its narrowest dimen-
sions, where it converges toward the gulph, from the
sources of the Tennessee, to those of Red River of
the south, can scarcely be less than two thousand two
hundred miles. A keel-boat of forty tons burden can
take in its family and its load in the state of New
York, and by the Allegany, the Ohio, the Mississippi,
and Missouri, land them at the foot of the Stony
Mountains ; having made, in a continued course, a
voyage of greater length than the crossing the Atlan-
tic. It is stated that boats can ascend the " Roche
Jaune," or Yellowstone of the Missouri, more than a
thousand miles. Boats ascend the Arkansas and Red
River, nearly two thousand miles. Boats come with
very short portages from Montreal to the upper Mis-
sissippi, and I have seen a Mackinaw skiff, carrying
five tons, which came from the lakes into the Chicago
of Michigan, and from that over a morass, from one
end of which run the waters of the Chicago, and
from the other those of the Illinois, into the Missouri,
without any portage at all. The waters of the morass
were found sufficiently deep for her to make her way
from the river of the lake, to that of the Mississippi.
Boats pass New Madrid, some of which come down
the Wabash many hundred miles, before it readies the
Ohio ; and others in an opposite direction, down the
Tennessee, much farther than the course of the Wa-
bash.

103

In the spring, one hundred boats have been num-
bered, that landed in one day at the mouth of the
Bayan, at New Madrid. I have strolled to the point
on a spring evening, and seen them arriving in ileets.
The boisterous gaiety of the hands, the congratula-
tions, the moving picture of life on board the boats, in
the numerous animals, large and small, which they
carry, their different loads, the evidence of the increas-
ing agriculture of the country above, and more than
all, the immense distances which they have already
come, and those which they have still to go, afforded
to me copious sources of meditation. You can name
no point from the numerous rivers of the Ohio and
the Mississippi, from which some of these boats have
not come. In one place there are boats loaded with
planks, from the pine forests of the southwest of New
York. In another quarter there are the Yankee no-
tions of Ohio. From Kentucky, pork, flour, whiskey,
hemp, tobacco, bagging, and bale-rope. From Ten-
nessee there arc the same articles, together with great
quantities of cotton. From Missouri and Illinois, cat-
tle and horses, the same articles generally as from
Ohio, together with peltry and lead from Missouri.
Some boats are loaded with corn in the ear and in
bulk ; others with barrels of apples and potatoes.
Some have loads of cider, and what they call " cider,
royal," or cider that has been strengthened by boiling
or freezing. There are dried fruits, every kind o(
spirits manufactured in these regions, and in short, the
products of the ingenuity and agriculture of the whole
upper country of the west. They have come from
regions, thousands of miles apart. They have floated
to a common point of union. / The surfaces of the
boats cover some acres. Dunghill fowls are fluttering

104

over the roofs, as an invariable appendage. The
chanticleer raises his piercing note. The swine utter
their cries The cattle low. The horses trample, as
in their stables. There are boats fitted on purpose,
and loaded entirely with turkeys, that, having little
else to do, gobble most furiously. The hands travel
about from boat to boat, make inquiries, and acquaint-
ances, and form alliances to yield mutual assistance
to each other, on their descent from this to New
Orleans. After an hour or two passed in this way,
they spring on shore to raise the wind in town. It is
well for the people of the village, if they do not be-
come riotous in the course of the evening ; in which
case I have often seen the most summary and strong
measures taken. About midnight the uproar is all
hush< d. The fleet unites once more at Natchez, or
New Orleans, and, although they live on the same
river, they may, perhaps, never meet each other again
on the earth.

Next morning at the first dawn, the bugles sound.
Ever} thing in and about the boats, that has life, is
in motion. The boats, in half an hour, are all under
way. In a little while they have all disappeared, and
nothing is seen, as before they came, but the regular
current of the river. In passing down the Mississippi,
we often see a number of boats lashed and floating
together. I was once on board a fleet of eight, that
were in this way moving on together. It was a con-
siderable walk, to travel over the roofs of this floating
town. On board of oik1 boat they were killing swine.
In another they had apples, cider, nuts, and dried fruit.
One of the boats was a retail or dram shop. It seems
that the object in lashing so many boats, had been to
barter, and obtain supplies. These confederacies

105

often commence in a frolic, and end in a quarrel, in
which case the aggrieved party dissolves the partner-
ship by unlashing, and managing his own boat in his
own way. While this fleet of boats is floating sepa-
rately, but each carried by the same current, nearly
at the same rate, visits take place from boat to boat in
skiffs.

While I was at New Madrid, a large tinner's estab-
lishment floated there in a boat. In it all the different
articles of tin-ware were manufactured and sold by
wholesale and retail. There were three large apart-
ments, where the different branches of the art were
carried on in this floating manufactory. When they
had mended all the tin, and vended all that they could
sell in one place, they floated on to another. A still
more extraordinary manufactory, we were told, was
floating down the Ohio, and shortly expected at New
Madrid. Aboard this were manufactured axes, scythes,
and all other iron tools of this description, and in it hors-
es were shod. In short it was a complete blacksmith's
shop of a higher order, and it is said that they jesting-
ly talked of having a trip-hammer worked by a horse
power on board. I have frequently seen in this re-
gion a dry goods shop in a boat, with its articles very
handsomely arranged on shelves. Nor would the del-
icate hands of the vender have disgraced the spruce
clerk behind our city counters. It is now common to
see flat-boats worked by a bucket v\ heel, and a horse
power, after the fashion of steam-boat movement. In-
deed, every spring brings forth new contrivances of
this sort, the result of the farmer's meditations over his
winter's fire.

St. Louis is a kind of central point, in this immense
▼alley. From this point, outfits arc constantly raak-

; io6

ingto the military posts, and to the remotesc regions by
the hunters for furs. Boats are also constantly ascend-
ing to the lead-mine districts, on the upper Mississippi.
From our boat, as we lay in the harbour of St. Louis,
we could see " The Mandan," as the name of a boat
bound far up the Missouri. Another was up for
" Prairie du Chien," and the Falls of St. Anthony ;
another for the highest points of the Illinois ; another
for the Arkansas; and "The Gumbo," for Natchez
and New Orleans.

Consider that the lakes are wedded to the ocean by
the New York canal. The Illinois will shortly be
with Chicago and Michigan ; for it is, for a little
while in the spring, partiaHy so by nature. The
union of the Ohio with the lakes, on the one hand,
and with the tide waters of Virginia, on the other, is
not only contemplated, but the labour to effect it is
commenced. When these contemplated canals are
completed, certainly no country in the world can
equal ours in the number, convenience, and extent of
its internal water communications.

The advantage of steam-boats, great as it is every
where, can no where be appreciated as in this country.
The distant points of the Ohio and Mississippi used to
be separated from New Orleans by an internal ob-
struction, far more formidable in the passing, than the
Atlantic. If I may use a hard word, they are now
brought into juxtaposition. To feel what an inven-
tion this is for these regions, one must have seen and
felt, as 1 have seen and felt, the difficulty and danger
of forcing a boat against the current of these mighty
rivers, on which a progress of ten miles in a day, is a
good one. Indeed those huge and unwieldy boats,
the barges in which a great proportion of the articles

107

from New Orleans used to be transported to the up-
per country, required twenty or thirty hands to work
them. I have seen them day after day, on the lower
portions of the Mississippi, where there was no other
way of working them up, than carrying out a cable
half a mile in length, in advance of the barge, and fas-
tening it to a tree. The hands on board then draw it
up to the tree. While this is transacting, another
yawl, still in advance of that, has ascended to a high-
er tree, and made another cable fast to it, to be ready
to be drawn upon, as soon as the first is coiled. This
is the most dangerous and fatiguing way of all, and
six miles advance in a day, is good progress.

It is now refreshing, and imparts a feeling of energy
and power to the beholder, to see the large and beauti-
ful steam-boats scudding up the eddies, as though on
the wing ; and when they have run out the eddy,
strike the current. The foam bursts in a sheet quite
over the deck. She quivers for a moment with the
concussion ; and then, as though she had collected
her energy, and vanquished her enemy, she resumes
her stately march, and mounts against the current, five
or six miles an hour. I have travelled in this way for
days together, more than a hundred miles in a day,
against the current of the Mississippi. The difficulty
of ascending, used to be the only circumstance of a
voyage that was dreaded in the anticipation. This
difficulty now disappears. A family in Pittsburg
wishes to make a social visit to a kindred family on
Red River. The trip is but two thousand miles.
They all go together; servants, baggage or " plunder,"
as the phrase is, to any amount. Jn twelve days they
reach the point proposed. Even the return is but a
short voyage. Surely the people of this countrv will

108

have to resist strong temptations, if they do not be-
come a social people. You are invited to a breakfast,
at seventy miles' distance. You go on board the pass-
ing steam-boat and awake in the morning in season
for your appointment. The day will probably come,
when the inhabitants of the warm and sickly regions
of the lower points of the Mississippi, will take their
periodical migrations to the north, with the geese and
swans of the gulph, and with them return in the win-
tor.

A sea voyage, after all that can be said in its fa-
vour, is a very different thing from all this. The bar-
ren and boundless expanse of waters, soon tires upon
every eye but a seaman's. I say nothing of fasten-
ing tables, and holding fast to beds, or inability to
write or to cook. I leave out of sight sea-sickness,
and the danger of descending to those sea-green caves
of which poetry has so much to say. Here you are
always near the shore, always see the green earth, can
always eat, write, and sleep undisturbed. You can
always obtain cream, fowls, vegetables, fruit, wild
game; and in my mind there is no kind of comparison
between the comforts and discomforts of a sea and
river voyage.

A stranger to this mode of travelling, would find it
difficult to describe his impressions upon first descending
the Mississippi in one of the better steam-boats. He
•contemplates the prodigious establishment, with all its
fitting of deck common, and ladies' cabin apartments.
Over head, about him and below him, all is life and
movement. He sees its splendid cabin, richly carpet-
ed, its finishings of mahogany, its mirrors and fine
furniture, its bar-room, and sliding-tables, to which
eighty passengers can sit down with comfort. The

109

fare is sumptuous, and every thing in a style of splen-
dour, order, quiet, and regularity, far exceeding that of
taverns in general. You read, you converse, \mi
walk, you sleep, as you choose ; for custom has pre-
scribed that every thing shall be " sans ceremonie."
The varied and verdant scenery shifts around you.
The trees, the green islands, have an appearance, as
by enchantment, of moving by you. The river-fowl,
with their white and extended lines, are wheeling
their flight above you. The sky is bright. The river
is dotted with boats above you, beside, and below you.
You hear the echo of their bugles reverberating from
the woods. Behind the wooded point, you see the
ascending column of smoke, rising above the trees,
which announces that another steam-boat is approach-
ins: you. This moving pageant glides through a nar-
row passage between an island, thick set with young
cotton-woods, so even, so regular, and beautiful that
they seem to have been planted for a pleasure ground,
and the main shore. As you shoot out again into the
broad stream, you come in view of a plantation, with
all its busy and cheerful accompaniments. At other
times you are sweeping along for many leagues to-
gether, where either shore is a boundless and pathless
wilderness. And the contrast, which is thus so stronu-
ly forced upon the mind, of the highest improvement
and the latest invention of art, with tin: most lonely as-
pect of a grand but desolate nature, — the most striking
and complete assemblage of splendour atld comfort,
the cheerfulness of a floating hotel, which carries, per-
haps, two hundred guests, with a wild ami uninhabit-
ed forest, one hundred miles in width, the abode only
of owls, bears, and noxious animals, — this strong con-
trast produces, to me at least, something of the same

1T0

pleasant sensation that is produced by lying down to
sleep with the rain pouring on the roof, immediately
over head.

LETTER XIV.

St. Louis, as you approach it, shows, like all the
other French towns in this region, to much the great-
est advantage at a distance. The French mode of
building, and the white coat of lime applied to the mud
or rough stone walls, give them a beauty at a distance,
which gives place to their native meanness, when you
inspect them from a nearer point of view. The town
shows to very great advantage, when seen from the op-
posite shore, in the American bottom. The site is nat-
urally a most beautiful one, rising gradually from the
shore to the summit of the bluff, like an amphitheatre.
It contains many handsome, and a few splendid build-
ings. The country about it is an open, pleasant, and
undulating kind of half prairie, half shrubbery. A
little beyond the town, there is considerable smooth
grass prairie. The forest, west and north of the
town, is only just discernible in the distance, and com-
mences eight miles from the town. Just beyond the
skirts of the town, are some old, white, stone forts,
built IB Spanish times, as defences against the In-
dians, which have a romantic and beautiful appear-
ance. A little northeast of the town, you see a mound
of a conical form and considerable elevation, an inter-
ting relic of the olden time. As I propose a more
particular description of the town in another place, I
shall give you no more details of this sort here.

Ill

Just above the point made by the junction of the
Missouri and Mississippi, is Belle-fontaine, formerly a
considerable military station, where a few companies
of soldiers used to be quartered in comfortable bar-
racks. There is a pleasant settlement along the
banks of this river, up to the cantonment. At Floris-
sant there is a delightful small prairie, which has ihe
appearance of having been in former days the bed of a
lake. The soil is of extreme fertility, and as black as
ink. Here are large tracts covered with hazel bushes,
prairie plumb, and crab-apple trees. The beauty and
fertility of this place is indicated by the French name.
A delightful bottom here skirts the Missouri. This
place has a convent, a building of considerable size
and beauty. It contains a number of professed re-
ligious. It has also a small Catholic church. All
the region, iu this direction from St. Louis, is marked
at intervals with flourishing farms. On the western
direction from town, at eight miles distance, com-
mences the settlement of Bon-homme, extending to
the Missouri, which, notwithstanding its French name,
is almost entirely an American settlement. Below
the town, as I have remarked, is the French village of
Carondelet. These settlements, extending to the
Maramec and the Missouri, for nearly thirty miles'
distance, were among the first regions which I explor-
ed, as a missionary.

Ih these pursuits I was associated with another gen-
tleman, a missionary from Connecticut. We found
the country, as it respected our profession, destitute of
a single church or preacher. There had never been,
as far as 1 could learn, the celebration of a protest-
ant communion in St. Louis. I administered this
ordinance there. Many affecting circumstances ac«

112

companied this communion, the narration of which
would, I suppose, more properly belong to a work ex-
clusively devoted to religious intelligence. One cir-
cumstance took from its pleasantness and comfort, and
rendered the duty perplexing. The members that
communed, were from different states and countries.
Each professor seemed pertinaciously to exact, that
the peculiar usages of his church should be adopted
on this occasion, and seemed not a little shocked, that
in order to meet the feelings of others, equally attach-
ed to their peculiar modes, something of medium and
compromise must be observed. The narrowness of
that spirit which stands as strongly for the " mint and
cummin," as the " weightier matters," and the com-
pound of temper, pride, and self-will, that is so apt to
mix unperceived with our best actions, seldom have had
a fairer scope, and seldom showed themselves more

strongly than on this occasion. This blind attach-
ment to form was nobly contrasted with the simple
and striking devotion of a black servant of a Catholic
Frenchman, who offered himself for communion, was
carefully examined, and accepted. He would not be
dissuaded from making his small offering of money
with the rest. " God," said he, " has put it into my
heart to do something for his cause, and I hope you
will not refuse my offering." The difficulties in the
end wen- happily adjusted, and we sat down in peace.
Here would be, perhaps, the place to examine the
manner, spirit, and success of my ministry for years in
Missouri, lint besides that we have already exten-
livelj communicated upon these subjects with each
other, you know that my present plan is not to go into
this kind ot detail. A missionary in such a region,
with a family, feeble in health, and constituted in body

113

and mind as I am, might expect, with the best and
most earnest intentions, to encounter numberless diffi-
culties. The region was just beginning to be peopled.
AH the elements of religious combination were in a
state of chaos. People are apt every where to regard
the form, more than the substance of religion. In
new countries, composed of emigrants from different
regions, forms are almost the only thing remembered
and retained. A man of earnestness of mind, and of
strong feelings, is liable to be depressed and enfeebled
in the contemplation of such a held, in which he sees
the dark side of things, in the actual exemplification of
what passes for religion. It is the more discouraging,
from its having at first a very different aspect. Your
first reception is apparently cordial in the highest de-
gree. Mutual congratulations that you are come, are
interchanged, and all promises attention and harmony.
As you inspect things more intimately, and as the in-
nate principles of disunion begin to come in play, this
fair prospect becomes gradually overcast. The wor-
shippers split on trifling differences. The more tri-
fling, the more pertinaciously they cling to them, and
where but a i'ew Sabbaths before all seemed union,
you soon find that all is discord. Who shall be the
preacher ? what modes of worship shall be adopted ?
and especially where shall the house, or place of wor-
ship, be located ? — these are themes, too often, of bit-
ter and disorganizing dispute.

In these new regions, too, of the most absolute in-
dependence, you Bee all the wanderings of human
thought, every shade of faith, every degree of the most
persevering attachment to preconceived opinions. You
see, too, all degrees of pretension in religion, followed
by unhappy manifestations of the hollowness of such

1.5

114

pretension. You meet, it is true, with more cheering
circumstances, and we are sometimes able to see that
which we strongly wish to see. But the mission-
ary must prepare himself to encounter many difficul-
ties of the sort which I have enumerated.

At one point you meet with a respectable Method-
ist, and begin to feel an attachment to the profession.
He next meets you with harmony and co-operation on
his lips, and the next thing which you hear, is, that
you are charged with being a fierce Calvinist, and
that you have preached that " hell is paved with
infants' skulls." While, perhaps the society, with
which you are connected, hear from an opposite quar-
ter, and from a pretended friend, that in such a ser-
mon you departed from the dicta of the great master,
and are leading the people to the gulph of Arminian-
ism. The Baptists are as exclusive as in the older
regions. Even among our own brethren, it is well
known, that there is some feeling of a questionable
nature, some rivalry between the pupils, the doctors,
and schools, of Andover and Princeton. The Cum-
berland Presbyterians, with all the freshness of a new
sect, are not found lacking in this order of things.
Lastly, there are the Catholics, abundantly more unit-
ed in faith, in spirit, and in purpose, than we are, —
who claim a kind of prescriptive right to the ground,
on the pretext of prior posxsession. We know that
they preach as a standing maxim, " Point de salut hors
de l'eglise," that there is no salvation out of their
church. Add to these the followers of Elias Smith,
and multitudes of men who would be founders of new
sects, and who erect their own standard in the wilder-
ness, and you will have some idea of the sectarian feel-
ings that you will have to encounter. The Atlantic

115

country has heard much, and too much, about their wil-
lingness to support preachers in these regions. There
may be a few exceptions that have not come to my
knowledge, widely as I have travelled ; but I feel too
well assured, all other representations to the contrary
notwithstanding, that the people think in general, that
attendance upon preaching, sufficiently compensates
the minister. No minister of any protestant denom-
ination, to my knowledge, has ever received a suffi-
cient living two years in succession. Take these cir-
cumstances together, and you will then have some
idea of a minister's prospect of worldly success and
comfort in these regions.

Have they not been useful ? Have they not had
success ? I would hope both. The precursors in
new regions have generally encountered such trials as
are recited above. But, I would hope, not in vain.
They have drawn sighs, that have only reached the
ear of Heaven. Not one good word or work has been
without its impression. The seed, which seems to
have been scattered in a sterile desert, may spring up ;
but, perhaps, not till a future and more favoured period.
Many faithful, laborious, and patient men, who have
been associated with me in these labours, have fallen
in these wildernesses, after having encountered all these
difficulties. What is worse, they have fallen almost
unnoticed, and their labours and sufferings unrecorded.
For they toiled and died, though it may be eight hun-
dred leagues away, in an American desert; and with
such a decease, there are connected no feelings of ro-
mance. But the missionary, who falls in a foreign
land, is lamented as a hero and a martyr. Provision
is made for his family, and the enthusiasm and regret
of romantic sensibility attach to his memory.

116

If my plan admitted such narrative, I would at-
tempt, iu my humble way, to rescue from oblivion, the
names of three young men whom I knew intimately,
and who died in the discharge of missionary duties in
these regions. I heard of the death of others, that I
knew not. But freed from earth and its toils, their
bones moulder in these remote prairies, as peacefully
as though their fall had been recorded, their names
and deeds eulogized. They were exemplary and de-
voted men, and their names are no doubt recorded 6n
more durable tablets, than the frail memorials of men.

Let not the inference be drawn, that I would de-
scribe (lie men of these countries as peculiarly bad, or
indisposed to religion. Truth and gratitude equally
forbid, that any thing should fall from my pen, intend-
ing to convey the conclusion that this is in any respect
a degenerate race of men. The evils do not belong
to them in particular; but to human nature placed in
such circumstances. I mean in another letter, as far
as honest and earnest intentions will go, to vindicate a
(lass of people, who have been grossly misrepresented,
and misunderstood, — the western backwoodsmen.

But I am ready to believe that most of the mission-
aries, who have been long in these countries, could, if
they chose, deliver an unvarnished and uncoloured
statement of having found things much as I have de-
scribed them. Tor myself, I could easily fill a volume
with the details of trials, perplexities, and sufferings.
I have laboured much, not in the vain hope of obtain-
ing either much compensation or much fame. Should I
describe all that I was called to endure, from sickness,
opposition, and privation, and from causes unnecessary
to be named, the most sober account would seem like
the fictions of romance. I speak to one not ignorant
of the real stale of things.

ii?

As it respects the varieties of religious opinion in
that country, and in yours, of one thing I have lon^
been deeply convinced, — that religion is love, love
to God and to men ; that if there should ever be any
thins," like assent to a common faith on the earth, it
will be to experimental religion, the religion of the
heart. Disputation and discussion, under the mistak-
en idea of enlightening the understanding, tend to
banish the small remains of religion from among us.
The heart, I believe, can be drawn out by a principle
of attraction to God, when there are great errors in
the understanding. When will people cease to dog-
matize, and define, and dispute, and place religion in
knowledge, and the settling of points ? The ethereal
essence evaporates in such a harsh process. The
world has had enough, and too much, of learned trea-
tises upon what is and what is not religion. The ten
thousand will never have very learned or philosophical
ideas upon the subject. But each one of them can
feel compunction, and pour out the soul before God.
Happy, and thrice happy, in my judgment, if men laid
less stress upon knowledge, and more upon experi-
mental acquaintance with the power of religion. You
have so much and so earnestly combated the idea of
an implicit faith, that I hardly dare advance my opin-
ion upon the subject here. But I have long been
firmly of the opinion, that the Catholics were right, in
representing much questioning, and disputing of points,
as ruinous in their tendencies. The multitude never
had, have not now, and I judge will never have, an
influential faith, except it be an implicit one.

You and I think alike, about the monstrous absurdi-
ties of the Catholic faith ; but we differ about what it
would be, if these absurdities were laid aside, as I

118

trust they gradually will be. There can be no ques-
tion about the revolting contradictions of the real pres-
ence, the infallibility of the pope or the church, and
other additions of the dark ages to their faith and cer-
emonial. But their reverential attachment to their
ministers, their disposition to regard their church and
their doctrine every where as one, their unwillingness
to dispute about the articles of their faith, their dispo-
sition to sacrifice personal interests to the common
cause, and the imposing forms of their worship, — might
not be regarded by protestants without utility. When
I have seen tranquillity settle on the expiring counte-
nance of the Catholic, after his minister has adminis-
tered extreme unction and said, " Depart, christian
soul," 1 have regretted the condition of those who
have always been perplexing themselves about points
that human reason has no concern with, and who have
nothing but doubting for this last solemn hour.

You know that 1 suffered acute disease repeatedly,
and was more than once shaken over the grave. My
general health was feeble. I had a considerable fam-
ily. In the latter part of my ministry there, I was
unable to endure the fatigue incident to the duties of
a missionary. For two years I derived not support
enough from the people, — though I laboured "in sea-
son and out of season," — to defray the expenses of my
ferriage over the rivers. But I saw my happy times,
when the people seemed affected, and in earnest upon
the subject of religion. 1 had my hours, when debil-
ity, and concern lor my family, and trials, and oppo-
sition, all vanished, and I saw nothing but God and
eternity. Still it will be to me, as it would to every
consiienlious man, matter of grief and abasement of
spirit, that ' can look back upon neglected opportuni-

119

ties to do good, that can never return. On the other
hand, I look, back with pleasure upon many instances
in which I was enabled to convey charity and relief to
the destitute stranger in sickness, and consolation to
the dying, and decent and christian burial to the dead.
I remember no people in that region more gratefully,
than those of whose bounty in such cases I was the
almoner. Though I have far more occasion for self-
rebuke than complacency, yet I am aware that the
effects of envy and misrepresentation, — and every in-
dependent man who has thought for himself, will have
to encounter them as I did, — have passed away. In
the memory of the best, I have a humble conviction
that my poor services will survive.

If I could give you details from my daily journal, it
would only embrace frequent and distant journies,
the crossing of rivers, forming new places of worship,
attempts to settle disputes as they arose, in short, such
labours as are severe, and bring, as the world counts
it, neither honour nor profit. In looking back upon
them, from the immense distance where I write this,
they assume only the appearance of a long and labori-
ous dream. We certainly saw a very great change in
the moral aspect of the country. At St. Louis we
saw arise a considerable and a very serious and re-
spectable Presbyterian church. In St. Charles, where
there was not a professor of our form of religion when
I went there, we saw arise a large church, a small but
neat place of worship, various charitable societies, and
a very striking change in the manners of the people.
We counted, in various parts of the state, a number of
churches and ministers of our order, and when we
went there, they had not one. We had three efficient
bible societies, and many Sunday schools and associa-
tions of a like character.

120

In dividing my labours with the gentlemen, with
whom I was associated, it was deemed expedient that
I should locate myself at St. Charles, on the Missouri ;
a place central to the population of the state, and
which has since been the seat of government. Accor-
dingly, in the same keel-boat which brought us from
Cincinnati, we moved in September to St. Charles.
The tenth of that month, 1816, we saw the mouth of
the Missouri, the largest tributary stream in the world.
It strikes the upper Mississippi, which is a broad,
placid stream, a mile in width, nearly at right angles.
It pours along a narrow, but deep, rapid, and turbid
current, white with the amount of marly clay, witli
which it is charged. It is impossible to contemplate,
without interest, a river which rises in vast and name-
less mountains, and runs at one time through deep
forests, and then through grassy plains, between three
and four thousand miles, before it arrives here. My
family ascended to St. Charles in the boat, and I went
up by land.

Having crossed a deep bottom of two miles in
width; I came out upon the first prairie of any great
size or beauty that I had seen. It was Sabbath, and
a line September morning. Every object was brilliant
with a bright sun, and wet with a shower that had
fallen the preceding evening. The first time a stran-
ger comes in view of this prairie, take it all in all, the
most beautiful that I have ever seen, a scene strikes
him that will never be forgotten. The noble border of
wood, that with its broad curve skirts this prairie, has
features peculiar to the Missouri bottom, and distinct
.from that of the Mississippi. I observed the cotton
trees to be immensely tall, rising like Corinthian col-
umns, enwrapped with a luxuriant wreathing of ivy,

121

and the bignonia radicans5 with its splendid, trumpet-
shaped flowers, displayed them glittering in the sun,
quite on the summits of the trees. The prairie itself
was a most glorious spectacle. Such a sea of verdure,
in one direction extending beyond the reach of the
eye, and presenting millions of flowers of every scent
and hue, seemed an immense flower-garden. The air
was soft and mild. The smoke streamed aloft from
the houses and cabins, which indented the prairie, just
in the edge of the wood. The best view of this prai-
rie is from the " Mamelles," which bound it on the
west.

There are evident indications, that these mighty
rivers, the Missouri and the upper Mississippi, once
united at the foot of the Mamelles. These are a suc-
cession of regular, cone-shaped bluffs, which the
French, — who are remarkable for giving names sig-
. nificant of the fancied resemblance of the thing, — have
supposed to resemble the object whose name they bear.
From the declivity of these beautiful eminences to the
present union of the rivers, is, by their meanders,
twenty-five miles. The prairie extends from them
more than half i!iis distance towards the junction. To
the right., the Missouri converges towards the Missis-
sippi, by an easy curve, the; limits of which are marked
by the Missouri bluffs, which form a blue and indent-
ed outline, over the tops of the grand forest bottoms.
You can trace these bluffs to the point of union. To
the left, your eye catches the much broader curve of
the upper Mississippi, which presents a regular section
of an immense circle. Your eye follows this curve
forty miles. In the whole of this distance, the oppo-
site, or Illinois shore, is marked with a noble and bold
outline, over which hovers a blue and smoky mist.

122

The perfect smoothness of the basin enclosed between
the two rivers, a carpet of verdure diversified with the
most beautiful flowers, and the great extent of the
curve, give the perpendicular bluffs that bound the ba-
sin, the aspect of mountains. This curve presents an
unbroken blue outline, except in one point, and
through that chasm is seen the Illinois, whose cliffs
are just discovered fading away in the distance, at the
east.

Between such magnificent outlines, from the foot of
the Mamelles, the prairie, in ascending towards the
north, has a width of five miles, and is seventy miles
in length. On the Mississippi side, the prairie touches
the river for most of this distance. The aspect of the
whole surface is so smooth, so level, and the verdure so
delightful, that the eye reposes upon it. Houses at
eight miles distance over this plain, seem just at your
feet. A (aw spreading trees planted by hand, are dotted
here and there upon the surface. Two fine islands
of woodland, of a circular form, diversify the view.
Large flocks of cattle and horses are seen grazing to-
gether. It is often the case that a flock of wild deer
is seen bounding over the plain. In the autumn,
immense flocks of pelicans, sand bills, cranes, geese,
swans, ducks, and all kinds of aquatic fowls, are seen
hovering over it. The soil is of the easiest culture
and the most exuberant productiveness. The farms
are laid out in parallelograms. At the foot of the
Mamelles an; clumps of hazel bushes, pawpaws, wild
grapes, and prairie plums, in abundance. The grass
is thick and tall. Corn and wheat grow in the great-
est perfection. When I first saw this charming scene,
" Here," said I to my companion who guided me,
"here shall be my farm, and here I will end my

123

days! " In effect, take it all in all, I have not seen,
before nor since, a landscape which united, in an equal
degree, the grand, the beautiful, and fertile. It is not
necessary in seeing it to be very young or very roman-
tic, in order to have dreams steal over the mind, of
spending an Arcadian life in these remote plains,
which just begin to be vexed with the plough, far re-
moved from the haunts of wealth and fashion, in the
midst of rustic plenty, and of this beautiful nature.

I will only add, that it is intersected with two or
three canals, apparently the former beds of the river;
that the soil is mellow, friable, and of an inky black-
ness; that it immediately absorbs the rain, and affords
a road, always dry and beautiful, to Portage des Sioux.
It yields generally forty bushels of wheat, and seventy
of corn to the acre. The vegetable soil has a depth of
forty feet, and earth thrown from the bottom of the
wells, is as fertile as that on the surface. At a depth
of forty feet are found logs, leaves, pieces of pit-coal,
and a stratum of sand and pebbles, beating evident
marks of the former attrition of running waters. Here
are a hundred thousand acres of land of this descrip-
tion, fit for the plough.

At the lower and northern edge of this prairie, is
the French village of Portage des Sioux; and on the
opposite side of the river the beautiful bluffs of which
I have spoken. While I stood on the Mamellcs, and
was looking iu that direction, slight clouds and banks
of mist obscured them from view. In a few moments
the wind arose and dispersed the mists, and thej burst
upon me in all the splendour of their height and hoary
whiteness. My companion, accustomed as he was to
the view, and not at all addicted to raptures, exclaim-
ed that he had never seen them look so beautiful. For

124

myself, although I had seen on passing them, that they
were on the skirt of an unpeopled solitude, I could
hardly persuade myself, so complete was the illusion,
that I did not behold a noble and ancient town, built
of stone, whose immense buildings were surmounted
with towers and spires.

That they impress other imaginations in the same
way, will appear from an incident that occurred some
years after. In crossing the prairie, and descending
towards Portage des Sioux, 1 came up with a French-
man descending also from St. Charles to that place.
The village before us was hidden from our view by
an interposing bench. As I came up with him, he
asked me the distance and the direction to Portage des
Sioux. I mentioned the distance, and pointed in the
direction, remarking that the village was behind the
bench, and could not be seen until we arrived there.
He was a gay, buoyant fellow, just from old France,
and with the characteristic disposition to see every
thing in its best and gayest light. " Derriere les
bancs ! v said he, pointing with a flourish of his hand
to the hoary pinnacles of the bluffs. " Pas du tout,
monsieur ! Voila la ville ! Une place superbe ! " He
chose to find the city, not in mud-walled cottages, but
in turrets and spires, like those of Paris.

In ascending the rivers, the Mississippi is swifter
and more difficult to surmount above the mouth of the
Ohio than it is below. The Missouri is considerably
more difficult of navigation than the Mississippi. It
possesses all the characteristics of that river in a still
higher degree. It is more fierce and unsparing in its
wrath, sweeping islands and large tracts of ground
away on one hand, to form an island and a sand-bar
with them on another. In ascending to St. Charles,

125

iny family experienced great difficulty. From the
mouth to that place, and especially in passing Belle
Fontaine, the water is extremely difficult and dange-
rous. It is almost a continued ripple, pouring furious-
ly against the numerous sawyers, which give the river
the appearance of a field of dead trees. On the morn-
ing of the fifth day from St. Louis, my family arrived
at St. Charles, on the north hank of the Missouri, dis-
tant from the former place, by the course of the river,
forty miles. We were soon situated in a house be-
tween the first and second bluffs, a little distance from
the village, in a situation delightfully sheltered by
fruit-trees and shrubbery. Madame Duquette, a re-
spectable widow, owned it, and occupied one half with
us. The town is partly visible from this retirement,
although the noise is not heard. The river spreads
out below it in a wide and beautiful bav, adorned
with an island thick set with those regular cotton
trees, which so much resemble trees that have been
planted for a pleasure ground. The trees about the
house were literally bending under their loads of ap-
ples, pears, and the yellow Osage plum. Above the
house, and on the summit of the bluff, is a fine tract
of high and level plain, covered with hazle bushes and
wild hops, a great abundance of grapes, and the red
prairie plums. In this peaceful and pleasant residence
we passed two happy years, unmarked by any unusual
suffering or disaster.

The first Sabbath that I preached at St. Charles,
before morning worship, directly opposite the house
where service was to take place, there was a horse-
race. The horses received the signal to start away
just as I rode to the door. I have adverted to the
point before, but I cannot forbear to relate, that six

126

years after, when 1 left the place, it was after a com-
munion, where the services had been performed in a
decent brick church, in which forty communicants
had received communion. When the legislature sat
here, which it had then done for three sessions, the
members remarked upon the seriousness and regularity
of the inhabitants of this place, and were in the habit
of drawing strong inferences in favour of the influence
of religion. In St. Louis and in other places, where
churches were formed, it was remarked that the man-
ners of the people became visibly softened and refined.
We had considerable societies in St. Louis, St.
Charles, at Bon-homme, at the Mines, at Jackson in
Cape Girardeau, and in other directions in the old and
settled parts of the state. We had also societies at
Boon's Lick, and in the new settlements that sprung
up on the upper Mississippi. We were in the habit of
being often consulted by the people, about building
tempory places of public worship. We soon found
that this furnished a fruitful source of discord. It was
hoped that, the location of a place of worship would be-
come in time the centre of a village. At any rate,
every man of any influence would choose to have it
brought contiguous to his plantation. From this cir-
cumstance as well as from party feeling, and feuds in
neighbourhoods, the dispute often became so bitter,
where the place of worship should be placed, that it
ended in its not being built at all.

The far greater proportion of those who had been
reared in a predilection for our forms of worship, were
attached to the Presbyterian discipline. We deemed
it expedient to forma Presbytery, and we soon had
one composed of live ministers, who had been regular-
ly educated to the ministry. Our meetings were uni-
formly conducted with great harmony.

127

The second year of my residence in Missouri, we
were called to the Mine district, regularly to induct
into office a young gentleman who had been trained
to the ministry under the Rev. Gideon Blackburn.
The gentleman, though sick of the measles at the time
of his ordination, was inducted into office, apparently
with happy auspices. To the place of ordination was
a journey of eighty miles. I performed it in company
with the Rev. Mr. Mathews, a Presbyterian minister,
formerly of Pennsylvania, an Irishman by birth, a
gentlemen of great strictness of principle and charac-
ter, whose occas'onal facetiousness and pleasantry had
infinitely more force, as they beamed from a counte-
nance naturally hard and austere, and from whom,
judging by his tenets or his manner, no such things
could have been expected.

This iong journey had many circumstances of inter-
est, and is very pleasant to me in the recollection.
We made our way among the high hills, and flint
knobs, and desolate vallies of the Maramec, cutting
short the way with anecdote and narrative, mutually-
relating the scenes and events of our youth. As I
shall attempt a description of the Mine district in an-
other place, I shall only remark here, that the Mara-
mec, where we crossed it, fifty miles from its mouth, is
a wide, rapid, and shallow river, running among high
hills, and having all the characteristics of a clear, cool,
and mountain stream. It had narrow, but very pleas-
ant bottoms, along which a i'cw settlers were i'txvd.
In looking from the high and lonely hills upon the riv-
er, foaming along among its woods, and often meander
ing many miles in advancing one in a direct course,
we saw some cabins, so secluded, so shut in by hills
on every side, that they seemed to have no neighbours

128

but rocks and mountains, and to be left alone with
nature I have seen no situations which brought to
my. mind such strong images of solitude as these.

The second day we missed our way, and wandered
about among the hills, until after midnight. We had
calculated to pass the night " sub dio," under the open
sky. We finally heard the barking of dogs, by which
we were directed to a house. We suffered not a little
peril in making our approaches to the place, from a
pack of fierce dogs, which had been taught to fly upon
Indians, who had been occasionally lurking about
during the war that had just closed. Seeing us ap-
proach at that unseasonable hour, they probably took
us for the same kind of enemy, and we had fearful
evidence that they considered their master's house as
his castle, and that they meant to defend it with all
their force. We ascended a little building and took
ourselves out of their way until we raised the master.
Although it was but a cabin, and the hour so unsea-
sonable, we were most hospitably received and enter-
tained. Indeed I have very pleasing recollections of
hospitality from all the inhabitants of these remote re-
gions, where we called.

On this journey, for the first time since I left New
England, I passed through a long tract of pines. You
who are so deeply affected with the same grand and
simple music, will easily conjecture what were my
meditations, as the solemn and funereal hum of the
winds died away in the tops of these forests. You
will not doubt that remembrances of distant friends,
and of our early years, when this music was almost
daily heard, rushed upon me. I cculd not satiate my
eyes in gazing upon the trees of my native hills. I
returned by the way of St. Genevieve, Herculaneum.
and St. liOuis, to St. Charles.

129

The next summer, in company with a couple of
friends, I made a journey up the Illinois. This river
enters the upper Mississippi something more than twen-
ty miles above the mouth of the Missouri. In ascending
the Mississippi on the Illinois side, we passed a village
of the Illinois Indians. The Illinois brings in a clear
and broad stream, four hundred and fifty yards wide,
in a channel as strait and regular as a canal. Near
the mouth, it seems almost destitute of current. A
short distance above the mouth, opens the prairie, that
skirts the river. Ii is beautiful, being from two to
three miles in width, of the same fertility with that I
have attempted to describe already. Beyond this prai-
rie is a skirt of open woods, and the whole is bound-
ed by a lime-stone bluff, smooth and perpendicular,
and generally from two to three hundred feet high.
A natural wall, so grand, regular, and continued, 1
have seen no where else. It is many miles in extent,
and would look down upon the famed walls of Baby-
lon or China. On the opposite shore, was a deep and
tangled bottom, full of a most luxuriant vegetation, but
subject to be overflowed. Beyond the bottom, was a
long series, league after league, of those singular and
regular-shaped hills called " Mamelles." As has been
remarked on the Ohio, we observed that when the
prairie and stone bluffs shifted to the opposite shore,
the wooded bottom and the Mamelles were found on
the side on which we were travelling.

This was a district of the military lands. Some of
the soldiers were here to examine the value of their
acquisitions. Others had already fixed themselves on
their lands. The settlers were generally in the tim-
bered land, that skirted the edge of the prairie. Were
I to remark here upon the astonishing fertility of this

130

prairie and bottom, it would only seem like repetition
of what has been remarked upon the first prairie of
the Missouri. For a considerable distance up the Illi-
nois it is still near the Mississippi. After ascending
it two days, we were told that river was only three
miles distant. A very rough and elevated bluff inter-
poses between the prairies of the two rivers. As we
stood on its summit, we could observe the course of
each river for a great distance, and could trace the
beautiful prairie on each, in configuration and sinuosi-
ties, conforming to the meanders of its river. We
concluded that from the point where we were, when the
ground was covered with ice or snow, a sledge, start-
ed from this summit either way, would reach the banks
of either river by its own descending force. We de-
scended from the bluff to the upper Mississippi, and
rode up another rich and charming prairie, with the
grass sometimes as high as onr heads, on our horses.
We went up to examine the site of a new town, that
had been advertised with great eclat in the papers. In
effect, for pleasantness and fertility nothing could ex-
ceed it. But we were obliged to imagine the bustle
of population, the blocks of buildings, the wealth and
splendour, that we were told would one day be here.
At present all was solitude and silence. Not a single
dwelling was any where in view. But deer and wild
fowl were in sufficient abundance.

At a considerable distance up the Illinois, and di-
rectly on its banks, we came, as we returned, upon
the cabins of three families of Pottawatomie Indians.
The water of the river, — at this season of the year
warm and of a marshy taste, — was their drink ; and their
cabins were more smoky and dirty, and their fare appa-
rent I v more scanty and wretched, than falls to the lot of

131

savages in general. They were of that class, which form
the intermediate link between the social and savage state.
In a tall, meagre, and sallow woman, with the dirt and
smoke worn into her complexion, my companion re-
cognised a young French woman of unmixed blood,
with whom, as he said, he had often danced as a part-
ner at the balls, at Portage des Sioux. Be declared
that she had formerly been considered the belle of that
village, and the queen of the wake, and that against
the remonstrances of her parents, she had yoked her-
self with the tall and dirty savage, with whom she
now lived. The third night of our journey we were
benighted in a storm of thunder and rain, and were
glad to take shelter in a wigwam. The order of
things was here reversed. The husband was a
Frenchman and the w7ife a squaw. No words can
reach the description of the filthiness and apparent
misery of this wretched place. The man persisted in
declaring himself happy in his condition and in his wife.
For supper the husband had a terrapin, the squaw an
opossum ; and we had biscuit and uncooked mack-
erel, which we carried with us. This taste for asso-
ciation between these two races is exemplified in this
way in all directions up the Illinois, the Missouri, the
Mississippi, and especially at Prairie du Chien, up that
river, where three quarters of the inhabitants are the
mixed descendants of this union. In short, where-
ever the French have come in contact with the sava-
ges, these unions have been the result.

The object of this excursion had been to examine
into the moral condition and wants of the new settlers
on the Illinois. It was taken in the month of August.
I had suffered much from heat, bad food, and expo-
sure, and had breathed the air of the Illinois, charged at

132

this sultry season with miasma. The week after my
return, I was taken down with a severe bilious fever.
Emigrants generally suffer some kind of sickness,
which is called li seasoning," implying that it is the
summit of the gradual process of acclimation. ' This
sickness commonly attacks them the first, second, or
third year, and is generally the more severe, the longer
it is delayed. This came in my third year's residence
in the country. I am aware that every sufferer in
this way, is apt to think his own case extraordinary.
My physicians agreed with all who saw me, that my
case was so. As very few live to record the issue of
a sickness like mine, and as you have requested me
and as I have promised to be particular, I will relate
some of the circumstances of this disease. And it is,
in my view, desirable in the bitter agony of such dis-
eases, that more of the symptoms, sensations, and suf-
ferings should be recorded than have been, that others
in similar predicaments, may know that some before
them have had sufferings like theirs and have survived
them. I had had a fever before, and had risen and
been dressed every day. But in this, with the first
day I was prostrated to infantine weakness, and felt
with its first attack, that it was a thing very different
from what I had yet experienced. Paroxysms of de-
rangement occurred the third day, and this was to me
a new state of mind. That state of disease in which
partial derangement is mixed with a consciousness
generally sound, and a sensibility preternaturally ex-
cited, 1 should suppose the most distressing of all its
forms. At the same time that I was unable to recog-
nise my friends, I am informed that my memory was
more than ordinarily exact and retentive, and that I
repeated whole passages in the different languages

133

which I knew, with entire accuracy. I recited, with-
out losing or misplacing a word, a passage of poetry,
which I could not so repeat, after I had recovered my
health. Sometimes imaginations the most delightful,
and at other times the most terrible, took possession of
of my mind. But at that hour in the evening, when
my family had been used to sing before prayers, I
constantly supposed that I heard two flutes playing
harmonies in the most exquisite and delightful airs.
So strong was this impression, that it was difficult to
persuade me, on the recovery of sanity, that it had not
been so. As my strength sank, and as the painful
process of blistering, and emetics, and other distressing
operations, was laid aside as of no farther use, I re-
member well that every person, who came into my
room, seemed to come with an insufferable glare of
light about his head, like a dazzling glory, and that
every one about me seemed to walk in the air, and in
eccentric ellipses. Then there were continual flashes
from my own eyes, like those when we receive the
concussion of a violent blow in the head. When the
paroxysm came upon me, a kind of awful curiosity,
not unmixed with delight, — for at that time I was
not afraid to die, — dwelt on my mind ; a straining of
its powers to imagine ihe scenes, that would burst upon
me, when I should shut my eyes upon time, and open
them in the light of eternity. I passed the greater
part of two days in such extreme weakness, as to be
unable to close my eyes, and yet during this period
when I was supposed unconscious, 1 was possessed of
consciousness in such a degree as to hear and to know
all that was passing about me. I expected every mo-
ment to have done with the earth ; and of one thing I
am sure, that J was then perfectly willing to lay down

134

the (i worn being, full of pain." A feeling not unlike
regret, accompanied my first impression that I was
returning back to life. Too soon, in such cases, reso-
lutions vanish. Life and the earth regain their charm
and their influence, and the former train of feelings
returns.

Every one, who has been sick in this way, and who
from the extreme of emaciation and weakness, has re-
covered a renovated existence, has probably been con-
scious in some degree, of the same delightful sensations
of convalescence which I experienced. In that state
of debility, from which all the seeds of disease and all
causes of irritation have been removed, there is some-
thing in the tranquillity and repose, which exclude
all uneasiness and all vexation, — not unlike the se-
renity and satisfaction, which are supposed to be the
portion of the blessed. I remember days of more elas-
tic feeling, and which gave rise to more expressions of
happiness. But I do not remember to have experi-
enced such a placid and contented frame for such a
length of time. I attempted to analyze my feelings,
and 1 flattered myself, that the consciousness of resto-
ration from the grave, and returning health, did not
make a material element in this state of tranquil en-
joyment. How strongly we feel, under such circum-
stances, that the vexing and bad passions will never
regain a place within us ! The remembrance of the
manner in which the world and its hopes and desires
had affected me, seemed like a shadowy dream. I
shall not forget, until memory has lost her seat, the
sensations excited by the first view of the earth, the
trees, the river, and the heavens, the first time aftei
this illness that I was carried out to ride. Every ob-
ject had a new aspect, and a new colouring, and I

135

beheld the beauty of nature, as if for the first time.
I had been confined fifty-five days, and with the
weakness of an infant, I had all its freedom from cares
and desires. How earnestly did I wish that such a
state of abstraction from passions and cares, and such
fresh and admiring views of nature, might last forever !

LETTER XV.— ST. CHARLES.

During my long residence in the Mississippi valley,
I have had very considerable opportunities of becom-
ing acquainted with the various savage tribes of that
region. I have seen them in every point of view,
when hunting, when residing in iheir cabins, in their
permanent stations. I have seen them wild and unso-
phisticated in the woods. I have seen them in their
councils and deputations, when making treaties in the
considerable towns. I have seen their wisest, bravest,
and most considered ; and I have seen the wretched
families, that hang round the large towns, to trade and
to beg, intoxicated, subdued, filthy, and miserable, the
very outcasts of nature. I have seen much of the
Creeks and Cherokees, whose civilization and im-
provement are so much vaunted. I have seen the
wretched remains of the tribes on the lower Missis-
sippi, that stroll about New Orleans. I have taken
observation at Alexandria and Natchitoches of the In-
dians of those regions, and from the adjoining country of
New Spain. I have resided on the Arkansas, and have
been conversant with its savages. While I was at St.
Charles, savages came down from the Rocky Mount-
ains, so untamed, so unbroken to the wavs of the

136

whites, that they were said never to have eaten bread
until on that trip. While I was at St. Louis a grand
deputation from the northern points of the Missouri,
the Mississippi, and the lakes, comprising a selection
of their principal warriors and chiefs, to the number of
eighteen hundred, was there for a length of time.
They were there to make treaties, and settle the rela-
tions, that had been broken during the war, in which
most of them had taken a part hostile to the United
States. Thus I have inspected the northern, middle,
and southern Indians, for a length of ten years ; and I
mention it only to prove that my opportunities of ob-
servation have been considerable, and that I do not
undertake to form a judgment of their character, with-
out at least having seen much of it.

I have been forcibly struck with a general resem-
blance in their countenance, make, conformation,
manners, and habits. I believe that no race of men
can show people, who speak different languages, in-
habit different climes, and subsist on different food,
and who are yet so wonderfully alike. You may
easily discover striking differences in their stature,
strength, intellect, acuteness, and consideration among
themselves. But a savage of Canada, and of the
Rio del Norte, has substantially the same face, the
same form, and if I may so say, the same instincts.
They are ail, in my mind, unquestionably from a com-
mon stock. What wonderful dreams they must have
had, who supposed that any of these races were deriv-
ed from the Welch, or the Jews. Their languages,
now that they are more attentively examined, are
found to be far less discordant than they have been
generally supposed. In the construction of it, in the
manner of forming their attributes, their verbs, their

137

•numerals, especially, there is a great and striking anal-
ogy. Nor will it explain this to my mind, to say that
their wants and modes of existence being alike, their
ways of expressing their thoughts must be also. They
have a language of signs, that is common to all from
Canada to the western sea. Governor Clark explained
to me a great number of these signs, which convey ex-
actly the same ideas to those who speak different lan-
guages. But in fact, with the command of four dia-
lects, I believe that a man could make himself under-
stood by the savages from Maine to Mexico.

They have not the same acute and tender sensibili-
ties with the other races of men. I particularly com-
pare them with a race with which I have often seen
them intermixed, — the negroes. They have no quick
perceptions, no acute feelings. They do not so easily
or readily sympathize with external nature. They
seem callous to every passion but rage. The instan-
ces that have been given in such glowing colours, of
their females having felt and displayed the passion of
love towards individuals of the whites, with such ar-
dour and devoted constancy, have, I doubt not, exist-
ed. But they were exceptions, anomalies from the
general character. In all the positions in which I
have seen them, they do not seem susceptible of much
affection for their own species or the whites. They
are apparently a melancholy, sullen, and musing race,
who appear to have whatever they have of emotion or
excitement on ordinary occasions, going on in the in-
ner man. Every one has remarked how little surprize
they express, for whatever is new, strange, or striking.
Their continual converse with woods, rocks, and ster-
ile deserts, with the roar of the winds, and the solitude

and gloom of the wilderness, their alternations of sa-

tiety and hanger, their continual exposure to danger,
their uncertain existence, which seems to them a
forced and unnatural state, the little hold which their
affections seem to have upon life, the wild and savage
nature that always surrounds them, — these circumstan-
ces seem to have impressed a steady and unalterable
gloom upon their countenance. If there be here and
there a young man, otherwise born to distinction
among them, who feels the freshness and the vivacity
of a youthful existence, and shows any thing of the
gaiety and volatility of other animals in such circum-
stances, he is denounced as a trifling thing, destitute of
all dignity of character, and the sullen and silent
young savage will be advanced above him. They
converse very little, even among themselves. They
seem to possess an instinctive determination to be
wholly independent even of their own savage society.
They wish to have as few relations as may be, with
any thing external to themselves.

Their impassible fortitude and endurance of suffer-
ing, which have been so much vaunted, are after all, in
my mind, the result of a greater degree of physical
insensibility. It has been told me, with how much
truth 1 know not, but I believe it, that in amputation,
and other surgical operations, their nerves do not
shrink, do not show the same tendency to spasm, with
those of the whites. When the savage, to explain his
insensibility to cold, called upon the white man to
recollect how little his own face was affected by it, in
consequence of its constant exposure, the savage add-
ed, "My body is all lace." This increasing insensi-
bility, transmitted from generation to generation, final-
ly becomes inwrought with the whole web of animal
nature, and the body of the savage seems to have little

139

more sensibility than the hoof of horses. Of course
no ordinary stimulus excites them to action. None
of the common excitements, endearments, or motives,
operate upon them at all. They seem to hold most of
the things that move us, in proud disdain. The hor-
rors of their dreadful warfare, the infernal rage of their
battles, the demoniac fury of gratified revenge, the
alternations of hope and despair in Their gambling, to
which they are addicted far beyond the whites, the
brutal exhiliration of drunkenness, — these are their
pleasurable excitements. These are the things that
awaken them to a strong and pleasurable conscious-
ness of existence. When these excitements arouse the
imprisoned energies of their long and sullen medita-
tions, it is like iEolus uncaging the whirlwinds. The
tomahawk flies with unpitying and unsparing fury.
The writhing of their victims inspires a horrible joy.
Nor need we wonder at the enmity that exists between
them and the frontier people, when we know how
often such enemies have been let loose upon their
women and children.

I have often contrasted the savages, in all these re-
spects, with the negroes, and it has seemed to me that
they were the two extremes of human nature brought
together. The negro is easily excitable, and in the
highest degree susceptible of all the passions ; he is
more especially so of the mild and gentle affections.
To the Indian, stern, silent, moody, ruminating ex-
istence seems a burden. To the negro, remove
only pain and hunger, it is naturally a state of enjoy-
ment. As soon as his burdens are laid down, or his
toils for a moment suspended, he sings, he seizes his
riddle, he dances. When their days are passed in
continued and severe toil, their nights, — for like c;it*

140

and owls they are nocturnal animals, — are passed in
wandering about from plantation to plantation, in vis-
iting, feasting, and conversation.

Every year the negroes have two or three holi-
days, which in New Orleans and the vicinity, are like
the "Saturnalia"' of the slaves in ancient Rome.
The great Congo-dance is performed. Every thing
is license and revelry. Some hundreds of negroes,
male and female, follow the king of the wake, who is
conspicuous for his youth, size, the whiteness of his
eyes, and the blackness of his visage. For a crown
he has a series of oblong, gilt-paper boxes on his
head, tapering upwards, like a pyramid. From the
ends of these boxes hang two huge tassels, like those
on ppaulets. He wags his head and makes grimaces.
By Is is thousand mountebank tricks, and contortions
of countenance and form, he produces an irresistible
effect upon the multitude. All the characters that fol-
low him, of leading estimation, have their own peculiar
dress, and their own contortions. They dance, and
their streamers fly, and the bells that they have hung
about them tinkle. Never will you see gayer counte-
nances, demonstrations of more forgetful ness of the
past and the future, and more entire abandonment to
the joyous existence of the present moment. I have
seen groups of these moody and silent sons of the for-
est, following these merry bachanalians in their dan-?e,
through the streets, scarcely relaxing their grim visa-
ges to a smile, in tin; view of antics that convulsed
even tin; masters of the negroes with laughter.

I once witnessed a spectacle, which I am told the
Indians are rather shy of exhibiting to strangers, not
only among the whites, but even of their own race.
This was a set mourning for a deceased relative. It

141

took place in a Chactaw family, on the north side of
Lake Ponchartrain. About two months before, they
had appointed this day for doing up the mourning at
once. The whole group consisted of nine persons,
male and female. Only four men enacted the mourn-
ing. I was walking near the place in company with
my family* Our attention was arrested by the pecul-
iar posture of the mourners, and by a monotonous and
most melancholy lament, in a kind of tone not unlike
the howling of a dog. "We walked up to the mourn-
ing, but it went on as if the parties were unobservant
of our presence. Four large men sat opposite, and
with their heads so inclined to each other as almost
to touch. A blanket was thrown over their heads.
Each held a corner of it in his hand. In this position,
one that appeared to lead in the business, would begin
the dolorous note, which the rest immediately follow-
ed in a prolonged and dismal strain, for more than half
a minute. It then sunk away. It was followed by a
few convulsive sobs or snuffles, only giving way to
the same dismal howl a^ain. This was said to be a
common ceremony in like cases, and this was a pre-
concerted duty, which they had met at this time and
place to discharge. The performance lasted some-
thing more than an hour. The squaw and sisters of
the person deceased, were walking about with uncon-
cern, and as though nothing more than ordinary was
transacting. To be able to judge of the sincerity with
w inch these mourners enacted their business, to satisfy
myself whether fliey were in earnest or in jest, I sat
down close bv them, so that I could look under their
blanket, and I saw the tears actually streaming down
their cheeks in good earnest. When the mourning
was over, they arose, assumed their usual countenance,
and went about their ordinary busiucss.

142

It appears to be a habit with them, to do all their
manifestations of joy, grief, or religion, at once, at a
stated time, and by the quantity. Such is the purport
of their war-feasts and dances, their religious ceremo-
nial of roasting a dog, and, in some places, drinking
what is called the " black drink," before they com-
mence any important enterprise.

A few days after my first arrival at St. Louis, there
arrived, as I have remarked, from different points of
the upper Mississippi, Missouri, and the lakes, a great
number of the principal warriors and chiefs of the
tribes of these regions, to attend a grand council with
commissioners assembled under the authority of the
United States, to make treaties of peace with the
tribes that had been hostile to us during the war.
Their squaws and children attended them. A better
opportunity to observe the distinctions that exist be-
tween the different and very distant tribes of those
regions, seldom occurs. I remarked their different
modes of constructing their water-craft. Those from
the lakes, and the high points of the Mississippi, had
beautiful canoes, or rather large skiffs, of white birch
bark. Those from the lower Mississippi, and from
the Missouri, had pirogues, or canoes hollowed out of
a large tree. Some tribes covered their tents with
bear-skins. Those from far up the Mississippi, had
beautiful cone-shaped tents, made very neatly with
rush matting. Those from the upper regions of the
Missouri, had their tents of tanned buffalo robes,
marked on the inside with scarlet lines, and they were
of an elliptical form. In some instances, we saw
marks of savage progress in refinement and taste, in
covering the earth under their tents with rush or skin
carpeting. They were generally dirty, rude, and dis-

14S

posed to intoxication. When ladies of respectable
dress and appearance came to see them, as often hap-
pened, for they were encamped jnst out of the limits
of the town, they were particular in the manifestation
of marks of savage rudeness and indecency. They
were well aware of the effect of such conduct, and
when the ladies fled in confusion, they were sure to
raise a brutal laugh. We saw many small animals
roasting on the points of sticks, after the Indian fash-
ion, which we at first took to be pigs, but which we
afterwards ascertained to be dogs, and that they had
brought many with them for this purpose. The tribes
from the upper Mississippi and the lakes, that is, from
the vicinity of the British settlements, gambled with
our playing cards. They put their rations, their skins,
their rifles, their dogs, and sometimes, we were told,
their squaws, at stake on the issue of these gauaes.
The Missouri Indians gambled with a circular parch-
ment box, having a bottom, and shaped like a small
drum. From this they cast up a number of small
shells or pebbles, waving the palms of their hands
horizontally between the falling pebbles and the box,
at the same time blowing on the falling pebbles with
their mouth.

Gambling, as we have remarked, is one of the few
excitements sufficient to make them sensible of exist-
ence. It is a passion, to which with the characteristic
insanity of civilized gamblers, they will sacrifice for-
tune, the means of subsistence, their wives and chil-
dren, and even life. They often commit suicide in
despair, after they have gambled away every thing but
life.

I used at evening often to spend an hour or two in
walking among their tents, as they were encamped on

144

the margin of the Mississippi. They were the repre-
sentatives of a great many tribes, and they were the
select men, that is the warriors, and council-chiefs of
their tribes. None others are deputed on occasions
like these. The same moody, unjoyous, and rumin-
ating aspect, which I have constantly since seen all
classes wear, marked them. To the few who could
speak or understand English, I endeavoured to speak
on the subject of religion. I have surely had it in my
heart to impress them with the importance of the sub-
ject. I have scarcely noted an instance in which the
subject was not received either with indifference, rude-
ness, or jesting. Of all races of men that I have seen,
they seem to me most incapable of religious impres-
sions. They have, indeed, some notions of an invisible
agent. But they seemed generally to think, that the
Indians had their God, as the whites had theirs.

There can be no question about the benevolence of
the efforts that have been made to christianize them.
Full gladly would I welcome all the hopes that have
been entertained upon this point. Gladly would I be-
lieve, that this wretched race would receive the gospel,
and become happier and better. There can be but
one opinion, what would be the result of their imbibing
the genuine spirit of the gospel. frothing will event-
ually be gained to the great cause by colouring and
misstatement. However reluctant we may be to
receive it, the real state of things will eventually
be known to us. We have heard of the imperisha-
ble labours of an Eliot and a Brainerd in other days.
But in these times it is a melancholy truth, that
Protestant exertions to christianize them, have not
been in these regions marked with apparent success.
The Catholics have caused many to hang a crucifix

145

around their necks, which they show as they show their
medals and other ornaments, and this too often is all
that they have to mark them as christians. We have
read narratives of the Catholics, which detailed the
most glowing and animating views of their successes.
I have had accounts, however, from travellers in these

■5*

regions, that have been over the Stony Mountains into
the great missionary settlements of St. Peter and St.
Paul. These travellers, — and some of them were pro-
fessed Catholics, — unite in affirming, that the converts
will escape from the mission whenever it is in their
power, fly into their native deserts, ami resume at
once their old modes of life. The vast empire of the
Jesuits in Paraguay has all passed away, and, we are
told, the descendants of the converted Indians are no
way distinguished from the other savages. It strikes
me that Christianity is the religion of civilized man,
that the savages must first be civilized, and that as
there is little hope that the present generation of In-
dians can be civilized, there is but little more that they
will be christianized.

I have often been called to witness the sneering
manner, with which the leading men in the western
and southern country, who see what has actually been
done, contemplate the missionary efforts that have
been made among the Indians. One thing must be
conceded to these efforts, that the same rules of reason-
ing and philosophizing have finally been applied to this
subject, which have been so successful in the investi-
gation of all others. Theory, however plausible and
benevolent, has given place to observation and experi-
ence, of what has been the fruit and result of these ex-
ertions. If any thing can be gathered from the past to
guide the future, it is that there can be little hope of

146

any rRdical change, except among the children, whose
inclinations and habits are jet to form. The Protest-
ant efforts that are now making, are of this class ; and
they are made on reasonable grounds of calculation,
and promise more than any that have yet been at-
tempted. Those benevolent men, who have com-
menced missionary schools among the Indians, deserve
well of their country and of man. When the children
are civilized, and instructed in the usages and arts of
civilized life, and accustomed to find its security and
comfort necessary to their enjoyment, and to find
Christianity to be a grand point in that civilization,
among such, we may hope that the gospel will find its
element. Surely if any men merit earnest wishes and
prayers for their success, it must be those men, who
have left the precincts of every thing that is desirable
in life, to go into these solitudes, and take in hand
these unformed children of nature. It is upon the
children and the coming generation, that the lever of
our efforts of this kind among the Indians ought to
turn, as its pivot.

Certainly the time will come, when a more dis-
criminating and severe scrutiny will be applied to this
subject, than has yet been ; when benevolent wishes,
and the sanguine hopes of young and ardent men, will
not be the data on which to plan and execute schemes
of this sort. The principles on which to calculate
those exertions, will finally be adjusted by the improv-
ed philosophy of the age. The wisdom and expedi-
ency of missionary efforts must be tested, not by
theory, but experience, — by careful scrutiny of what
h;is been the actual result of these great labours of love.
Money, missionary efforts, and preachers are wanting,
far more than can be spared, in fields where the results

147

of cultivation have been measured. The settled re-
gions of our own country, that are destitute of the
gospel, are more ample than all our sacrifices and ex-
ertions in this way can occupy. Certainly there ought
to he a serious and anxious inquiry, where the avails of
the bank of christian charity can be applied with the
best hope of success. These plans have too often
been formed, and these avails appropriated, on state-
ments, or rather misstatements, of successes, which
never had any existence, except in the ardent imagina-
tions of those that made them.

In respect to christianizing the savages, the leading
men of the southern country say, in a tone between
jest and earnest, that we can never expect to do it
without crossing the breed. In effect, wherever there
are half-breeds, as they are called, there is generally
a faction, a party ; and this race finds it convenient to
espouse the interests of civilization and Christianity.
The full-blooded chiefs and Indians are generally par-
tisans for the customs of the old time, and for the an-
cient religion.

When the Cherokees left their old country east of
the Mississippi, and went to the upper regions of the
Arkansas, I saw the emigrating portion of the nation.
They came in two or three divisions, and might
amount in all to eight hundred or a thousand. 1 was
formally introduced Jo the leading full-blooded chief,
Richard Justice. He told me by the interpreter, that
he had a number of wives, by whom he had more than
thirty children. He wore the same inflexible, melan-
choly countenance, which has struck me as so charac-
teristic of the race. lie had a meagre, but very large
and brawny frame, was in appearance between eighty
and ninety years of age, and wore a great, number of

148

the common Indian insignia, and particularly huge
pendants in his ears. When asked in what light he
regarded schools, and those missionary efforts that
were then contemplated to be commenced in the coun-
try to which he was moving, he replied, that for the
true Indians the old ways were the best; that his
people were getting to be neither white men nor In-
dians; that he conceived that his nation had offended
their gods by deserting their old worship ; and that he,
for his part, wished that his people should be always
Cherokees, or, as he called it, Chelokees, and nothing
else. Rogers, on the contrary, a young, aspiring, and
factious half blood chief, expressed himself warmly in
favour of schools and missionaries. He made munifi-
cent promises of what he was willing to do in aid of
such exertions. His wife, who was an intelligent and
well-informed half-blood woman, with fine eyes, and a
countenance not unlike the white women of the south-
ern country, remarked to me, after her husband had
retired, that she wished, indeed, that missionaries
might come among her people and benefit her hus-
band. She concluded, she added, that when people
became christians they ceased to get drunk ; that her
husband, when sober, was an amiable and a good hus-
band, but that when drunk he was terrible, and not at
all to be trusted. She went on to remark, that reli-
gious people ought to receive with some distrust his
promises of support to the missionaries, for that such
language, and such promises, had become now the
watchword of a party; that she feared much, that his
pretended regard for religion was not the result of in-
ward conviction.

Many of these people had a number of slaves, fine
horses, waggons and ploughs, and implements of hus-

149

bandry and domestic manufacture. They were gen-
erally very stout men, and had in their countenance
much haughtiness, and looked, as it seemed to me,
with ineffable disdain upon the boatmen and labourers
of our people, holding themselves to be a people of a
much higher class. " Black Thunder," one of their
chiefs, was aptly denominated, being one of the largest
men that I had ever seen, as well as the most fierce
and formidable in his countenance and form. A wag-
gish and skipping young man among them was called
"The Squirrel." A >oung woman, not only a full-
blooded American, but rather fair and pretty, was wife
to one of the young warriors. She pretended or felt
a wish to escape from l hem, and made proposals to me
to allow her to secrete herself in my family. Some
efforts were made by the people of the village to carry
her pretended wishes into effect. But the savages,
whether they had been informed by herself that the
people wished to retain her, or whether they were ac-
tually fearful of her escape, watched her with the
most guarded jealousy. We saw her the next day
in tin1 midst of the savages, and it was evident from
her movements, that she felt a coquettish pride ia
showing the high estimation she had among them,
and how carefully she was watched.

I saw at Jackson, in Missouri, another emigration,
of the Shauannoes and Delawares to the country as-
signed them at the sources of White River. It was a
scene like that of the moving Cherokees, except that
they seemed a poorer and more degraded race, and
their women more immodest and abandoned. J had
passed through the villages of these people, when they
inhabited them. And no place is more full of life and
motion than an Indian village. At the upper end of

150

the villages, under the shade of the peach-trees, sat
the aged chiefs on their benches, dozing, their eyes
half closed, with their ruminating and thoughtful sul-
lenness depicted on their countenances. The middle
and lower end of the villages were all bustle and life ;
the young warriors fixing their rifles, the women car-
rying water, and the children playing at ball. I
passed through the same villages, when every house
was deserted. The deer browsed upon their fields,
and the red-bird perched upon their shrubs and fruit-
trees. The mellow song of the bird, and the desolate
contrast of what I had seen but a few months before,
formed a scene calculated to awaken in my mind
melancholy emotions.

Whatever may be the estimate of the Indian charac-
ter in other respects, it is with me an undoubting con-
viction, that they are by nature a shrewd and intelli-
gent race of men, in no respects, as it regards combina-
tion of thought or quickness of apprehension, inferior
to uneducated white men. This inference I deduce
from having instructed Indian children. I draw it from
having seen the men and women in all situations cal-
culated to try and call forth their capacities. When
they examine any of our inventions, steam-boats,
steam-mills, and cotton-factories, for instance, — when
they contemplate any of our institutions in operation, —
by some quick analysis, or process of reasoning, they
seem immediately to comprehend the principle and the
object. No spectacle affords them more delight than
a large and orderly school. They seem instinctively
to comprehend, at least they explained to me that they
felt the advantages which this order of things gave our
children over theirs.

151

When a tribe from the remotest regions arrives at
one of the towns, it is obvious how immediate!)' and,
it would seem, from the first glance, they select from
the crowds, which are drawn about them by curiosi-
ty, those that have weight and consideration among
the crowd ; how readily they fix upon the fathers, as
they call them, in distinction from all pretenders to
weight and influence among the people. I will record
an instance of this kind, from many that I have seen,
one that struck me most forcibly w ith the conviction
of their quickness of discernment in these respects.
Manuel Lisa, the great Spanish fur dealer on the Mis-
souri, brought down a deputation of Indians from the
Rocky Mountains to St. Louis. These savages, we
were assured, had been so remote from white people
and their ways, as never to have tasted the bread of the
whites before this trip. They had the appearance of
being more unsophisticated and panther-like, than any
savages I had seen. They landed at St. Charles from
the barges, that brought them down. A crowd, as
usual, gathered about the landing. In that crowd was
a trifling man, recently from New England, a man of
that cla^s, of which Dr. Dwight speaks with such de-
served contempt, — a man oppressed with the burden of
nis fancied talents and knowledge, and who had come
to this dark country, not to put his light under a bush-
el, but to let it shine, that men might see it. This
sight was to him a novel and imposing spectacle.
Among the people on the bank were men of the first
standing in the country. It is customary for such to
commence the ceremony of shaking hands with the sav-
ages. This man wished to introduce himself to the
notice of the people by anticipating them in this thing.
He walked on board their boats, and went round offer-

152

ing them his hand. A sneer was visible in their coun-
tenances, while they gave him a kind of awkward and
reluctant shake of the hand. When he was past, they
laughed among themselves, and remarked, as the inter-
preter told us, that this was a little man, and no father.
They then came on shore themselves, went round,
and with an eager and respectful manner, and cer-
tainly without any prompting, began to shake hands
with the fathers in their estimated order of their
standing. It was remarked at the time, that we, who
knew the standing of these men, could not have select-
ed with more justice and discrimination.

At the grand council at St. Louis, of which I have
spoken, where all the American commissioners were
present, and a vast concourse of Indians and Ameri-
cans,— that portion of the Sacs that had been hostile
to us during the war, was engaged in the debates of
the council. Some noble-looking chiefs spoke on the
occasion. They fully exemplified all that I had ever
heard of energy, gracefulness, and dignity of action
and manner. The blanket was thrown round the
body in graceful folds. The right arm, muscular
brawny, was bare quite to the shoulder. And the
movement of the arm, and the inclinations of the body,
might have afforded a study to a youthful orator. I
observed a peculiarity of their posture, which I have
not seen elsewhere noticed. When they closed ah
earnest and emphatic sentence, they regularly raised
the weight of the body from the heel, to poise it on
the toes and the fore part of the foot. The rest look-
ed on the speaker eagerly, and with intense interest.
When he uttered a sentence of strong meaning, or in-
volving some interesting point to be gained, they
cheered him with a deep grunt of acquiescence.

153

A favourite chief, of singular mildness of counte-
nance and manner, had spoken two or tiiree times, in
a very insinuating style. He was in fact the 6i Master
Plausible " of his tribe. I remarked to the governor,
that he was the only Indian I had ever seen, who ap-
peared to have mildness and mercy in his countenance.
He replied, that under this mi id and insinuating exte-
rior, were concealed uncommon degrees of cunning,
courage, revenge, and cruelty ; that in fact he had been
the most bloody and troublesome partisan against us,
during the war, of the whole tribe. The grand speech
of this man, as translated, was no mean attempt to
apply to the ladies anil gentlemen present, the delight-
ful unction of flattery.

Some report had got in circulation among them,
which inspired them with arrogant expectations of ob-
taining permission to retain the British traders among
them, for whom, it seems, they had contracted a great
fondness. The governor replied with great firmness,
that these expectations wvrc wholly inadmissible.
His answer was received with a general grunt of an-
ger. A speaker of very different aspect from the
former arose, and with high dudgeon in his counte-
nance, observed, that he had understood that the thing
which they wished, had been promised ; but that
" the American people had two tongues." Mr.
Clarke, who perfectly understood the import of their
figures, explained the remark to mean, that we were
a perfidious and double-tongued people. Justly indig-
nant to be addressed by a principal chief in this way,
and to notice that the remark was cheered by the
grunt of acquiescence on the part of the tribe, he
broke off the council with visible displeasure. In
the afternoon of that day, a detachment of United
20

154

States artillery arrived on the shore of the river, oppo-
site the Indian camp. This detachment was ordered
to the Sac country. The men paraded and fired their
pieces. The terror of the savages at artillery is well
known. The courage of these fierce men was awed
at once in the prospect of this imposing force, which
they had understood was bound to their country.
The next morning the Sac chiefs, rather submissively,
requested the renewal of the conference which had been
broken otf. We all attended the council to hear how
they would apologize for their insolence the day before.
The same chief who had used the offensive language,
came forward and observed that the father had mis-
understood the meaning of the poor ignorant Indians ;
that he had intended only to say, that he had always
understood from his fathers, that the Americans used
two languages, viz. French and English ; and that
they had two ways to express all that they had to say
to the Indians. To me, it seemed that a man of hon-
our, retreating from'a duel, could not more ingeniously
have explained away an offensive expression.

I could easily enter into details of this sort, and cite
numerous examples, which seemed to me to indicate
quick apprehension and strong intellect. 1 conversed
often .with a tall and noble-looking Sioux Indian,
very finely dressed and painted, who had a more than
ordinary portion of Indian ornaments about his per-
son, lie had great numbers of little bells about his
legs and ancles, which tinkled as he walked along.
These are things of which Indians are not a little
proud. To crown all, he. had a long and nourishing
tail of some wild animal, precisely from the point
where Lord Monboddo supposes that our forefathers
used to have an actual tail appended to the body.

155

From his fantastic tail, his fine dress, and majestic
strut, he used to be designated by some of the wits,
from Cowper's famous Heroic verse, " Devil, yard long
taiPd." This Indian dandy spoke good English,
and unlike his tribe among civilized men, had great
acuteness and a vigorous intellect. From him I ob-
tained much information concerning his own nation
and the neighbouring tribes. He gave me a very in-
teresting biography of the famous Indian chief, " White
Hair " This chief came from the remotest point of
the Osage to St. Louis. He was supposed to have de-
rived his appellation of White Hair, from a grey wig,
or scratchy which he had taken from the head of an
American at the disastrous defeat of General St. Clair.
He had grasped at the wig's tail in the meVe ot the
battle, supposing ii the man's hair, and that he should
have him by that hold. The owner iled, and the
scratch to his astonishment remained in his hand. It
instantly became in his mind a charmed thing, a grand
medicine. Supposing that in a like case it would
always effect a like deliverance, he afterwards wore
it, as a charmed thing, rudely fastened to his own
scalp. Napoleon himself did not discover more
greediness for fame, nor the inward heavings of a
more burning ambition, than this untrained son of the
forest. Said he, at the tables where he dined in St.
Louis, " I felt a fire within me, and it drove me to the
fight of St. Clair. When his army was scattered, I
returned on my steps to my country. But the lire
still burned, and I went over the mountains to the
western sea. I gained glory then1. The fire still
burns, but I must return and die in obscurity, aim
the forests of the Osage. "

156

LETTER, XVI.— ST. CIMRLES.

Our government can be contemplated in no point
of view, more calculated to inspire affection and re-
spect to it, than in the steady dignity? moderation,
benevolence, and untiring forbearance, which it has
constantly exercised towards the Indians. I have
had great opportunities to see the strictness of its
provisions to prevent the sale of whiskey among
them, and to see the generous exertions which it has
made to preserve them from destroying themselves,
and from killing eacli other. It appears to have
been the guiding maxim of the government, to ward
off all evil, and to do all practicable good to this un-
happy and declining race of beings. It seems to have
been, too, an effort of disinterested benevolence.
Had it been the policy of the government, as has
been charged against it, to exterminate the race, it
would only be necessary to use but a small part of the
ample means in its power, to let them loose, the one
tribe upon the other, and they would mutually accom-
plish the work of self-destruction. Nothing farther
would be needed, than to unkennel them, excite their
jealousies, and stir up their revenge. We have
heard and read the benevolent harangues upon the
; :ii!t of having destroyed the past races of this peo-
ple, and of having possessed ourselves of their lands.
Continual war is the natural instinct of this race. It
was equally so when white men first trod the Ameri-
can forest. It is not less so now, that the government
exercises a benevolent restraint, and keeps them from
killing each other. We iirmlv believe, that all ideas

157

of property in the lands over which they roamed after
game, or skulked in ambush to kill one another, all
notions of a local habitation, have been furnished
them by the Americans. When they were in one
place to day, defending themselves against a tribe at
the east, and ready to march tomorrow to dispossess
another at the west, and they in their turn to dispos-
sess another tribe still beyond them, it never occur-
red to them to consider the land over which they
marched for war or for game, as their own in perma-
nent property, until they were taught its value by
the idea which the whites attached to it. No fact is
more unquestionable, than that ages before the whites
visited these shores, they were divided into a thou-
sand petty tribes, engaged, — as but for our govern-
ment they would be now, — in endless and exterminat-
ing wars, in which they dashed the babe into the
flames, and drank the warm blood of their victim, or
danced and yelled around the stake where he was con-
suming in the fire. The process of their depopulation
had been, in all probability, going on as rapidly before
the discovery of the country by the whites, as since.
I shall elsewhere speak of the manifest proofs of an
immensely greater population in these regions than
now exists. Did this race exterminate that, of which
the only remaining trace is the numberless mounds,
filled with human bones, which rise in the lonely
prairies of the west? Certain it is, that war is the
instinctive appetite of the present race, and that a
state of peace is a forced and unnatural state.

I am perfectly aware, that these are not the views,
which have been fashionable of late, in discussing this
subject. You will do me the justice to believe, that T
have aimed at hut one thing, — to describe things just

158

as they are; or at least, as they appeared to me.
Truth, simple, undisguised truth is my object ; and up-
on this, as upon all other subjects, it will ultimately
prevail. Perhaps it may be said, that it is not in the
vicinity of Fort Minis, or among the frontier people,
that the most flattering views of the savages are to be
obtained. I grant it ; but I think that in the history
of the ancient Canadian wars, and in the regions
where I have so long sojourned, are to be found the
most just, if not the most flattering views of this peo-
ple. They are not the less to be pitied, because they
are a cruel people by nature. They are not less to be
the objects of our best wishes and our prayers, because
they have no sympathy with suffering. From my in-
most soul I wish them to become the followers of Je-
sus Christ. I venerate the men who will venture on
the hard and unpromising task of attempting their con-
version. But with all these wishes, I could not dis-
guise from myself, that such as I have represented, is
the natural character of this people.

Something may be said, no doubt, in opposition to
these views of the subject ; as, that the frontier people
have been often the aggressors in Indian quarrels. The
character of the frontier people, has been much mis-
represented. They are generally a harmless and inof-
fensive race. 1 have not a doubt that most of these
quarrels originate in the natural jealousies of the In-
dians. I have been present in two instances, where
they had committed murders, attended the inquest, and
heard the evidence. In both cases the murders were
entirely unprovoked, even the parties themselves being
witnesses. They are a people extremely jealous, ad-
dicted to what the French call (l tracasserie, " to sus-

159

picions, and whisperings. A tribe never hunts long
on our immediate frontier, without stealing horses,
getting into broils, and committing murder, either
among our people, or among themselves. But, it is
objected, they are intoxicated, and we furnish them the
means. It is true, they will be drunk, whenever they
can, and this is not a very favourable trait. It is also
true, that the government has established the most rig-
id regulations to prevent their getting whiskey, and
has enforced these regulations with heavy penalties for
their violation, and I have frequently seen these penal-
ties imposed.

I remember to have seen a young Chactaw warrior,
very finely dressed and painted, drunk at the piazza
of the house where I lived. He made every effort to
quarrel with the white people, who were about the
house, and was extremely abusive and insulting.
When he found that no one would quarrel with him,
in revenge he plunged his knife into the neck of a
beautiful horse which he was holding by the halter.

A respectable trader at the post of Arkansas had
informed against another trader in the village, who
had sold whiskey to the Indians. This thing always
incurs their extreme resentment. I heard this gentle-
man in conversation with two drunken Indians, \\ ho
had slept the preceding night under his piazza. They
were insolent and quarrelsome in the morning. lie
observed to me that could he find who had enabled
them to get drunk, he would inform against him. He
asked them, where they had purchased their whiskey ?
They gave him a bitter smile, and intimated, that they
well understood his object, in asking the question. lie
somewhat sternly repeated the question, Where did you

160

purchase jour whiskey ?" They held their bottles up
in the air, and informed him, that the "great Kentucky
captain," pointing to the clouds, had rained the whiskey
into their bottles.

In the immense extent of frontier, which I have
visited, I have heard many an affecting tale of the hor-
rible barbarities and murders of the Indians, precisely
of a character with those, which used to be recorded
in the early periods of New England history. I saw
two children, the only members of a family — consist-
ing of a father, mother, and a number of children —
that were spared by the Indians. It was on the river
Femme-Qsage. A party of Sacs and Foxes, that had
been burning and murdering in the vicinity, came upon
the house, as the father was coming in from abroad.
They shot him, and he fled, wounded, a little distance,
and fell. They then tomahawked the wife, and man-
gled her body. She had been boiling the sap of the
sugar-maple. The Indians threw two of the children
into the boiling kettles. The younger of the two or-
phans that I saw, was but three years old. His sister
two years older, drew him under the bed before they
were seen by the Indians. It had, in the fashion of
the country, a cotton counterpane that descended to
the floor. The howling of these demons, the firing,
the barking of the dogs, the shrieking of the children
that became their victims, never drew from these poor
things, that were trembling under the bed, a cry, or
the smallest noise. The Indians thrust their knives
through the bed, that nothing concealed there, might
escape them, and went off, through fear of pursuit,
leaving these desolate beings unharmed.

You will see the countenances of the frontier peo-
ple, as they relate numberless tragic occurrences of this

161

sort, gradually kindling. There seems, between them
and the savages, a deep-rooted enmity, like that be-
tween the seed of the woman and the serpent. They
would be more than human, if retaliation were not
sometimes the consequence. They tell you, with a
certain expression of countenance, that in former days
when they met an Indian in the woods, they were very
apt to see him suffer under the falling-sickness. This
dreadful state or things has now passed away, and I
have seldom heard of late of a murder committed by
the whites upon the Indians. Twenty years ago, the
Indians and whites both considered, when casual ren-
counters took place in the woods, that it was a fair
shot upon botii sides. A volume would not contain
the cases of these unrecorded murders.

The narrations of a frontier circle, as they draw
round their evening fire, often turn upon the exploits
of the old race of men, the heroes of the past days,
who wore hunting shirts, and settled the country. In-
stances of undaunted heroism, of desperate daring, aiid
seemingly of more than mortal endurance, are re-
corded of these people. In a boundless forest full of
panthers and bears, and more dreadful Indians, with
not a white within a hundred miles, a solitary adven-
turer penetrates the deepest wilderness, and begins to
make the strokes of his axe resound among the trees.
The Indians find him out, ambush, and imprison him.
A more acute and desperate warrior than themselves,
they wish to adopt him, and add his strength to their
tribe. He feigns contentment, uses the savage's insin-
uations, outruns him in the use of his own ways of
management, but watches his opportunity, and when
their suspicion is lulled, and they fall asleep, he springs
21

162

upon them, kills his keepers, and bounds away into
unknown forests, pursued by them and their dogs.
He leaves them all at fault, subsists many days upon
berries and roots, and finally arrives at his little
clearing, and resumes his axe. In a little palisade,
three or four resolute men stand a sie^e of hundreds
of assailants, kill many of them, and mount calmly
on the roof of their shelter, to pour water upon the
iire, which burning arrows have kindled there, and
achieve the work amidst a shower of balls. A thou-
sand instances of that stern and unshrinking courage
which had shaken hands with death, of that endurance
which defied all the inventions of Indian torture,
are recorded of these wonderful men. The dread
of being roasted alive by the Indians, called into ac-
tion all their hidden energies and resources.

I will relate one case of this sort, because I knew
the party, and lest I become tiresome on this head,
will close this kind of detail. The name of the hero
in question, was Baptiste Roy, a Frenchman, who
solicited, and, I am sorry to say, in vain, a compensa-
tion for his bravery from congress. It occurred at
" Cote sans Dessein'" on the Missouri. A numerous
band of northern savages, amounting to four hundred,
beset the garrison house, into which he, his wife, and
another man, had retreated. They were hunters by
profession, and had powder, lead, and four rifles in the
house. They immediately began to fire upon the In-
dians. The wife melted and moulded the lead, and
assisted in loading, occasionally taking her shot with
the other two. Every Indian that approached the
house, was sure to fall. The wife relates, that the
guns would soon become too much heated to hold in
the hand. Water was necessary to cool them. It

163

was, I think, on the second day of the siege that
Rov's assistant was killed. He became impatient
to look on the scene of execution, and see what they
had done. He put his eye to the port- hole, and a
well aimed shot destroyed him. The Indians per-
ceived, that their shot had taken effect, and gave a
yell of exultation. They were encouraged by the
momentary slackening of the fire, to approach the
house, and fire it over the heads of Hoy and his wife.
He deliberately mounted the roof, knocked off the
burning boards, and escaped untouched from the
shower of balls. What must have been the nights of
this husband and wife ? After four days of unavail-
ing siege, the Indians gave a yell, exclaimed, that
the house was a " grand medicine," meaning, that it
was charmed and impregnable, and went away.
They left behind forty bodies to attest the marksman-
ship and steadiness of the besieged, and a peck of
balls collected from the logs of the house.

I have already hinted at the facility with which the
French and Indians intermix. There seems to be as
natural an affinity of the former people for them, as
there is repulsion between the Anglo-Americans and
them. Monstrous exceptions sometimes occur, but it
is so rare that a permanent connexion is formed be-
tween an American and an Indian woman, that even
the French themselves regard it as matter of aston-
ishment. The antipathy between the two races seems
fixed and unalterable. Peace there often is between
them when they are cast in'the same vicinity, but any
affectionate intercourse, never. Whereas the French
settle among them, learn their language, intermarry,
and soon get smoked to the same copper complexion.
A race of half-breeds springs up in their cabins. A

164

singular c^ist is the result of the intermarriages of
these half-breeds, called quarteroons. The lank hair,
the Indian countenance and manners predominate,
even in these. It is a singular fact, that the Indian
feature descends much farther in these intermixtures,
and is much slower to be amalgamated with that of
the whites, than that of the negro. Prairie du Chien,
on the upper Mississippi, is a sample of these inter-
mixtures. So are most of the French settlements on
the Missouri, Illinois, and in short, wherever the
" petits paysans " come in contact with the Indians.
It would be an interesting disquisition, and one that
would throw true light upon the great difference of
national character between the French and Anglo-
Americans, which should assign the true causes of this
affinity on the one part, and antipathy on the other.
You will expect me to say something of the lonely
records of the former races that inhabited this coun-
try, That there has formerly been a much more nu-
merous population than exists here at present, with-
out running foul of the theories or speculations of
any other persons, I am fully impressed from the re-
sult of my own personal observations. From the
highest points of the Ohio to where I am now writing,
and far up the" upper Mississippi and Missouri, the
more the country is explored and peopled, and the
more its surface is penetrated, not only are there more
mounds brought to view, but more incontestible marks
of a numerous population. Wells artificially walled,
different structures of convenience or defence, have
been found in such numbers, as no longer to excite
curiosity. Ornaments of silver and of copper, pot-
tery, of which I have, seen numberless specimens on
all these waters, not to mention the mounds them-

165

selves, and the still more tangible evidence of human
bodies found in a state of preservation, and of sepul-
chres full of bones, are unquestionable demonstra-
tions, that this country was once possessed of a nu-
merous population. Some of the mounds, such, for
example, as those between the two Mi amies, those
near the Cahokia, and those far down the Missis-
sippi, in the vicinity of St. Francisville, must have
been works of great labour. Whatever may have
been their former objects and uses, they all exhibit
one indication of art. All that I have seen, were in
regular forms, generally cones or parallelograms. If
it be remarked that the rude monuments of this kind,
those of the Mexican Indians even, are structures of
stone, and that these are all of earth, — I can only
say, that these memorials of former toi] and exist-
ent e, are, as far as my observation has extended, all
in regions destitute of stones. The limits of this
work exclude any attempts to describe the walls, and
other regular works of stone, that are occasionally
found in these regions. The mounds themselves,
though of earth, are not those rude and shapeless
heaps, that they have been commonly represented to
be. I have seen, for instance, in different parts of
the Atlantic country, the breast -works and other de-
fences of eartb, that were thrown up by our people,
during the war of the Revolution. None of those
monuments date back more than fifty years. These
mounds muse date back to remote depths in the olden
time. From the ages of the trees on them, and from
other data, we can trace them back six hundred
years, leaving it entirely to the imagination to de-
scend deeper into the depths of time beyond. And yet
after the rains, the washing, and the crumbling of so

166

many ages, many of them are still twenty-five feet
high. All of them are incomparably more conspicu-
ous monuments, than the works which I just noticed.
Some of them are spread over an extent of acres. I
have seen, great and small, I should suppose, an hun-
dred. Though diverse in position and form, they all
have an uniform character. They are for the most part
in rich soils, and in conspicuous situations. Those on
the Ohio are covered with very large trees. But in
the prairie regions, where I have seen the greatest
numbers, they are covered with tall grass, and gene-
rally near benches, which indicate the former courses
of the rivers, in the finest situations for present cul-
ture ; and the greatest population clearly has been in
those very positions, where the most dense future
population will be.

You have been informed that I cultivated a small
farm on that beautiful prairie below St. Charles,
which I have attempted to describe, called " The Ma-
melle," or " Point prairie." In my enclosure, and di-
rectly back of my house, were two conical mounds of
considerable elevation. A hundred paces in front of
them, was a high bench, making the shore of the
4i Marais Croche," an extensive marsh, and evident-
ly the former bed of the Missouri. In digging a
ditch on the margin of this bench, at the depth of
four feet, we discovered great quantities of broken
pottery, belonging to vessels of all sizes and charac-
ters. Some must have been of a size to contain four
gallons. This must have been a very populous place.
The soil is admirable, the prospect boundless; but
from the scanty number of habitations in view, rather
lonely. It will one day contain an immense popula-
tion again. I have walked on these mounds, when

167

the twilight of evening was closing in. I have sur-
veyed their form, have ascertained that they are full
of human bones, and have found, as you will easily
believe, at such a time and place, sufficient scope for
my lonely musings. You, who are a poet and a fath-
er, will excuse a father for inserting some verses on
this subject, by my son, your former pupil.

LINES

ON THE MOUNDS IN THE CAHOKIA PRAIRIE, ILLINOIS.

The sun's last rays were fading from the west,
The deepening shade stole slowly o'er the plain,
The evening breeze had lulled itself to rest,
And all was silence,' — save the mournful strain
With which the widowed turtle wooed in vain
Her absent lover to her lonely nest.

Now, one by one emerging to the sight,

The brighter stars assumed ti.rir seats on high ;

The moon's pale crescent glowed serenely blight,

As the last twilight fled along the sky,

And all her train, in cloudless majesty,

Were glittering on the dark blue vault of night.

I lingered, by some soft enchantment bound,
And gazed enraptured on the lovely scene ;
From the dark summit of an Indian rnound
I saw the plain outspread in living green,
Its fringe of cliffs was in the distance seen,
And the dark line of forest sweeping round.

I saw the lesser mounds which round me rose;
Each was a siani heap of mouldering clay ;
There slept the warriors, women, friends, and foes,
There side by side the rival chieftains lay;
And mighty tribes, swept from the face of day,
Forgot their wars and found a long repose.

168

Ye mouldering relics of departed years,

Your names have perished ; not a trace remains,

Save where the grass-grown mound its summit rears

From the green bosom of your native plains ;

Say, do your spirits wear oblivion's chains ?.

Did death forever quench your hopes and fears ?

Or live they shrined in some congenial form ?
What if the swan who leaves her summer nest
Among the northern lakes, and mounts the storm
To wing her rapid flight to climes more blest,
Should hover o'er the very spot where rest
The crumbling bones — once with her spirit warm.

What if the song, so soft, so sweet, so clear,

Whose music fell so gently from on high,

And which, enraptured, I have stopped to hear,

Gazing in vain upon the cloudless sky, —

Was their own soft funereal melody

While lingering o'er the scenes that once were dear.

Or did those fairy hopes of future bliss,

Which simple nature to your bosoms gave,

Find other worlds with fairer skies than this

Beyond the gloomy portals of the grave,

In whose bright climes the virtuous and the brave

Rest from their toils, and all their cares dismiss ? —

Where the great hunter still pursues the chase,
And o'er the sunny mountains tracks the deer,
Or where he finds each long extinguished race,
And sees once more the mighty mammoth rear
The giant form which lies imbedded here,
Of other years the sole remaining trace.

Or it may be that still ye linger near

The sleeping ashes, once your dearest pride ;

And could your forms to mortal eye appear,

169

Or the dark veil of death be thrown aside,
Then might I see your restless shadows glide
With watchful care around these relics dear.

If so, forgive the rude unhallowed feet

Which trod so thoughtless o'er your mighty dead j

I would not thus profane their lone retreat,

Nor trample where the sleeping warrior's head

Lay pillowed on his everlasting bed

Age after age, still sunk in slumbers sweet.

Farewell — and may you still in peace repose,
Still o'er you may the flowers untrodden bloom,
And softly wave to every breeze that blows,
Casting their fragrance on each lonely tomb
In which your tribes sleep in earth's common womb,
And mingle with the clay from which they rose.
March 10, 1S25.

The English, when they sneer at our country, speak
of it as sterile in moral interest. It has, say they, no
monuments, no ruins, none of the massive remains of
former ages ; no castles, no mouldering abbeys, no
baronial towers and dungeons, nothing to connect the
imagination and the heart with the past, no recollec-
tions of former ages, to associate the past with the
future. But I have been attempting sketches of the
largest and most fertile valley in the world, larger, in
fact, than half of Europe, all its remotest points being
brought into proximity by a stream, which runs the
length of that continent, and to which all but two or
three of the rivers of Europe are but rivulets. Its for-
ests make a respectable figure, even placed beside Blen-
heim park. We have lakes which could find a place
for the Cumberland lakes in the hollow .of one of their
islands. We have prairies, which have struck me as

170

among the sublimcst prospects in nature. There we
see the sun rising over a boundless plain, where the
blue of the heavens in all directions touches and min-
gles with the verdure of the flowers. It is to me a
view far more glorious than that on which the sun
rises over a barren and angry waste of sea. The one
is soft, cheerful, associated with life, and requires an
easier effort of the imagination to travel beyond the
eye. The other is grand, but dreary, desolate, and
always ready to destroy. In the most pleasing posi-
tions of these prairies, we have our Indian mounds,
which proudly rise above the plain. At first the eye
mistakes them for hills ; but when it catches the regu-
larity of their breastworks and ditches, it discovers at
once that they are the labours of art and of men.
When the evidence of the senses convinces us that
human bones moulder in these masses, when you dig
about them and bring to light their domestic utensils,
and are compelled to believe that the busy tide of life
once flowed here, when you see at once that these
races were of a very different character from the pres-
ent generation, you begin to inquire if any tradition,
if any the faintest records can throw any light upon
these habitations of men of another age. Is there no
scope beside these mounds for imagination, and for
contemplation of the past ? The men, their joys, their
sorrows, their bones, are all buried together. But the
grand features of nature remain. There is the beauti-
ful prairie, o\er which they " strutted through life's
poor play." The forests, the hills, the mounds, lift
their heads in unalterable repose, and furnish the same
sources of contemplation to us, that they did to those
generations that have passed away.

171

It is true, we have little reason to suppose that
they were the guilty dens of petty tyrants, who let
loose their half savage vassals, to burn, plunder,
enslave, and despoil an adjoining den. There are
no remains of the vast and useless monasteries, where
ignorant and lazy monks dreamed over their lusts,
or meditated their vile plans of acquisition and im-
posture. Here must have been a race of men on
these charming plains, that had every call from the
scenes that surrounded them, to contented existence
and tranquil meditation. Unfortunate, as men view the
thing, they must have been. Innocent and peaceful
they probably were ; for had they been reared amidst
wars and quarrels, like the present Indians, they
would doubtless have maintained their ground, and
their posterity would have remained to this day.
Beside them, moulder the huge bones of their contem-
porary beasts, which must have been of thrice the size
of the elephant. I cannot judge of the recollections
excited by castles and towers that I have not seen.
But I have seen all of grandeur, which our cities can
display. I have seen, too, these lonely tombs of the
desert, — seen them rise from these boundless and un-
peopled plains. My imagination had been filled,
and my heart has been full. The nothingness of the
brief dream of human life has forced itself upon my
mind. The unknown race, to which these bones be-
longed, had, I doubt not, as many projects of ambition
and hoped as sanguinely to have their names survive,
as the great of the present day.

The more the subject of the past races of men and
animals in this region is investigated, the more per-
plexed it seems to become. The huge bones of the
animals indicate them to be vastly larger than any

.172

that now exist on the earth. All that I have seen and
heard of the remains of the men, would seem to show,
that they were smaller than the men of our times.
All the bodies, that have been found in that state
of high preservation, in which they were discovered
in nitrous caves, were considerably smaller than the
present ordinary stature of men. The two bodies,
that were found in the vast limestone cavern in
Tennessee, one of which I saw at Lexington, were
neither of them more than four feet in height. It
seemed to me, that this must have been nearly the
height of the living person. The teeth and nails did
not seem to indicate the shrinking of the flesh from
them in the desiccating process by which they were
preserved. The teeth were separated by considera-
ble intervals, and were small, long, white, and sharp,
reviving the horrible images of nursery tales of ogres'
teeth. The hair seemed to have been sandy, or in-
clining to yellow. It is well known that nothing is so
uniform in the present Indian, as his lank black hair.
From the pains taken to preserve the bodies, and the
great labour of making the funeral robes in which
they were folded, they must have been of the " blood
royal," or personages of great consideration in their
day. The person that I saw had evidently died by
a blow on the skull. The blood had coagulated there
into a mass of a texture and colour, sufficiently mark-
ed to show that it had been blood. The envelope
of the body was double. Two splendid blankets,
letely woven with the most beautiful feathers of
the wild turkey, arranged in regular stripes and eom-
partm encircled it. The cloth, on which these

feathers were woven, was a kind of linen of neat texture,
of the .same kind with that which is now woven from

173

the fibres of the nettle. The body was evidently
that of a female of middle age, and I should suppose,
that her majesty weighed, when I saw her, six or eight
pounds.

At the time that the Lilliputian graves were found
on the Maramec, in the county of St. Louis, many
people went from that town to satisfy their curiosity
by inspecting them. I made arrangements to go, but
was called away by indispensable duties. I relate
them from memory only, and from the narrative, oral
and printed, of the Rev. Mr. Peck, who examined
them on the spot. It appears from him, that the
graves were numerous, that the coffins were of stone,
that the bones in some instances were nearly en-
tire : that the length of the bodies was determined by
that of the coffins, which they filled, and that the bod-
ies in general could not have been more than from
three feet and a half to four feet in length. Thus,
it should seem, that the generations of the past in this
region were mammoths and pigmies.

I have examined the pottery, of which I have spok-
en above, with some attention. ■ It is unbaked, and
the glazing very incomplete, since oil will soak through
it. It is evident, from slight departures from regular-
ity in the surface, that it was moulded by tin; hand
and not by any thing like our lathe. The composition,
when fractured, shows many white floccules in the
clay, that resemble fine snow, and this I judge to bo
pulverized shells. The basis of the composition ap-
pears to be the alluvial clay, carried along in the \\;i
tersof the Mississippi, and called by the French " terrc
grasse," from its greasy feel. Samples of this pottery-
more or less perfect, are shown every where on the riv-
er. Some of the most perfect have been dug from

174

what arc called the " chalk banks," below the mouth
of the Ohio. The most perfect, that I have seen, be-
in" in fact as entire as when first formed, was a ves-
sel in my possession. It was a drinking jug, like die
" scvphus " of the ancients. It was dug from the
chalk-bank. It was smooth, well moulded, and of
the colour of common grey stone-ware. It had been
rounded with great care, and yet, from slight indenta-
tions on the surface, it was manifest that it had
been so wrought in the palm of the hand. The
model of the form was a simple and obvious one — the
bottle-gourd, — and it would contain about two quarts.
This vessel had been used to hold animal oil : for it had
soaked through, and varnished the external surface.
Its neck was that of a squaw, known by the clubbing
of the hair, after the Indian fashion. The moulder
was not an accurate copyist, and had learned neither
statuary nor anatomy ; for, although the finish was fine,
the head was monstrous. There seemed to have been
an intention of wit in the outlet. It was the horrible
and distorted mouth of a savage, and in drinking you
would be obliged to place your lips in contact with
those of madam, the squaw.

LKTTER XVII.— ST. CHARLES.

The people in the Atlantic states have not yet re-
covered froui the horror, inspired by the term " back-
woodsman." This prejudice is particularly strong in
New England, and is more or less felt from Maine to
( ieorgia. When I first visited this country, I had my

175

full share, and my family by far too much for their
comfort In approaching the country, I heard a thou-
sand stories of gougings, and robberies, and shooting
down with the rifle. 1 have travelled in these regions
thousands of miles under all circumstances of exposure
and danger. I have travelled alone, or in company
only <\ith such as needed protection, instead of being
able to impart it ; and this too, in many instances,
Where I was not known as a minister, or where such
knowledge would have had no influence in protecting
me. I never have carried the slightest weapon of
defence. I scarcely remember to have experienced any
thing that resembled insult, or to have felt myself in
danger from the people. I have often seen men that
had lost an eye. Instances of murder, numerous and
horrible in their circumstances, have occurred in my
vicinity. But they were such lawless rencounters, as
terminate in murder every where, and in which the
drunkenness, brutality, and violence were mutual.
They were catastrophes, in which quiet and sober men
would be in no danger of being involved. When we
look round these immense regions, and consider that
I have been in settlements three hundred miles from
any court of justice, when we look at the position of
the men, and the state of tilings, the wonder is, that
so few outrages and murders occur. The gentlemen
of the tow-is, even here, speak often with a certain
contempt and horror of the backwoodsmen. I have
read, and not out feelings of pain, the bitter re-

presentations of the ;. arned and virtuous Dr. Dwight,
in speaking of them. He represents these vast re-
gions, as a grand reservoir for the scum of the Atlantic
states. lie characterizes in the mass the emigrants
from New England, as discontented coblers, too proud,

176

too much in debt, too unprincipled, too much puffed
ii |> with self-conceit, too strongly impressed that their
fancied talents could not find scope in their own
country, to stay there. It is true there are worthless
people here, and the most so, it must be confessed, are
from New England. It is true there are gamblers, and
gougers, and outlaws ; but there are fewer of them,
than from the nature of things, and the character of the
age and the woild, we ought to expect. But it is un-
worthy of the excellent man in question so to designate
this people in the mass. The backwoodsman of the
west, as I have seen him, is generally an amiable and
virtuous man. His general motive for coming here is
to be a freeholder, to have, plenty of rich land, and to
be able to settle his children about him. It is a most
virtuous molive. And notwithstanding all that Dr.
Dwight and Talleyrand have said to the contrary,
1 fully believe, that nine in ten of the emigrants
have come here with no other motive. You find, in
truth, that he has vices and barbarisms, peculiar to his
situation. Mis manners are rough. He wears, it may
be, a long beard. He has a great quantity of bear
or deerskins wrought into his household establishment,
his furniture, and dress. He carries a knife, or a dirk
in bis bosom, and when in the woods has a rifle on
bis back, and a pack of dogs at his heels. An Atlan-
tic stranger, transferred directly from one of our cities
to his door, would recoil from a rencounter with him.
\) ui remember, that his rifle and his dogs are among
his chief means of support and profit. Remember,
that all his first days here were passed in dread of the
sava Remember, that he still encounters them, still

meets and panthers^ Enter his door, and tell

him you aire benighted, and wish the shelter of his

177

cabin for the night. The welcome is indeed seeming-
ly ungracious: "I reckon you can stay," or WJ sup-
pose we must let you stay." But this apparent ungra-
ciousness is the harbinger of every kindness that he
can bestow, and every comfort that his cabin can
afford. Good coffee, corn bread and butter, venison,
pork, wild and tame fowls are set before you. His
wife, timid, silent, reserved, but constantly attentive
to your comfort, does not sit at the table with you, but
like the wives of the patriarchs, stands and attends
on you. You are shown to the best bed which the
house can offer. When this kind of hospitality has
been afforded you as long as you choose to stay, and
when you depart, and speak about your bill, you are
most commonly told with some slight mark of resent-
ment, that they do not keep tavern. Even the flax-
en-headed urchins will turn away from your mo-
ney.

In all my extensive intercourse with these people,
I do not recollect but one instance of positive rudeness
and inhospitably. It was on the waters of the Cuivre
of the upper ^Mississippi ; and from a man to whom I
had presented bibles, who had received the hospitali-
ties of my house, who had invited me into his settle-
ment to preach. I turned away indignantly from a
cold and reluctant reception hen-, made my way from
the house of this man, — who was a German and com-
paratively rich, — through deep and dark forests, and
amidst the concerts of wolves howling on the neieh-
bouring hiils. Providentially, about midnight, I heard
the barking of dogs at a distance, made my way to
the cabin of a very poor man, who arose at midnight,
took me in, provided supper, and gave me a most cor-
dial reception.

178

With this single exception, I have fonnd the back-
woodsmen to be such as I have described ; a hardy,
adventurous, hospitable, rough, but sincere and up-
right race of people. I have received so many kind-
nesses from them, that it becomes me always to pre-
serve a grateful and affectionate remembrance of them.
If we were to try them by the standard of New Eng-
land customs and opinions, that is to say, the customs
of a people under entirely different circumstances,
there would be many things in the picture, that would
strike us offensively. They care little about ministers,
and think less about paying them. They are averse to
all, even the most necessary restraints. They are
destitute of the forms and observances of society and
religion; but they are sincere and kind without pro-
fessions, and have a coarse, but substantial morality,
which is often rendered more striking by the immedi-
ate contrast of the graceful bows, civility, and profes-
sions of their French Catholic neighbours, who have
the observances of society and the forms of worship,
with often but a scanty modicum of the blunt truth
and uprightness of their unpolished neighbours.

In the towns of the upper country on the Mississip-
pi, and especially in St. Louis, there is one species of
barbarism, that is but too common ; I mean the horrid
practice of duelling. But be it remembered, this is
the barbarism onlv of that small class that denominate
themselves " the gentlemen." It cannot be matter of
astonishment that these are common here, when we
recollect, that the fierce and adventurous spirits are
naturally attracted to these regions, and that it is a
common proverb of the people, that when we cross
the Mississippi, " we travel beyond the Sabbath."

179

It would lead me to such personalities as I mean
to avoid, were I to give you details, and my views of
the fatal duels, of which there were so many while I
was here. I can only say, that I lost, in this dreadful
way, two individuals with whom I had personal inter-
course, and from whom I had received many kind-
nesses. One of them was one of the most promising,
and apparently the most sober and moral young men
in the state, the hope of his family, and the prop of
the old age of his father. Ail that fell were, men in
office, of standing and character. I am not here going
to start a dissertation upon the trite subject of duelling,
the most horrible and savage relic of a barbarous
age. If any thing could disgust reasoning beings with
this dreadful practice, it would be to have seen its fre-
quency and its terminations and consequences in this
region. The best encomium of regulated society, and
of the restraints of order and religion, is found in the
fact, that the duels that occur here, compared with
those that occur in New England, in proportion to the
population, are as a hundred to one. But even here,
it would be unjust to infer that the mass of the people
favour duelling. A single consideration vviil go far to
explain its frequency of occurrence among the upper
classes. As we have said, the ambitious, fiery, and
ungovernable spirits emigrate to obtain consequence,
and make their fortune. There is a continual chaos
of the political elements, occasioned by this continual
addition of new and discordant materials. The new
adventurers that arrive, have not as yet had their place
or their standing assigned them in public opinion. In
process of time, this new timber is inwrought into the
old political fabric, and thus it becomes continually
repaired and new moulded. In other words, people

180

com? here and find themselves in a position to start for
a new standing in society. No new man can ascend
to eminence, without displacing some one who is al-
ready there. Where character and estimation are set-
tled by prescription, the occupant of the high station
gives place peaceably to him that public opinion has
mounted to his place. Not so to the newly arrived em-
igrant, who makes his way to public favour, before his
standing and character have been settled by general
estimation. A few partisans find it convenient to cry
up their friend, who has recently emigrated here from
abroad. This is the very country and region for this
kind of crying up and crying down. We know that
every circle, however small, has its prodigious great
man, like Sancho's beauty, the greatest within three
leagues. How often have I heard of these great men
on a small circle, the actual monopolists of all the
talents and all the virtues, and yet men, of whom on
acquaintance I was compelled to form but a very in-
different opinion. To express a doubt in this case is
treason. Even " faint praise " is almost a ground of
offence. At the mouth of the pistol it must be settled,
which is the greater man of the opposing circles.
The partisans of the opposing great men meet. Reck-
lessness about justice, and even life, is generated by
the blasphemy and abuse that grow out of the idle
quarrel. They throw away their lives, and the des-
perate indifference with which they do it, creates a
kind of respect in the minds of them that contemplate
it.

Many people without education and character, who
were Dot gentlemen in the circles where they used to
move, get accommodated here from the tailor with
something of the externals of a gentleman, and at

181

once set up in this newly assumed character. The
shortest road to settle their pretensions is to fight a
duel. Such are always ready for the combat. Most
of the duels which took place while I was in the coun-
try, originated in causes like these.

The superstition in which duelling originated, is a
most idle one ; for the innocent and amiable are gen-
erally seen to fail, and the worthless to survive. That
they are not tests of courage, has been so often said
and sung, that it has become as trite as it is true. I
knew in that region an officer that fell in this way,
who was universally supposed to be a coward ; he
challenged his man, believing him to be a greater cow-
ard than himself; but in this he mistook, went out,
and was slain. It is indeed most disgusting to see
these bullies, who lie every day, whose life in fact is
a standing lie, put people to death for calling them
liars, and immediately pass for men of honour and
truth.

One duel occurred on the Illinois side of the river,
and not far from St. Louis, at Bellevue, which ought
to serve as a solemn warning against the jest of trying
a man's courage in this way. A young gentleman, a
respectable attorney, had just commenced business in
that place. He had been bullied by a man, who was
indeed an officer in rank, but a man of dubious char-
acter. The young gentleman had been cautioned
against being drawn into the contest, and had been as-
sured, that according to the orthodox canons of hon-
our, the character of the man did not justify fighting
him. But an idea was entertained, that he had not
sufficient nerve to stand a challenge. It was agreed
by his friends that the next time the man insulted him,
he should send him a challenge, and that the seconds

182

should load both the rifles, — for they were to fight
with rifles, — with blank cartridges. The opposite
party was not to be in the secret, and the joke was
to watch his eye, and see if it did not blench. The
challenge was sent, and the seconds on both sides
made a solemn contract with each other, that both the
guns should be loaded with blank cartridges. The
young attorney went out to watch the eye of his an-
tagonist and to enjoy the joke. The parties met, dis-
charged, and the attorney fell with two rifle-bullets
through his heart. The wretch who was second for
his antagonist, had violated his stipulation, and had
loaded the rifle with two bullets. An amiable young
woman was left a widow with one orphan babe. The
wretches were both arrested, confined, broke jail and
fled, — tin: principal to the remote points of Red Riv-
er, whence he returned after "three years to Illinois,
was arrested, and I hope executed, though I am igno-
rant of the fact.

Though too many leading men in the country on
the Mississippi advocate duelling, there is evidently,
with the increasing progress of moral ideas and of
knowledge, an increasing sense of the abomination of
duelling, even in this region. Kentucky has taken an
honourable position against the barbarous practice, in
the enactment of a law, requiring an oath on the part
of an) man qualifying himself for any office of trust
or election, that he has not given or accepted a chal-
lenge lor a certain number of years. It has the desir-
ed effect to restrain duels, in a state where they used
to be common. Public opinion is every where gather-
strength against it, and the time, I trust, will soon
I"-, when, instead of its being blazoned, that a can-
didate for cilice has slain his man, it will operate as an

183

impediment to his views, and this stain upon humanity
will no longer disgrace the country.

Missouri and Illinois have imported from abroad
many men respectable for their talents and acquire-
ments. Many more have come here from abroad, ex-
pecting to eclipse every thing of brightness that was
already in the country, and who have very unexpect-
edly found themselves eclipsed. Of the itinerant
preachers, I did not hear one who approached to me-
diocrity. They may have been pious men, but, for the
most part, they defy all criticism. I heard one gen-
tleman, who was for a while esteemed a great orator
at St. Louis, twice use a figure, which I think Swift
would have selected, as a fine example of bathos.
Speaking of the love of God, as naturally raising the
soul to the object of that love, he illustrated the idea,
by saying that the stream would always rise as high
as the fountain. He added, that every lady had an
explanation of this fact before her, when she saw the
water rising as high in the nose, as in the body of the
teapot ! I heard him quote Greek to the Missourians,
and his knowledge of Greek was of a piece with the
figure of the teapot.

I heard the Rev. Dr. B. the favourite orator of Ten-
nessee, preach. I would not wish to laud him in the
same affected strain, with the encomiums of the blind
minister of Virginia. But he is certainly an extraor-
dinary man in his way. His first appearance is
against him, indicating a rough and uncouth man.
He uses many low words, and images and illustra-
tions in bad taste. But perhaps, when you are get-
ting tired, almost disgusted, every thing is reversed in
a moment. He flashes upon you. You catch his eye
and you follow him ; he bursts upon you in a glow of

184

feeling and pathos, leaving you not sufficiently cool
to criticise. We may affect to decry the talent of
moving the inmost affections. After all, I am inclined
to think it. the most important qualification, which a
minister can possess. He possesses this in an eminent
degree. He has the electric eye, the thrilling tones, the
unction, the feeling, the universal language of passion
and nature, which is equally understood and felt by all
people. He has evidently been richly endowed by na-
ture ; but his endowments owe little to discipline or
education.

There are a ft)W preachers here, plain men, of sound
instruction and good sense, who are respected for these
qualifications, but are not popular as orators. These
men are from New England, and formed on the mod-
els of that country. They have, also, some acute law-
yers at the bar. It struck me as being superior to
that of Ohio. The first lawyer, when I arrived in the
country, was E. H. Esq., a man unlettered, but of
strong sense, and it was said by competent judges, a
great special pleader. He had a kind of sharp, fierce,
and barking manner of speaking, which had such an
effect to awe the jury, and had become so popular,
that it. descended to the bar, as his mantle, after he
was dead. Often have I heard young and incom-
petent lawyers, attempting to catch the bark of E. H.

Col. i)., well known in another place, has since been
supreme at the bar. He is acute, laboured, florid,
rather sophomorical, to use our w;ord, but a man of
strong sense. There flashes " strange fire " from his
eye, and all that he does i( smells of the lamp."
There was a young gentleman, Mr. B., who gave
Stroug promise of future excellence. He was the on-
ly member of the bar, whom I heard plead, that show-

185

ed in his manner the fruit of classical taste and dis-
cipline. He was happy in his arrangement and choice
of words, and concise and condensed ; and had a
suavity in his manner. But these things were too of-
ten thrown away upon the jury in a region, where
noise and flourish are generally mistaken for sense and
reason.

1 he people here are not yet a reading people.
Few good books are brought into the country. The
few literary men that are here, seeing nothing to
excite or reward their pursuits, seeing other objects
exclusively occupy all minds, soon catch the prevail-
ing feeling. The people are too busy, too much oc-
cupied in making farms and speculations, to think of
literature.

America inherits, I believe, from England a taste
for puffing. She has improved upon her model. In
your quarter, as well as here, the people are idolaters
to the "golden calves." Some favourite man, fash-
ion, or opinion, sweep every thing before them. This
region is the paradise of puffers. One puffs up, and
ano^ier clown. As you draw near the influence of the
" lord of the ascendant," you will find opinions grad-
uated to his dicta. The last stranger that arrives from
Kentucky, or the Atlantic country, is but poorly intro-
duced to his new residence, if he have not one of these
great men to puff a breeze in the sail of his skiff, as
he puts himself afloat.

I have been amused in reading puffing advertise-
ments in the newspapers. A little subscription school,
in which half the pupils are abecedarians, is a col-
lege. One is a Lancastrian school, or a school of
" instruction mutuelle." There is the Pestalozzi es-
tablishment, with its appropriate emblazoning. There
24

186

is the agricultural school, the missionary school, the
grammar box, the new way to make a wit of a dunce
in six lessons, and all the mechanical ways of inocula-
ting children with learning, that they may not endure
the pain of getting it in the old and natural way. I
would not have you smile exclusively at the people of
the West. This ridiculous species of swindling is ma-
king as much progress in your country as here. The
misfortune is, that these vile pretensions finally induce
the people to believe, that there is a " royal road " to
learning. The old and beaten track, marked out by
the only sure guide, experience, is forsaken. The
parents are flattered, deceived, and swindled. Puffing
pretenders take the place of the modest man of science,
who scorns to compete with him in these vile arts.
The children have their brains distended with the
" east wind," and grow up at once empty and con-
ceited.

These founders of new schools, for the most part,
advertise themselves from London, Paris, Philadelphia,
New York, Boston, and have all performed exploits
in the regions whence they came, and bring the latest
improvements with them. As to what they can do,
and what they will do, the object is to lay on the col-
ouring thick and threefold. A respectable man wish-
es to establish himself in a school in those regions.
He consults a friend, who knows the meridian of the
country. The advice is, Call your school by some new
and imposing name. Let it be understood, that you
have a new way of instructing children, by which
they can learn twice as much, in half the time, as by
the old ways. Throw off all modesty. Move the
water, and get in while it is moving. In short, de-
pend upon the gullibility of the people. A school,

187

modelled on this advice, was instituted at St. Louis,
while I was there, with a very imposing; name. The
masters, — professors, I should say, — proposed to teach
most of the languages, and all the sciences. Hebrew
they would communicate in twelve lessons ; Latin
and Greek, with a proportionate promptness. These
men, who were to teach all this themselves, had read
Erasmus with a translation, and knew the Greek al-
phabet, and in their public discourses, — for they were
ministers, — sometimes dealt very abusively with the
u king's English."

Town-making introduces another species of puffing.
Art and ingenuity have been exhausted in devising
new ways of alluring purchasers, to take lots and
build in the new town. There are the fine rivers, the
healthy hills, the mineral springs, the clear running
water, the eligible mill-seats, the valuable forests, the
quarries of building-stone, the fine steam-boat navi-
gation, the vast country adjacent, the central positon,
the connecting point between the great towns, the ad-
mirable soil, and last of all the cheerful and undoubt-
ing predictions of what the town must one day be. I
have read more than an hundred advertisements of
this sort. Then the legislature must be tampered
with, in order to make the town either the metropolis,
or at least the seat of justice. In effect, we were
told that in Illinois, two influential men, who both had
Tadmors to be upreared, took a hand of cards, to as-
certain which should resign his pretensions to legisla-
tive aid in building his town, in favour of the other.

A coarse caricature of this abomination of town-
making, appeared in the St. Louis papers. The
name was u Ne plus ultra." The streets were laid
out a mile in width ; the squares were to be sections,

188

each containing six hundred and forty acres. The
mall was a vast standing forest. In the centre of this
modern Babylon, roads were to cross each other in a
meridional line at right angles, one from the south
pole to Symmes's hole in the north, and another from
Pekin to Jerusalem.

In truth, while travelling on the prairies of the Illi-
nois and Missouri, and observing such immense tracts
of rich soil, of the blackness of ink, and of exhaust-
less fertility,— remarking the beautiful simplicity of
the limits of farms, introduced by our government, in
causing the land to be all surveyed in exact squares,
and thus destroying here the barbarous prescription,
which has in the settled countries laid out the lands in
ugly farms, and bounded them by zigzag lines, — con-
templating the hedge of verdure that will bound the
squares on these smooth and fertile plains, — remarking
the beauty of the orchards and improvements, that
must ensue, — being convinced that the climate will
grow salubrious with its population and improve-
ment,— seeing the guardian genius, Liberty, hovering
over the country, — measuring the progress of the fu-
ture, only by the analogy of the past, — it will be
difficult for the imagination to assign limits to the
future growth and prosperity of the country. Per-
haps on one of these boundless plains, and contigu-
ous to some one of these noble rivers, in view of these
hoary bluffs, and where all these means of the subsist-
ence and multiplication of the species are concentered
in such ample abundance, will arise the actual "Ne
plus ultra." On looking at the astonishing change,
which tbe last ten years have introduced over the
whole face of the United States, and anticipating the
change of a century, 1 have sometimes found the fa-

189

mous wish of Franklin stealing into my mind, with
respect to the interesting country which I am de-
scribing.

LETTER XVIII.— ST. CHARLES.

I will here attempt to give you some of the inci-
dents of my ministerial life, and a very brief chroni-
cle of family events, during the five years which I
spent in this region, before we descended to the Ar-
kansas. In the first year of my residence, I arranged
my places of worship, and made acquaintances with
families disposed to aid me in my pursuits. Feeble,
infirm, and worn down as I am with the labours of
the past, and beginning to find that it is necessary
rather to live and find enjoyment in the remem-
brances of the past, than in the hopes of the future,
as it respects this life, I delight to call to remem-
brance the amiable families with which I have been
acquainted, and the happy days that I have spent in
this remote and sequestered world. I love to remem-
ber how I arrived late in the evening in view of a
group of cabins, seen by their cheerful fires, blazing
among the trees, or across the plains. My approach
was uniformly greeted by the cry of a numerous pack
of dogs, who, however, after the first meeting, would
fawn round me, and give me their welcome in advance
of their master's. The eye of a stranger would see
but little in the picture before me, but solitude and sav-
ageness, filth and hunger. A hundred recollections
crowd upon me, of such asylums affording the most
affectionate welcome, cheerful and cordial conversa-
tion, unrepressed by ceremony or pride, excellent

190

coffee (the true nectar in such a place), substantial
and good fare of all kinds, a clean bed, and refresh-
ing slumbers. And the charm of cordial and endear-
ed society has a zest in the solitudes of Missouri,
where one would scarce expect to find it, which it
has not in crowded cities, where it ought to be a
common commodity. I could name many excellent
families, where I found such society. They were con-
tent to have their abundance, to practise their vir-
tues, and to give themselves to hospitality without
seeking notoriety, and they would not wish their
names recorded. I remember among my happiest
days, those which I spent with these people.

I feel an oppression of heart, though it be from
gratitude, almost painful, as I remember our reception
by two families in the " Point," below St. Charles,
after the return of my family from the Arkansas, and
before we descended to the lower country. I may
best relate it here, and I should do injustice to my
feelings and to truth, if I did not relate it. If these
simple annals should ever reach them, they will know
to whom I refer, and they will be assured that my
grateful feelings will only end with my life. Five of
my family, — myself and Mrs. F. among them, — imme-
diately on our return from the lower country, were
taken with the fever of the country in one day. We
had not yet taken a house, and seized with this fever,
wc were utterly incapable of making any arrangements.
We were sick, and " they took us in." We were
scattered in different houses. Mrs. F. parted with
an infant babe from the breast, which in the parox-
ysm of fever no longer yielded its supplies. The
families where we were lodged, were aware that in their
houses, they could not furnish exactly the comforts

191

for the sick, to which we had been used. But in as-
siduity and sympathy, they more than made up this
deficiency. Self-respect forbids me to blazon some
of the circumstances of our suffering during that long
and dreary period. 1 was unconscious for days to-
gether. In the height of my fever, and while as yet
unable to raise myself in bed, circumstances compel-
led me to be removed on a carriage to a distance of
six miles. We had not even the poor comfort of suf-
fering together. Our fever lasted forty days. To
Mrs. F. and myself the ague supervened, after the
fever was at an end. I suffered from fever and ague
sixty days. In this deplorable situation we found the
kindest reception. Sick as we were, and probable
as the prospect was, that some of us would add the
trouble of funeral rites and duties to the labour and
cares of nursing us, they never remitted their kind-
ness for a moment ; and thanks to the great Physician,
we lived to bless them, and repay them every thing
but the due amount of gratitude. The names of
these benefactors I am not permitted to record. But
their kindness ought to be recorded, in proof that
there is kindness and sympathy with distress, and
christian feeling, in the prairies of Missouri. How
often have unhappy associations induced us to think
of people, as ignorant and barbarous, because they
lived in such a region! There are generous hearts
and there are elevated minds every where. How
often, while thinking of these families, to whom we
owe so much, have I remembered Gray's beautiful
verses ; — u Full many a gem, " &c.

Many of these families, — where I most frequently
sojourned for five years, — were to me almost the
name as the more endeared families of my native

country. Many of these remembrances are delightful
to me, and variegate the general gloom cast over that
period by sickness and suffering. These interchanges
of kindness between me and this people, whom in this
world I expect to see no more, are written, I doubt
not, in a more durabJe and high record, than the frail
tablet of human memory. Of one family, — among
the dearest to my remembrance, and one of the best
samples of a Missouri planter, in the middle walks of
life, — I may be allowed to speak with more particular-
ity. The father, the mother, the daughter, are gone.
The orphans that remain, are as yet incapable of com-
prehending the contents of this page. They resided
in Bonhomme, about twelve miles from St. Louis,
and near the deep bottom of the Missouri.

The greater part of the large settlement in which
they lived, is located on a tract of undulating country,
of a very curious surface. It is neither prairie nor
woodland, but a compound of both. It is intersected
with numerous spring-branches, around which there
are always found clumps of trees. Unlike the prairies
in general, the surface of the untimbered lands is cov-
ered with shrubbery of different kinds. I have re-
marked here a most singular and pleasing landscape
in the spring. At a period so early that the general
aspect is a brown surface of bushes and grass, you
will here and there see a beautiful flowering shrub,
that has felt the influence of the spring. The flowers
were of two classes, white and crimson. Some of the
trees, in the same manner, were just beginning to un-
fold their foliage and flowers, affording a fine contrast
with those trees that had still the hue of winter. On
these elevated plains, the regular lines of the farming
enclosures, in square forms, striped here and there

193

with the bright and tender verdure of the springing
wheat, afforded the most charming contrast with the
surrounding brown of the heathy plain. In the dis-
tance, these square enclosures of verdure, amidst this
brown, so diminished to the eye, have the appearance
of having been painted for landscapes. The effect
of social labour never struck me more forcibly than
in the plantation of Mr. Jamieson, the head of the
family in question, as I saw it for the first time, when
just emerging from the deep bottom of the Missouri,
and at the distance of three miles. The fields, though
extensive and beautiful, had been but recently won
from the heath. No verdure ever seemed more lively?
than the oblong strips of wheat and rye, which had at-
tained the height of six inches. It was before any-
other vegetation diversified the solemn brown of the
heath, except the dog-wood with its pure white, and
the red-bud with its beautiful red blossoms.

Just on the edge of these fields, six cabins were oc-
cupied by the family, its servants, and establishments,
which, seeri in the distance, had tiie appearance ol so
many bee-hives. The family was from western V ir-
ginia, or that part of the state which lies wesuof the
mountains, and was of Scotch descent. It consisted
of the husband, wife, and six children; and a group
of more beautiful children I have never seen. The
parents were hospitable; and courteous; and had seen
society enough to know its forms, but not of that sort
to render them affected or fastidious. The piety of
these amiable people was not often blazoned in their
conversation, but was sober, constant, pervading their
family management and their conversation. It seem-
ed a living principle. The stranger came in, and was
^o welcomed as to feel himself at home. The circle

2.5

194

that assembled round their evening fire, entered into
conversations, that were cordial and exhilirating.
The tare, too, was such in all respects, — although fur-
nished in a cabin, — as is not often found in more
sumptuous dwellings. In this house I have passed
many pleasant days.

Whenever the name of the eldest daughter is men-
tioned in my family, a* visible gloom comes over their
countenances. She was long a pupil in my family.
From the first of her residence with us, she was an
object of general attention, for she was beautiful, the
rose of the prairie, and she was at the most interest-
ing period of life, and she was gay, and untamed in
the possession of an uncontrolled flow of spirits, and
as buoyant as the fawn of her own prairie. The reg-
ulations of a religious family in that region, differ
widely from ours. When she first resided with us,
she was disposed to consider our rules as odious, and
our restrictions as tyranny. But in the progress of
her studies, and of more mature acquaintance, she be-
came tranquil, satisfied, and studious, exhibiting an
affectionate submission, that endeared her to us all.
She soon became to me, as one of my children. A
conversation, which I had with her, during that se-
vere sickness, which- 1 have mentioned, will long be
remembered in my family. Contrary to all our expec-
tations, I recovered, and had the satisfaction to see the
pensive thoughtfulness, that had long been gathering
on her brow, assume the form of piety and religion.
When we were about to depart from that region for
the Arkansas, her parting from my family was affect-
ionate and solemn. I crossed the Missouri with her,
and listened with delight to her views, her resolutions,
and the plans which she proposed for her future life.

195

You will believe, that they were not the less interest-
ing to me, for being seasoned with a spice of romance.
But she laid down, as the outline, the steady and un-
alterable guidance of religion. The counsels which
I gave her, as we were crossing the stream, were of
course paternal and affectionate, for I expected to meet
her no more. The ferryman was a flippant and un-
feeling Frenchman, who understood not a word of our
conversation, but marking her tears, concluded I was
scolding her. He had a saucy frankness of taking
every one to account, and when I returned, he began
to chide me for scolding such a beautiful girl. " Vous
etes ministre Protestant," said he, " c'est une religion
tres seche, tres dure. Nous autres Catholiques n'avons
pas cceurs faites com me ca ! " As he understood it,
I had been giving her stern lessons, and harsh coun-
sels, which had been the cause of her tears.

Why should I refrain from giving a few more details
of this interesting young woman, through fear that
this page should take the form of a romance. You
have repeatedly pressed upon me, to go boldly and
minutely into the history of all that I have seen, en-
joyed, or suffered. My mind and my memory sug-
gest in the case of this young person, so dear to my
family, far more than I shall relate, and instead of
wishing to colour, I shall be obliged to touch only the
remaining incidents of her short career. There resid-
ed in her father's family a very respectable young
man. He was rather silent and reserved in his man-
ners, but thinking, intelligent, and of a very different
cast from the young men in his vicinity. Still, he was
not exactly calculated to win the affections of a
beautiful young woman, in whose mind there was,
perhaps, but one obliquity, and that had been caused

196

by the perusal of the novels of the day. He was not
her hero, her " beau ideal." We knew his worth. We
knew his true and honourable affection, truly and hon-
ourably expressed. He was in a respectable employ-
ment, and looked to the very lucrative and respectable
office, which he has since held in the country of St.
Louis. Mrs. F., who knew the wishes of her parents,
laboured the point with her, that the prospect of good
sense, fidelity, tried affection, and honourable support,
were the best guarantees of happiness in the wed-
ded state. It was not easy to dispel the day-dreams,
which she had fostered from the idle reading of the
day. But with the growing influence of religion,
there grew up also more sober and just surveys of
life and its duties, and a stronger wish to gratify her
parents in the first desire of their hearts. She was
engaged to this young man, and on my return with
my family from Arkansas, I heard with great pleasure
that she was shortly to reward his honourable and
persevering attachment, with her hand. The wed-
ding day was fixed, and all was sober expectation of
tranquillity and happiness. The charming and en-
deared eldest daughter was to be fixed near the plan-
tation of her father. Another square, with its com-
partments of verdure, was to be struck out of the
brown of the heath. "I anxy no man, if it be not the
father (hat so settles beloved children around him.
This young man, in view of his prospects, probably
envied no man. She was suddenly seized with one
61 the terrible fevers of the country, which riot so fatal-
ly in a frame so elastic and healthful as hers. It
ought to cheer us, that we may lay hold of a resource,
which will enable us to triumph over human passions
?.n(\ fears, over love and death. The sincerity of her
religion was tesicd in this way.

197

She called her lover to her bed, and took of him the
tenderest parting. She sang with the family the sim-
ple, but sweet hymn, so common in that country, and
in which she delighted when in health : " The day
is past and gone," &c. She bade them farewell, and
closed her eyes in peace upon all the joyful prospects
that were opening before her. Circumstances, not
necessary to detail, compelled them to make her bri-
dal dress her shroud. The father, the mother soon
followed this daughter, too dearly loved, too deeply
lamented. I have been in view of this desolate hab-
itation, but I have not wished to enter it. I have felt
more intensely than ever, as I saw these cabins again,
the pathetic close of the story of " Paul and Virgin-
ia.5'

During the first autumn of my residence in St.
Charles, it began to be a fashionable trip for people,
who had imbibed the prevailing notions of the beauty
and advantages of this country, to visit it. We enter-
tained many respectable strangers from Virginia, the
Carolinas, and Kentucky. During the visits of these
gentlemen, my two young children were ill of bilious
fever. The autumn was delightfully mild, and loaded
with fruits and grain, even in regions where they had
scarcely had rain enough, from planting to harvest,
to prevent the husbandmen from labouring in the fields.
This country differs essentially from that of the At-
lantic, in being much less subject to rains, — in its being
in fact a very dry country. But, such is the freshness
and richness of the soil, and its capability of resisting
drought, that if once the corn and wheat can be ger-
minated so as to come up, they are sure of a crop.

Among these visiters to the country wj.s Judge
Tucker, a very respectable gentleman of high political

198

standing* from Virginia. He brought with him a num-
ber of the most respectable people from Carolina and
Kentucky ; the families of Naylor and Coneter. Their
imaginations were warmed by the striking appearance
of a country so beautiful, and so unlike the Atlantic
countries, and they seemed to feel upon the subject all
the ardour and freshness of youthful poets. Longer
and more practical acquaintance with this land of
promise has taught these amiable and opulent people,
that evils of all sorts can exist in the most beautiful
countries, and that physical advantages are but a poor
compensation for the loss of moral ones.

During the first winter and all the second and third
years of my residence here, the rage for speculating in
their lands was at the highest. No Jews were ever
more greedy to accumulate money. I have often been
at collections, where lands were at sale for taxes and
by orders of court, and at other times, where there
were voluntary sales at auction. The zeal to purchase
amounted to a fever. There were no arts, to which
resort was not had to cry up and cry down. Land
speculators constituted a particular party. It re-
quired prodigious efforts to become adroit. The spec-
ulators had a peculiar kind of slang dialect, appropriate
to their profession, and when they walked about it was
with an air of solemn thoughtfulness upon their coun-
tenances as though they were the people, and wisdom
would die with them. The surveyors of course were
very important instruments in this business, and a great
and fortunate land-speculator and land-holder was
looked up to with as much veneration by the people, as
any partner in the house of Hope in London, or Gray
in America. I question, if the people of Missouri
generally thought there existed higher objects of envy,

199

lhan Choteau and a few other great land-holders of that
class. A very large tract of land was cried by the
sheriff for sale, when I was present, and the only limits
and bounds given were, that it was thirty miles north of
St. Louis. A general laugh ran through the crowd as-
sembled at the court-house door. But a purchaser
soon appeared, who bid off the tract thirty miles
north of St. Louis, undoubtedly with a view to sell it
to some more greedy speculator than himself.

There were people who offered immense tracts of
land, the titles to which were contingent, and only in
prospect. Often the same tract was offered for sale by
two and even three claimants. The whole county of
St. Charles, containing a number of thousands of in-
habitants, was offered for sale, by what was called the
Glamorgan claim, and thirteen hundred dollars were
paid on the spot for the claim. But it is not my in-
tention to dip into the gulph of land-claims, settle-
ment-rights, preemption-rights, Spanish grants, con-
firmed claims, unconfirmed claims, and New Madrid
claims. The discussion, the investigation of these
claims, the comparative value of them, the vaunting of
the mill-streams on the one, the range and the proba-
ble advantages of another, the prospect of confirma-
tion of the unconfirmed titles, the expectations of one
from the eloquence of the members of congress who
would espouse the interest of his claim, of another from
his determined and declared purpose to carry his
claims by bribery, — conversation upon these points
made up the burden of the song in all social meetings.
They were like the weather in other countries, stand-
ing and perpetual topics of conversation. Nor let the
inhabitant of the Atlantic cities suppose that these
were without an intense interest. Families were con-

200

stantly arriving, many of them polite and well-inform-
ed, and they were going on to these tracts, which,
portrayed by the interested surveyors and specula-
tors, and as yet partially explored and possessing
much of the interest of unknown regions, were to be
their home.

The first months of the life of a family, that seats it-
self in these remote solitudes, have a charm of romance
thrown over them, which, alas! more intimate acquain-
tance is but too sure to dispel. Never have I seen
countenances suffused with more interest or eagerness,
than in circles of this description, where the compara-
tive beauty and advantages of different sections of the
country, or the best sites for location, were the themes
of conversation. No doubt many of these speculations
were dishonest. No subject is more susceptible of all
the arts of cheating, because in no point is it so im-
possible to disprove advantages, which vary with the
imagination of him that contemplates them. The spec-
ulators often exercised dishonest arts, before the great
change in the aspect of the times, which was more or
less felt every where, but felt with a more severe
pressure here than in any other place, and they grew
rich with unexampled rapidity. But they had not
rightly discerned the signs of the times. For land
speculation was at its greediest activity about the
time that they took a sudden, I might call it figura-
tively, a perpendicular fall. For they fell from an es-
timation above their real value, through all the stages
of depreciation, to an estimation probably far below
their proper value. Hundreds of speculators, who had
embarked all their means, and a still greater degree
of credit in these speculations, and who might have
sold these lands in the fortunate moment and been

201

independent, retained them, through greediness, until

they sank at once in value upon their hands, and many

were ruined ; and, as always happens in such cases,

these men of the principal show of wealth, of credit to

any extent, and in whose stability much of the means

of the country was involved, could not fail to drag

down multitudes with them in their fall.

Between the second and third years of mv residence

x. .
in the country, the immigration from the western and

southern states to this country poured in a flood, the
power and strength of which could only be adequately
conceived by persons on the spot. We have number-
ed a hundred persons passing through the village of
St. Charles in one day. The number was said to
have equalled that for many days together. From
the Mamelles I have looked over the subjacent plain
quite to the ferry, where the immigrants crossed the
upper Mississippi. I have seen in this extent nine
wagons harnessed with from four to six horses. We
may allow a hundred cattle, besides hogs, horses,
and sheep, to each wagon ; and from three or four to
twenty slaves. The whole appearance of the train,
the cattle with their hundred bells ; the negroes with
delight in their countenances, for their labours are
suspended and their imaginations excited ; the wag-
ons, often carrying two or three tons, so loaded that
the mistress and children are strolling carelessly
along, in a gait which enables them to keep up with
the slow travelling carriage; — the whole group oc-
cupies three quarters of a mile. The slaves generally
seem fond of their masters, and quite as much delight-
ed and interested in the immigration, as the master.
It is to me a very pleasing and patriarchal scene. It
carries me back to the days of other years, and to the

202

pastoral pursuits of those ancient races, whose home
was in a tent, wherever their flocks found range.

I question if the rich inhabitants of England, taking
their summer excursion to Bath, are happier in their
journey, than these people. Just about nightfall, they
come to a spring or a branch, where there is water
and wood. The pack of dogs sets up a cheerful
barking. The cattle lie down and ruminate. The
team is unharnessed. The huge waggons are cover-
ed, so that the roof completely excludes the rain.
The cooking utensils are brought out. The blacks
prepare a supper, which the toils of the day render
delicious ; and they talk over the adventures of the
past day, and the prospects of the next. Meantime,
they are going where there is nothing but buffaloes
and deer to limit their range, even to the western sea.
Their imaginations are highly excited. Said some
of them to me, as they passed over the Mamelle
prairie, the richest spot that I have ever seen ; " If
this is so rich, what must Boon's Lick be?"

From some cause, it happens that in the western
and southern states, a tract of country gets a name, as
being more desirable than any other. The imagina-
tions of the multitudes that converse upon the subject,
get kindled, and the plains of Mamre in old time, or
the hills of the land of promise, were not more fertile
in milk and honey, than are the fashionable points of
immigration. During the first, second, and third years
of my residence here, the whole current of immigra-
tion set towards this country, Boon's Lick, so called,
from Boon's having discovered and worked the salines
in that tract. Boon's Lick was the common centre of
hopes, and the common point of union for the peo-
ple. Ask one of them whither he was moving, and

203

the answer was, (l To Boon's Lick, to be sure." I
conversed with great numbers of these people, af-
fording just samples of the great class of frontier or
backwoods people, who begin upon the retirement
of the Indians, and in their turn yield to a more indus-
trious and permanent race who succeed them, and
they in turn push on still farther, with their face ever
toward the western sea. And thus wave propels
wave. Thus the frontier still broadens, and there are
many white settlers fixed in their homes eight hundred
miles above St. Charles. The surveyor who ran the
base line from the mouth of the Osage to the Arkan-
sas, found a white family in the vast intermediate de-
sen between the settlements of the one river and the
other, a hundred miles from any settled habitation, even
of the Indians. They reported that they saw no
people oftener than once in a year. And the range is
almost beyond the stretch of imagination. For the
gentlemen of Long's Expedition tell us, that in the po-
litical limits of the United States, they found tribes of
Indians, whose ears the name of the government that
claims their country, had never reached. Nothing
cau or will limit the immigration westward, but the
Western Ocean. Alas ! for the moving generation of
the day, when the tide of advancing backwoodsmen
shall have met the surge of the Pacific. They may
then set them down and weep for other worlds.

After a while the Boon's Lick current began to dis-
part, and a branch of it to sweep off towards Salt Riv-
er. In a little while Salt River, — a river of the upper
Mississippi, — became the pole-star of attraction. After
my return from Arkansas, as we were journeying
through the state of Illinois, in the year 1819, the cur-
rent set in another direction. The Kentuckians and

204

Tennesseans were moving their droves of cattle to a
point on the Illinois. I could not exactly make out
for two or three days, the name of their destined coun-
try. They pronounced it as though it were Moovis-
tar, or as my children phrased it, Moving-star. On
being better informed, we were told that the country
was denominated from some poor sand-banks near the
river, " Mauvaise Terre," or " Poor Land." I have
heard at least a dozen points come into fashion, and go
out again, as places of immigration. There was for a
long time a strong sensation in favour of the plains on
the Pacific, at the mouth of the Columbia. There
was some effort made at Washington for the establish-
ment of a military post there, and had it been effected,
hundreds of these people would have packed up all,
and would have whistled over the vast and snowy
Chepywan ridge to lay their bones on the shores of
the Pacific. At the moment I am writing, over the
western and southern countrv, the current of the move-
able part of the community is towards Texas, and un-
fortunately out of the limits of the country.

I have spoken of the moveable part of the commu-
nity, and unfortunately for the western country, it con-
stitutes too great a proportion of the whole communi-
ty. The general inclination here, is too much like
that of the Tartars. Next to hunting, Indian wars,
and the wonderful exuberance of Kentucky, the fa-
vourite topic is new countries. They talk of them.
They are attached to the associations connected with
such conversations. They have a fatal effect upon
their exertions. They have no motive, in consonance
with these feelings, to build with old Cato, " for pos-
terity and the immortal gods." They only make
such improvenents as they can leave without reluct-

205

ance and without loss. I have every where noted the
operation of this impediment in the way of those per-
manent and noble improvements which grow out of a
love for that appropriated spot where we were born,
and where we expect to die. There are noble and
most tender prejudices of this kind, which in the best
minds are the strongest, and which make every thing
dear in that cradle of our affections. There is a fund
of virtuous habits, arising out of these permanent es-
tablishments, which give to our patriotism "a local
habitation and a name." But neither do I at all believe
the eloquent but perverse representation that Talleyrand
has given of these same moving people, who have no
affection for one spot more than another, and whose
home is in the wild woods, or the boundless prairies, or
wherever their dogs, their cattle, and their servants,
are about them. They lose, no doubt, some of the
noble prejudices which are transmitted with durable
mansions through successive generations. But they
in their turn, have virtues, that are called into exer-
cise by the peculiarities of their case and character,
which are equally unknown. But whatever may be
the effect of the stationary or the moving life upon the
parties respectively, there can be no doubt about the
result of this spirit upon the face of the country.
Durable houses of brick or of stone, which are pecul-
iarly called for, on account of the scarcity of timber. —
fences of hedge and ditch, — barns and granaries of the
more durable kind, — the establishment of the coarser
manufactories, so necessary in a country like this, —
the planting of artificial forests, which on the wide
prairies would be so beautiful and useful, — all that
accumulation of labour, industry, taste, and wealth,
that unite to beautify a family residence, to be trans-

206

mittcd as a proud and useful memento of the family, —
these improvements, which seem to be so naturally
called for on these fertile plains, will not become gen-
eral for many years. Scarcely has a family fixed it-
self, and enclosed a plantation with the universal
fence. — split rails, laid in the worm-trail, or what is
known in the north by the name of Virginia fence, —
reared a suitable number of log buildings, in short,
achieved the first rough improvements, that appertain
to the most absolute necessity, than the assembled
family about the winter fire begin to talk about the
prevailing theme, — some country that has become the
rage, as a point of immigration. They offer their
farm for sale, and move away.

Some go a step farther than this, and plant an or-
chard ; and no where do the trees grow so thriftily or
rapidly. In the space of two or three years from the
time of planting, they become loaded with fruit. But
even this delightful appendage to a permanent estab-
lishment, an orchard, which, with its trees, so thrifty,
and of the colour of young wiilows, looks, on these
plains, so regular and beautiful, — even this does not*"
constitute a sufficiently permanent motive of resi-
dence. It is true there are places in Ohio, Kentucky,
and Tennessee, that are substantial and beautiful, and
on the noble models of the German establishments in
the centre of Pennsylvania ; and they show to such
singular advantage, that they only make us regret that
they are not more common. In the generations to
come, when the tide of immigration shall have reach-
ed the western sea, and the recoil shall begin to fix
tin; people of these open plains in Illinois and Missou-
ri, on i heir prairies, then they will plant these naked,
but level and rich tracts; then they will rear substan-

207

tial mansions of brick or stone; then they will dis-
cover the strata of coal; then they will draw the
hedge and ditch for leagues together in a right line,
and beautiful plantations will arise, where now there
are nothing but naked wastes of prairie, far from wood

and water.

The two states of Missouri and Illinois, had long

had French establishments in them. Kaskaskia, in
Illinois, is said to date its commencement farther back
than Philadelphia. The early history of these states,
their being considerable establishments many years
ago, and their having on an emergency sent vast quan-
tities of flour to New Orleans, are facts well known.
Some of the establishments on the west bank of the
Mississippi, as at St. Genevieve and St. Louis, are
ancient, in comparison with the rest of the country.
But under the French and Spanish regime, they had
existed as straggling French boating, hunting, and fur
establishments, — in maimers, in pursuits, and character,
as different from American establishments as can be
imagined. They were in a maimer neglected by the
Spanish and French governments. Nothing could sit
easier on the shoulders of an indolent race of hunters,
who led a half savage life in the woods, than did this
regime. There was little to tempt the avarice, or
stimulate the ambition or jealousy of the commandants.
Every married man with a family went to the com-
mandant of the district, and for a very trifling douceur
obtained a seUlement-nghf, amounting to an American
section ; and these, although the owners at the time,
probably, had no anticipations of their ultimate value
under another order of things, were of course selected
in the best po.>.mj!e positions. Favourites of the com-
mandant obtained one, two, or three leagues square,

208

called Spanish concessions. The commandant, a
priest, a file of soldiers, and a calaboza made up the
engine of government. The priest was generally a
Nimrod of a hunter, a card-player, and, as far as the
means could be obtained, a wine-bibber. The com-
mandant, an ignorant and despotic man, whose legis-
lation and execution all centered in his cane. Afraid
of the Indians, and still more afraid of the Anglo-
Americans, who were in those days a furious set of
outlaws, and who were deemed by the Spanish to be
a compound of Atheist, drunkard, and boxer ; they
were glad to let the wheels of government go on as
smoothly as possible. When the commandant was
raised in his temper, the object of his resentment was
immediately brought before him, tried on the spot,
and if found guilty, was sent straight to the calaboza.
But to blunt the aeuteness of his feelings, and render
the reflections of his first hours as little bitter as pos-
sible, a suitable provision of whiskey was sent to the
unhappy culprit, who would become very drunk ;
and after the long sleep that followed, was over, and
he became clamorous for more whiskey, the command-
ant generally stipulated that the prisoner upon libera-
tion should be gone, and then he was liberated. They
were all summoned as a kind of militia, not to fight or
prepare for it, but to report themselves, and to appear
before the commandant once a year. And this, to-
gether with the restriction of having no public Protest-
ant preaching, was the whole burden. When we add,
that the maintaining these military posts was very ex-
pensive, and that the commandants spent all the money
in their respective districts, we shall easily see whence
it happens that the old settlers look back to the French
and Spanish times, as the golden age. It is curious

209

to observe with how much ardour they recur to tiie
recollections of those happy days. And these recol-
lections are the cause, that those people and their de-
scendants have still a strong predilection for the French
and Spanish governments, and one great reason of
their wish to emigrate to Texas.

But, however happy these hunters, left unmolested
in the wilderness, may have been, the country made
no advances towards actual civilization and improve-
ment under them. Like the English mariners on the
sea, their home was in boats and canoes, along these
interminable rivers, or in the forests hunting with the
Indians. The laborious and municipal life, and the
agricultural and permanent industry of the Americans,
their complex system of roads, bridges, trainings, mil-
itia, trials by jury, and above all, their taxes, were as
hostile to the feelings of the greater portion of the in-
habitants, when we purchased Louisiana, as the fixed
home and labour of a Russian are said to be to a
Tartar.

But as soon as this country came under our govern-
ment, and the influence of the guardian spirit of lib-
erty began to be felt, it is astonishing how quickly all
these things began to change. The proudest eulogy,
that was ever uttered upon the genius of our govern-
ment, was this sudden transformation. Immediately
upon the country's passing into the hands of the Amer-
ican government, the lands began to rise in value.
The country began to have an estimation in the minds
of the inhabitants. And the French, much as they
were dissatisfied with the municipal regulations of the
Americans, were not the less eager to gain all possible
advantage from the increased value of lands and pos-
sessions. The "' Louve des eaux." in the yuar 1811,
21

210

was fatal on account of the universal sickness, which
carried off great numbers of the Americans, who had
not yet obtained comfortable cabins, clothing, or food.
For as yet, there were no mills, but a few indifferent
ones worked by horses, in the French villages. Corn
bread, made of maize pounded in a mortar, was their
whole bread. Notwithstanding this discouragement,
and the consequent relinquishment of the country by
many who had settled there, and the multitudes dis-
couraged by their reports, from coming to the country,
it began to receive a regular increase of American
population, people whose object it was to make farms,
and live by agriculture. The American courts were
in operation, and their decisions had given confidence
to the settlers, and security to lands and possessions.
Lead had become a valuable and abundant article of
exportation. But when I first saw the country, the
marks of improvement were scarcely at all visible up-
on the face of it. The people, with few ex-
ceptions, still lived in mud-daubed cabins. The
French villages had that peculiar aspect, which belongs
to them, looking, from their singular forms and plas-
tered walls, as beautiful at a distance, as they were
mean and comfortless, when contemplated near at
hand. St. Genevieve, with a population of fifteen
hundred people, had only half a dozen comfortable
American houses in the town. Carondelet, Florissant,
Portage des Sioux, St. Charles, in short all the vil-
lages were entirely French. St. Louis had perhaps
six or eight American brick houses, and St. Charles
but one. The rest were either houses made with
upright timbers, and the interstices daubed with mud,
or stone houses laid up rough -cast, and coated smooth
with mortar. When I left the country there was a

211

number of considerable villages containing good hous-
es, that had arisen, de novo, and the old French towns
became chequered with handsome brick buildings.
Lines of buildings containing spacious and handsome
city houses, arose in St. Louis, — houses, that would not
have disgraced Philadelphia. St. Charles reared
a long and handsome street of spacious and neat brick
houses. Handsome houses arose in different points
of the country, surrounded by gardens and orchards,
which indicated attention to beauty, as well as use-
fulness. Steam-mills arose in St. Louis, and ox-mills
on the principle of the inclined plain, or tread-
mill. Saw-mills were erected among the pine for-
ests on the Gasconade, far up the Missouri. The
means and materials for building became abundant,
and boards sunk from five dollars the hundred feet,
to one and a half. You might in different parts
of the state enter handsome houses, and taverns built in
the Atlantic style ; and I have seen two of the latter,
which were not content with the title of M hotel," impos-
ing as it is, but which carried on their signs the still
more fashionable term " caravanserai." The militia
made progress in organization. Schools and academies,
with imposing proffers at least, arose. The population
had increased to about seventy thousand. The progress
of Illinois, with which I was not so much acquainted,
was nearly similar, although it laboured under the in-
convenience of excluding the larger slave holders, from
its laws interdicting slavery. This disadvantage was
not as yet compensated, by its opening a more invit-
ing asylum to emigration from the North ; for the full
tide of that emigration set towards Ohio. What was
not arrested there, chiefly settled in Indiana. Only a
small portion of it reached Illinois. But from the im-

212

tnense bodies of its rich laud, it possessing in my judg-
ment a greater quantity, than any other portion of the
Union, and from its unrivalled position in respect to in-
land navigation, it must eventually leave the opposite
state behind, in the progress of its advancement.

A sudden and very unfortunate impediment to this
growing improvement began to be visible in the lat-
ter part of 1816, and went on increasing in its force,
until I left the country. This was in the sudden re-
duction of prices in the Atlantic country, the pressure
of the times, and the sudden failure of the numerous
banks of the western country, of which, it appeared,
that but a few had ever been conducted upon banking
principles. As long as the lands remained high, and
the emigrants continued to pour in, bringing with
them the money, with which they bought their lands, —
as lonof as the abundant and unnatural circulation of
money, both good and spurious, continued to pass un-
questioned, these bills answered all the purposes of
money. But the moment this pressure began to ope-
rate, in preventing the people who were disposed to
remove to the country, from selling their lands, the
tide was arrested. The merchants, who had sold as
liberally, as the unnatural abundance of money had
enabled the people to purchase, called for payment.
The spurious bills all failed in the hands of the hold-
ers. The merchants remitted every specie dollar,
that came to their hands. At once all circulating me-
dium disappeared. There were scarcely means for
the wealthiest planter to purchase articles of the most
pure necessity. Lands at first sunk in value, and then
would scarcely sell at all. All confidence was de-
stroyed by the many evasions of payment, that occur-
red through the influence of what were called relief

213

laws. In Missouri and Illinois they established a
banking system, which was called a loan office. The
money was redeemable in equal annual instalments
of ten per cent, in ten years. This money, not build-
ing its credit on specie in the vaults of its bank, but
on the faith of the state, pledged for its redemption,
was declared by some of the courts to be illegal, and
not a tender, as it had been made by the legislature
that created it. Other courts gave an opposite decis-
ion. It depreciated successively to seventy- five, fifty,
thirty-seven, and twenty-five per cent, of its nom-
inal value. And this remedy, like quack reme-
dies in general, aggravated the paroxysm of the
disease.

There was probably no part of the United States
more severely pressed than these two states. Im-
provement not only came to a dead pause, but even
seemed to retrograde. A great many people had been
sick on removing to a new climate. Unable to
get money to pay their taxes, to purchase clothing
for themselves and slaves, and those luxuries, which
by long custom have become necessaries ; they pack-
ed up their moveables, collected their cattle, and
returned to the countries whence they came. I
witnessed the meeting of two families on the St.
Charles road, the one going to Boon's Lick, and
the other coming from it. They had formerly been
neighbours in Kentucky. The person retreating from
Missouri first questions the other, why he was
leaving M old Kentuck." The reply was, " The range
is all eaten out, and I am going to Boon's Lick."
" Why," he asked in his turn, " are you coming
away ?r " Oh ! the people die there," — I use his ve-
ry phrase, — " like rotten sheep. They have filled one

^lave-yard already, and have begun upon another*
Turn about, and go back ; after all there is nothing
like old Kentuck." " I am determined, however, "
said the immigrant, "to go on." u Well, go on, but I
can tell you, you will shake," — meaning that he would
have the ague.

I was here when the state of Missouri passeo from
its territorial character to that of a state. The slave
question was discussed with a great deal of asper-
ity, and no person from the northern states, unless his
sentiments were unequivocally expressed, had any
hope of being elected to the convention, that formed
the constitution. The constitution was well enough,
except in its stupid interdiction of ministers from being
eligible to any office in the state, and in some other
trifling enactions equally barbarous.

In the scramble for offices that ensued, all the ele-
ments of vanity, ambition, and aspiring consequence
burst out. The people in the western country, from
some cause, are far more eager for distinction and for
office, than at the eastward. Electioneering is carried
on with more unblushing effrontery. In calling from
the common level of society, people unknown to one an-
other and to the state, the new officers that were to be
created, a chance was offered for distinction, which
might never occur again. Many, who would never
have aspired to an office in the region from which they
camp, here found themselves thrown into positions,
where this new hope of distinction was awakened.
The campaign was hard fought. Much ink was shed.
Many political essays came from the presses, which
will never go down to posterity. But on the whole,
that redeeming principle which seems to be mixed with
the administration of government on American prin-

215

ciples, brought about the issue witli a quietness, which
considering the bitterness of the competition, the na-
ture of the case, and the elements of strife and dis-
cord which were so abundantly mixed in this chaotic
political mass, was incredible. Alexander McNair was
elected first governor in opposition to Mr. Ctark, who
had been territorial governor. He was an amiable Hi-
bernian, an ancient inhabitant of St. Louis, who had
endeared himself to the people by his cordial and win-
ning manners. The judges selected were respectable,
and the whole setting up of the new government was
fortunate, and of good omen for the future peace of
the state. The legislature convened at St. Charles.
I was present at their meetings two winters. Some
of them were neither Solons nor Solomons. Indeed,
in the western country and elsewhere in America,
they do not believe the maxim, " ex quolibet," &c. ; al-
most any timber can be worked into the political ship.
Some boys invented a very tolerable pasquinade. It
was labelled on the plastering around the speaker's
chair. "Missouri, forgive them. They know not
what they do."

LETTER XIX.

It is time for me to return to the narrative of mat-
ters more personally interesting to myself. I had du-
ties belonging to my profession in the lower country.
I had received an invitation to immigrate to the state
of Mississippi. Matters were in such a train at St.
Charles, that the situation of a minister was rather
pleasant, in some respects. There was an agreeable
society, a good choir of singers, and a people, between

216

whom and myself there existed a mutual attachment.
St. Charles, too, had many delightful and sheltered
walks, which I had traversed, according to my custom,
a thousand times. I had never seen a place, which
seemed to me so much like home. I had often thought
to finish my course there, — had found the place where
I had hoped that my ashes would rest. 1 know not
how it is, but there are places, where there seems to
exist a secret sympathy between the place and the
person. There are others, which from the first we
regard with dislike. St. Charles, with its high bench
above the town, its beautiful wooded islands, its rich
opposite bottom, its extended prairie, had a charm
for me. When, in fulfilling what seemed to be the
designation of providence with respect to me, I was
preparing for my departure, some arrangements were
made to effect a final settlement for me, and a sub-
scription was filled to a considerable amount, which,
had it been attempted before I had made my arrange-
ments for departure, I should have accepted. But our
purpose was fixed, to try some more southern climate.
I had some bi'des and tracts for Arkansas, and it was
proposed, that we should stop at the "Post," on our
way to Natchez.

We had determined to go in the autumn of
1818> but the very severe disease, with which I had
been visited, prevented. I was ready to depart the
spring following. It will be seen in the progress of
these pages, that we went down the Mississippi to the
territory of Arkansas, staid there one summer, and ex-
perienced distressing sickness in every member of my
family, except myself ; that my family became ex-
tremely disheartened ; that we returned in the autumn
up the Mississippi, to the south part of Missouri,

217

spending one year in the counties of New Madrid and
Cape Girardeau, that we then returned to St. Charles,
and in the autumn were all seized, except my eldest
son, with the bilious fever. My wife and myself just
escaped with our lives. We both had fever and ague
long after the regular fever had left us. I had seven-
ty fits of the ague, labouring under this dreadful com-
plaint the greater part of the year. We received
earnest and pressing invitations from our friends, ac-
companied by unquestionable marks of kind recollec-
tions of us; and made preparations to go down the
Mississippi to New Orleans, thinking to embark
thence for New England. After a sacramental meet-
ing at St, Charles accompanied by the prayers and
tears of many friends, not without corresponding tears
of our own, we left St. Charles, and, in two days
afterwards, our quiet retreat on the delightful prairie
below town. We embarked once more in our own
boat. I at least, before I bid a final adieu to that
fertile and charming plain, cast many a " longing,
lingering look behind." These, our advancing and
retrograde movements, would have perplexed the or-
der of my remarks, had I journalized down, and back-
ward again. I propose therefore to throw together
the result of my observations in the southern parts of
this state, though they were made on my return from
the Arkansas, and to reserve my remarks on that
part of the country, as a portion of my observations
of the southern part of the Mississippi valley. 1 will
only remark, that in my trip from St. Charles to Ar-
kansas, we went in a very large keel-boat, with an
ignorant patron. The whole way was one scene
of disasters. We ran aground near Bclle-fon-
taine, and were extricated by the help of a file of
28

218

soldiers from the garrison. We were carried among
the sawyers at the mouth of the Missouri, and nar-
rowly escaped wreck. We were like to be sunk
in the harbour at St. Louis by a leak in the bot-
tom of our boat, which commenced in a dark and
stormy night.

Opposite Flour Island we encountered the severest
storm of thunder, hail, and wind, that I had ever yet
experienced. Wherever the full force of the thunder-
gust passed the river, it twisted the cotton trees in all
directions, as though they had been rushes. No
person, who is unacquainted with the Mississippi, can
have an adequate idea of the roughness and the agi-
tation occasioned by a tempest, especially when the
wind blows in a direction opposite to the current.
Storms on it are at least as dangerous as they are on
the sea. The waves came in on the running-boards,
as they are called, of the boat, at times two feet deep.
We were heavily laden, our boat an hundred feet
keel, old and frail ; the water gained upon us, not-
withstanding all our efforts to bail and pump ; and such
was the violence of the wind and current, that it was
all in vain to attempt to give the boat headway in
any other direction, than to let her float before the
wind, making no exertion, only to keep her bow across
the waves. Two very large boats, that came in com-
pany with us from the mouth of the Ohio, that had
been lashed together before the storm, unlashed as
the storm commenced. The one went on a sawyer,
and was dashed in pieces. She had been loaded with
four or five hundred barrels of flour, porter, and
whiskey, and the barrels were floating by us in all
directions. The hands left the other, that was loaded
in the same way„ and she floated by us, sunk to the

219

roof. We made every effort to run her on shore in
vain. Nor did we ever ascertain what became of the
hands of either boat. They probably all perished.
For the water was over the banks from ten to twenty
feet, and the width of this overflow was probably forty
miles.

We were afterwards driven by wind and by mis-
management into an eddy opposite the middle Chick-
asaw bluff, in which our boat of an hundred feet in
length, was whirled about so rapidly, as to create
dizziness in the passengers, and in which the centre
sunk like a basin, and of course bent the boat, so as
that it would have broken, had we not availed our-
selves of a fortunate filling of this basin, to get a cable
to the trees on shore, by which, with great difficulty,
we extricated ourselves. A barge, but a little while
before, had been broken in two, in this same eddy.
This closed the series of our unpleasant accidents,
before we reached the fort of Arkansas, the voyage
to which, and back again to New Madrid, will be
noted in another place.

LETTER XX.— JACKSON.

The county of New Madrid is the southern limit of
the state of Missouri, which here bounds upon the
territory of Arkansas. I expected to have found this
little vilhige a most abandoned and disagreeable place,
and it was my object to have made my way with my
family by land to St. Charles. But we were still fee-
ble from sickness. We arrived about the middle of
December, 1819. The winter was commencing with
severity, and the Mississippi was so low, that the boat

220

which brought my family from Arkansas,— although
it drew only thirty inches cf water, — was continually
striking on the shoal sand-bars. And to add to the
difficulty, the ice was beginning to run in the Missis-
sippi, so as to preclude any possibility of going up
safely. We concluded to spend the winter at New
Madrid, and we were delighted to find a few amiable
and well-informed families, with whom we passed a
few months very pleasantly, in the interchange of kind
and affectionate offices. A congregation attended di-
vine service on the Sabbath with perseverance and at-
tention. A venerable lady of the name of Gray, who
was as well-informed as she was devout, a part of
whose house my family occupied, assisted me in my
labours, and formed herself a Sabbath school, which
she has continued some years with uninterrupted suc-
cess. The winter passed pleasantly. The region is
interesting in many points of view. It is a fine tract
of country, principally alluvial, very rich and pleasant,
and chiefly timbered land. In this respect, the coun-
try south of the Missouri, and west of the Mississippi,
differs essentially from the country north of the Mis-
souri. From the Mississippi, for two hundred miles
west it is almost entirely woodland. A few small al-
luvial prairies make the only exceptions. There is
much land covered with shrubs and very poor, which
differs much from prairie land. And then, beyond
that, there are vast tracts of country covered with flint-
knobs. With the exception of what is called the Great
Prairie, near New Madrid, the country, for many miles
on all sides, is covered with heavy timber of all the de-
scriptions common to that country ; and in addition
there is the yellow poplar, — tulipifera liriodendron, —
one of of the grandest and loftiest trees of the forest.

221

You first begin to discern in new species of trees, —
in new classes of licuies, or creeping vines in the bot-
toms, and in a few classes of most beautiful shrubs,
approaches to a new and more southern climate. This
region also is interesting from the singularly romantic
project of colonizing a great town and country under
the Spanish regime. In listening to the details of this
singular attempt, under a certain General Morgan, of
New Jersey, I have heard particulars alternately ludi-
crous and terrible, exciting laughter and shuddering,
which if they were narrated without any colouring,
would emulate the stories of romance. A hundred
and a hundred scenes have been exhibited in these re-
gions, which are now incapable of being rescued from
oblivion, which possessed, to me at least, a harrowing
degree of interest, in the disappointments and sufferings
of these original adventurers, enticed away by colour-
ed descriptions, which represented these countries as
terrestrial paradises. Many of the families were re-
spectable, and had been reared in all the tenderness of
opulence and plenty. There were highly cultivated
and distinguished French families, — and here, among
the bears and Indians, and in a sickly climate, and in
a boundless forest, surrounded by a swamp, dotted
with a hundred dead lakes, and of four hundred miles
extent, they found the difference between an Arcadian
residence in the descriptions of romance, and actual
existence in the wild woods. There were a few aged
chroniclers of these days still surviving, when I was
there, particularly two French families, from whom I
obtained many of these details. The settlement had
almost expired, had been resuscitated, and had again
exhibited symptoms of languishment, a number of
times.

.) eye.

But up to the melancholy period of the earthquakes,
it had advanced with the slow but certain progress of
every thing that feels the influence of American laws
and habits. By these terrible phenomena, the settle-
ment again received a shock which portended at first
entire desertion, but from which, as the earthquakes
have lessened in frequency and violence, it is again
slowly recovering. From all the accounts, corrected
one by another, and compared with the very imperfect
narratives which were published, I infer that the shock
of these earthquakes in the immediate vicinity of the
centre of their force, must have equalled in their ter-
rible heavings of the earth, any thing of the kind that
has been recorded. I do not believe that the public
have ever yet had any adequate idea of the violence of
the concussions. We are accustomed to measure this
by the buildings overturned, and the mortality that re-
sults. Here the country was thinly settled. The
houses, fortunately, were frail and of logs, the most
difficult to overturn that could be constructed. Yet,
as it was, whole tracts were plunged into the bed of
the river. The grave-yard at New Madrid, with all
its sleeping tenants, was precipitated into the bend of
the stream. Most of the houses were thrown down.
Large lakes of twenty miles in extent were made in
an hour. Other lakes were drained. The whole
country, to the mouth of the Ohio in one direction,
and to the St. Francis in the other, including a front
of three hundred miles, was convulsed to such a de-
gree as to create lakes and islands, the number of
which is not yet known, — to cover a tract of many
miles in extent, near the Little Prairie, with water
three or four feet deep ; and when the water disap-
peared, a stratum of sand of the same thickness was

223

left in its place. The trees split in the midst, lashed
one with another, and are still visible over great
tracts of country, inclining in every direction and in
every angle to the earth and the horizon. They de-
scribed the undulation of the earth as resembling waves,
increasing in elevation as they advanced, and when
they had attained a -certain fearful height, the earth
would burst, and vast volumes of water, and sand,
and pit-coal were discharged, as high as the tops of the
trees. I have seen a hundred of these chasms, which
remained fearfully deep, although in a very tender al-
luvial soil, and after a lapse of seven years. Whole
districts were covered with white sand, so as to be-
come uninhabitable. The water at first covered the
whole country, particularly at the Little Prairie ; and
it must have been, indeed, a scene of horror, in these
deep forests and in the gloom of the darkest night, and
by wading in the water to the middle, to fly from these
concussions, which were occurring every few hours,
with a noise equally terrible to the beasts and birds, as
to men. The birds themselves lost all power and dis-
position to fly, and retreated to the bosoms of men,
their fellow sufferers in this general convulsion. A
few persons sunk in these chasms, and were providen-
tially extricated. One person died of affright. One
perished miserably on an island, which retained its
original level in the midst of a wide lake created by
the earthquake. The hat and clothes of this man
were found. A number perished, who sunk with their
boats in the river. A bursting of the earth just below
the village of New Madrid, arrested this mighty
stream in its course, and caused a reflux of its waves,
by which in a little time a great number of boats were
swept by the ascending current into the mouth of the

224,

Bayou, carried out and left upon the dry earth, when
the accumulating waters of the river had again cleared
their current. t

There was a great number of severe shocks, but
two series of concussions were particularly terrible ;
far more so than the rest. And they remark that the
shocks were clearly distinguishable into two classes ;
those in which the motion was horizontal, and those in
which it was perpendicular. The latter were attended
with the explosions, and the terrible mixture of noises,
that preceded and accompanied the earthquakes, in a
louder degree, but were by no means so desolating and
destructive as the other. When they were felt, the
houses crumbled, the trees waved together, the ground
sunk, and all the destructive phenomena were more
conspicuous. In the interval of the earthquakes there
was one evening, and that a brilliant and cloudless
one, in which the western sky was a continued glare
of vivid flashes of lightning, and of repeated peals of
subterranean thunder, seeming to proceed, as the flash-
es did, from below the horizon. They remark that
the night, so conspicuous for subterranean thunder,
was the same period in which the fatal earthquakes at
Carraccas occurred, and they seem to suppose these
flashes and that event parts of the same scene.

One result from these terrific phenomena was very
obvious. The people of this village had been noted
for their profligacy and impiety. In the midst of these
scenes of terror, all, Catholics and Protestants, praying
and profane, became of one religion, and partook of
one feeling. Two hundred people, speaking English,
French, and Spanish, crowded together, their visages
pale, the mothers embracing their children, — as soon
as the omen that preceded the earthquakes became visi-

225

ble, as soon as the air became a little obscured, as
though a sudden mist arose from the east, — all, in their
different languages and forms, but all deeply in earn-
est, betook themselves to the voice of prayer. The
cattle, as much terrified as the rational creation,
crowded about the assemblage of men, and seemed to
demand protection, or community of danger. One
lady ran as far as her strength would permit, and then
fell exhausted and fainting, from which she never re-
covered. The general impulse, when the shocks com-
menced, was to run ; and yet when they were at the
severest point of their motion, the people were thrown
on the ground at almost every step. A French gen-
tleman told me that in escaping from his house, the
largest in the village, he found he had left an infant
behind, and he attempted to mount up the raised piaz-
za to recover the child, and was thrown down a dozen
times in succession. The venerable lady in whose
house we lodged, was extricated from the ruins of her
house, having lost every thing that appertained to her
establishment, which could be broken or destroyed.
The people at the Little Prairie, who suffered most,
had their settlement, — which consisted of a hundred
families, and which was located in a wide and very
deep and fertile bottom, — broken up. When I passed
it, and stopped to contemplate the traces of the catas-
trophe which remained after seven years, the crevices
where the earth had burst were sufficiently manifest,
and the whole region was covered with sand to the
depth of two or three feet. The surface was red with
oxided pyrites of iron, and the sand-blows, as they
were called, were abundantly mixed with this kind of
earth, and with pieces of pit-coal. But two families
remained of the whole settlement. The object

226

seems to have been in the first paroxysms of alarm to
escape to the hills at the distance of twenty-five miles.
The depth of the water that covered the surface soon
precluded escape.

The people without an exception were unlettered
backwoodsmen, of the class least addicted to reason-
ing. And yet it is remarkable how ingeniously, and
conclusively they reasoned from apprehension shar-
pened by fear. They remarked that the chasms in
the earth were in direction from southwest to north-
east, and they were of an extent to swallow up not
only men, but houses, (i down quick into the pit."
And these chasms occurred frequently within intervals
of half a mile. They felled the tallest trees at right
angles to the chasms, and stationed themselves upon the
felled trees. By this invention all were saved. For
the chasms occurred more than once under these fell-
ed trees. Meantime their cattle and their harvests,
both here and at New Madrid, principally perished.
The people no longer dared to dwell in houses. They
passed this winter, and the succeeding one in bark
booths and camps, like those of the Indians, of so
light a texture as not to expose the inhabitants to dan-
ger in case of their being thrown down. Such num-
bers of laden boats were wrecked above, and the la-
ding driven by the eddy into the mouth of the Bayou,
at the village, which makes the harbour, that the people
were ampiy supplied with every article of provision.
Flour, beef, pork, bacon, butter, cheese, apples, in
short, every thing that is carried down the river, was
in such abundance, as scarcely to be matters of sale.
Many boats, that came safely into the Bayou, were dis-
posed of by their affrighted owners for a trifle. For
the shocks still continued every day ; and the owners.

227

deeming the whole country below to be sunk, were
glad to return to the upper country, as fast as possi-
ble. In effect, a great many islands were sunk, new
ones raised, and the bed of the river wry much
changed in every respect.

After the earthquake had moderated in violence,
the country exhibited a melancholy aspect of chasms
of sand covering the earth, of trees thrown down, or
lying at an angle of forty-five degrees, or split in the
middle. The earthquakes still recurred at short inter-
vals, so that the people had no confidence to rebuild
good houses, or chimnies of brick. The Little Prairie
settlement was broken up. The Great Prairie settle-
ment, one of the most flourishing before on the west
bank of the Mississippi, was much diminished. New
Madrid again dwindled to insignificance and decay ;
the people trembling in their miserable hovels at the
distant and melancholy rumbling of the approaching
shocks. The general government passed an act, al-
lowing the inhabitants of this country to locate the
same quantity of lands, that they possessed here, in any
part of the territory, where the lands were not yet
covered by any claim. These claims passed into the
hands of speculators, and were never of any substan-
tial benefit to the possessors. When I resided there,
this district, formerly so level, rich, and beautiful, had
the most melancholy of all aspects of decay, the to-
kens of former cultivation and habitancy, which were
now mementos of desolation and desertion. Large
and beautiful orchards, left uninclosed, houses unin-
habited, deep chasms in the earth, obvious at frequent
intervals, — such was the face of the country, although
the people had for years become so accustomed to
frequent and small shocks, which did no essential in-

228

jury, that the lands were gradually rising again in
value, and New Madrid was slowly rebuilding,
with frail buildings, adapted to the apprehensions of
the people.

LETTER XXL— NEW MADRID.

In the family of the excellent Mrs. Gray we passed
a very pleasant winter. She had seen seventy winters
and was the living chronicle of all the events that had
happened in that interesting colony, from its first set-
tlement. She had seen families of fashion and opu-
lence, from "the states/' as they call them, and from old
France settled there, — had seen them married and giv-
en in marriage. They had figured, and had had their
petty rivalries and displays in the wilderness —
had melted away, and were gone. Other wonders of
distinction and greatness had come from other and
more fashionable regions to replace them ; and when
1 was there, a very curious collection of sketches might
easily have been made of singular characters, — singular
for the standing and connexions which they had had
in other countries, singular too for latent and intrinsic
claims to distinction, and singular as furnishing grounds
for the remark which each made upon the other, that
it was astonishing to find such people cast in such a
place.

Such reflections have often forced themselves upon me
in every corner of this country. People, learned, dis-
tinguished, rich, highly connected, who ought to have
figured in any place, by the whimsical freaks of what
we call fortune, are thrown upon these deserts, and

229

fall unknown, unpitied, unrecorded, and their ashes
mingle with the soil of the desert.

In the very place where I ain writing these lines,
it was but two years since, that a German nobleman,
a professor of Gottingen, a man gifted in the highest
decree, who left behind him volumes of scientific re-
marks upon the natural history of the country, died an
object of charity.

The venerable narrator of the history of New
Madrid, from Morgan's romantic attempt, through all
its successive changes of Spanish, French, and Amer-
ican times, the rise and fall of the great people, the
calamitous events of the earthquakes, her own dis-
astrous fortunes, and those of her daughter, — was her-
self not the smallest wonder of the place. She had
a considerable library, was perfectly acquainted with
Plato, spoke of him as familiarly as a school boy does
of Washington, had all the great ancients, their ex-
ploits, and respective merits, entirely at command.
Her daughter had lived in the great world in Natchez
and New Orleans, in the family of Mr. Derbigny, and
in the families of two of the greater commandants, and
spoke and read French, as well as English. In the
midst of some of these conversations, prolonged over
the winter fire, we were not unfrequently interrupted
for a moment by the distant and hollow thunder of
the approaching earthquake. An awe, a slight pale-
ness passed over every countenance. The narra-
tive was suspended for a moment, and resumed.

The alluvial country, perfectly level and inter-
spersed with small prairies, reaches about twenty
miles west and north of the Mississippi. The inter-
vening tract between this low country, and the ridgy
region of the country of Cape Girardeau has sprii

230

If you come from the lower country, in travelling
from the city of New Orleans to this point, you pass
but one place where the bluffs approach near to the
Mississippi, — but one place where there are springs of
water. All is level and has that peculiar configuration
of soil, and growth of trees and plants, which belong
to the alluvion of the Mississippi. Here you begin to
mount hills. At first indeed in their richness and the
blackness of their soil, they indicate their contiguity
to the alluvial country. They have also alluvial for-
est, pawpaw, persimon, and more than all the stately
yellow poplar : they are fine regular undulations in
parallel lines, and in the valleys spring out beautiful
fountains of water. The purer breezes of the upland
country fan you. You drink from the only spring,
one place only excepted, between this and the gulf of
Mexico. I cannot easily describe the sensations I
experienced after more than a year's residence without
seeing a hill, a stone placed by nature in the soil, or a
spring, when I began to ascend these noble and uni-
form benches, and see the transparent waters coursing
along in the valleys. Soon after you ascend them,
you come to a broken and rather hilly country, whose
principal growth is oak ; and such is the character
of the country of Cape Girardeau, one of the
most populous in the state. From here, with the ex-
ception of comparatively narrow bottoms of the Mis-
sissippi and the intervening streams, such is the char-
acter of the country quite to the Missouri.

There is one curiosity in the configuration of the
country as you approach Cape Girardeau, ascending
from NewMadrid — the great swamp. It is, at the
place of crossing, three miles wide. The waters of
St. Francis rise in it. They commence within a few

231

rods of the Mississippi in a swamp, considerably low-
er than the ordinary level of the river. The swamp
begins with the width of half a mile, diverges to three
miles' width, where the road from New Madrid cross-
es it, which is a few miles from the Mississippi, and
continues to widen until it becomes in some places six-
ty miles wide. It meanders, like the Mississippi, and
extends three hundred miles, before it discharges the
St. Francis into the Mississippi, although it arose not
a hundred yards from its banks. Its soil is deep,
black, in summer dry, except where the waters of
St. Francis find a kind of channel among the grass,
and is a vast rice swamp, fitted by nature for the cul-
tivation of that valuable grain to an indefinite extent.

Cape Girardeau is one of the ancient establishments
of the country, being the first settlement on hills
above the mouth of the Ohio. Here was the resi-
dence of Lorimier, so famous in the annals of that
region, a rich commandant, who married a Shawnese
wife, and acquired by that means, and by his largesses
among the Indians, an unbounded ascendency among
that tribe, and the Delawares. Some of his descend-
ents were pupils of mine. They were the fourth
generation in descent from the squaw, the offspring of
a German father, and of the grand-daughter of Lori-
mier. But all traces of the Indian feature had disap-
peared. I have never seen fairer complexions than
the females of this descent.

The centre of this county is Jackson, a place not
yet more than twelve years old. Cape Girardeau,
the original seat of the colony, is finely situated on a
commanding bluff, which projects in a noble cape into
the river. But, notwithstanding its very advantage-
ous position, being the first bluff that offers a site

232

for a town above the mouth of the Ohio, caprice in
settling the country has placed the county town at
Jackson, twelve miles in the interior. It is a consid-
erable village on a hill, with the Kentucky outline of
dead trees, and huge logs lying on all sides in the
fields. Here is the compactest settlement in the
state, a thickly timbered, well watered, and hilly coun-
try, furnishing pure hill-streams and mill-seats. The
soil is inferior, compared with many other points of
the state. But these advantages have caused a mass
of settlers to fall upon the oak and beech wood, and
endure the severe labour of cutting down the trees to
form plantations, in a country, where there are mil-
lions of acres of the richest lands fit for the plough.

Among these people I sojourned, and preached,
more than a year, and my time passed more devoid
of interest, or of attachment, or comfort, or utility,
than in any other part of the country. The people
are extremely rough. Their country is a fine range
for all species of sectarians, furnishing the sort of
people in abundance, who are ignorant, bigoted, and
think, by devotion to some favoured preacher or sect,
to atone for the want of morals and decency, and every
thing that appertains to the spirit of Christianity.

I should not omit, that there is one curiosity here, —
an isolated but pure German settlement, where these
people have in fact preserved their nationality, and
their language more unmixed, than even in Pennsyl-
vania. At a meeting in the woods, where it was sup-
posed four hundred German people were present,
there were not half a dozen people of English de-
scent. The women are not able to express themselves
well in English. The men, though they understand
the colloquial and familiar language, yet express them-

233

selves with the peculiar German accent, pronunciation,
and phrase, so as to be very amusing, if not some-
times ludicrous. They are principally Lutherans, and
came some of them directly from Germany, but the
greater portion from North Carolina and Pennsly-
vania. They have fixed themselves on a clear and
beautiful stream called the White-water, which runs
twenty-five miles, and loses itself in the great swamp.
Located here in the forest, — a narrow settlement of
Germans unmixed with other people, having little
communication, except with their own people, and lit-
tle intercourse with the world, having beside all the
coarse trades and manufactures among themselves,
they have preserved their peculiarities in an uncom-
mon degree.

They are anxious for religious instruction, and love
the German honesty and industry. But almost every
farmer has his distillery, and the pernicious poison,
whiskey, dribbles from the corn ; and in their curious
dialect, they told me, that while they wanted religion,
and their children baptized, and a minister as exem-
plary as possible, he must allow the honest Dutch, as
they call themselves, to partake of the native beve-
rage. And they undertook to prove, that the swear-
ing and drunkenness of a Dutchman was not so bad as
that of an American. One of them was reproved for
his intemperance and profanencss, and it was remark-
ed that he had been zealous and very strict in his reli-
gious profession in Carolina. " Never mind," said
he, (t this is a bad country for religion. I know, that
I have lost him," he continued, <•' hut never mind, by
and by the good breacher," as he phrased it, u will
come along, and I shall pick him all up again."
30

234

The vast size of their horses, their own gigantic
size, the peculiar dress of the women, the child-like
and unsophisticated simplicity of their conversation,
amused me exceedingly. Nothing could afford a
more striking contrast to the uniformity of manners
and opinions among their American neighbours. I
attended a funeral, where there were a great number
of them present. After I had performed such services
as I was used to perform on such occasions, a most
venerable looking old man, of the name of Nyeswun-
ger, with a silver beard that flowed down his chin,
came forward and asked me if I were willing that he
should perform some of their peculiar rites. I of
course wished to hear them. He opened a very an-
cient version of Luther's hymns, and they all began to
sing in German, so loud that the woods echoed the
strain ; and yet there was something affecting in the
singing of these ancient people, carrying one of their
brethren to his long home, in the use of the language
and rites which they had brought with them over the
sea from " fader land," a word which often occurred
in their hymn. It was a long, loud, and mournful air,
which they sung as they bore the body along. The
words " mein Gott," " mein broder," and (i fader
land," died away in distant echoes in the woods. Re-
membrances and associations rushed upon me, and I
shall long remember that funeral hymn.

They had brought a minister among them, of the
name of Weiberg, or, as they pronounced it, Wine-
bork ; an educated man, but a notorious drunkard.
The earnest manner in which he performed divine
service in their own ritual, and in their own language,
carried away *all their affections. For, — like other
people naturally phlegmatic, — when the tide once gets

235

started, it sweeps all restraints from its course. After
service he would get drunk, and as often happens
among them, was quarrelsome. They claimed indul-
gence to get drunk themselves, but were not quite so
clear in allowing their minister the same privilege.
The consequence was, that when the time came round
for them to pay their subscription, they were disposed
to refuse, alleging, as justification, his un worthiness
and drunkenness. He had for three successive years
in this way commenced and recovered suits against
them. And to reinstate himself in their good will, it
was only necessary for him to take them when a suf-
ficient quantity of whiskey had opened their phlegm-
atic natures to sensibility, and then give them a vehe-
ment discourse, as they phrased it, in the pure old
Dutch, and give them a German hymn of his own
manufacture, — for he was a poet too, — and the sub-
scription paper was once more brought forward. They
who had lost their suit, and had been most inveterate
in their dislike, were thawed out, and crowded about
the paper either to sign their name or make their
mark.

He had been fairly banished by a common feeling,
when I was there, and had gone to a German swarin
from this hive, that had settled upon the waters of the
St. Francis. But he occasionally returned to Germa-
ny, as it was called, to taste their whiskey aud cider ;
for they had productive orchards. He came to the
house of a Madam Ballinger, where I usualJy staid
when among them. " Well," said he, " I judge you
will now get good fast, now that you have a Yankee,
breacher. Does he know one word of Dutch?7'
<l Very little, I suppose," she replied ; hut in order to
vindicate her preacher, she added, (i but he knows

236

French," &c. ; and she went on giving my knowledge
of various languages, according to her own fancy : —
tl And, mein Gott, what I tinks much good, he does
not trink one trop of whiskey ! "

The settlement is German, also, in all its habits, — in
their taste for permanent buildings, and their disposi-
tion to build with stone, — in their love of silver dollars,
and their contempt of bank-bills, — in their disposition
to manufacture every necessary among themselves. I
counted forty-five female dresses hung round my sleep-
ing-room, all of cotton, raised, and manufactured, and
coloured in the family. The ladies of cities are not
more inwardly gratified with the possession of the new-
est and most costly furniture, than these good, laborious,
submissive, and silent housewives are, in hanging
round their best apartment fifty male and female dress-
es, all manufactured by their own hand. I had the
good fortune to be very acceptable to this people, al-
though I could not smoke, drink whiskey, nor talk
German. They made various efforts to fix my family
among them. And, as the highest expression of good
will, they told me that they would do more than they
had done for Wei berg.

These strong features of nationality are very strik-
ing characteristics in this country universally. The
Germans, the French, the Anglo-Americans, Scotch,
and Irish, all retain and preserve their national man-
ners and prejudices. Nothing fosters attachment to
every thing national, like residing in a foreign region,
and among foreign manners. All our peculiar ways
of thinking and acting become endeared to us by the
unpleasant contrast of foreign manners, and become
identified with our best possessions by national pride.
But among the races in this country, the Germans

237

succeed decidedly the best ; better, even, than the
Anglo-Americans. They have no vagrant imagina-
tions ; and they cast a single look over the forest or
prairie which they have purchased, and their minds
seize intuitively the best arrangement and division, and
their farming establishment generally succeeds. They
build a good house and barn. They plant a large or-
chard. Their fences, their gates, all the appendages
to their establishment, are strong and permanent-
They raise large horses and cattle. They spend little,
and when they sell will receive nothing in pay but
specie. Every stroke counts towards improvement.
Their wives have no taste for parties and tea. Silent,
unwearied labour, and the rearing of their children,
are their only pursuits ; and in a few years they are
comparatively rich. Next to them in prosperity are
the Ansrlo-Amcricans. Then the Scotch. The direct
emigrauts from England are only superior to the
French, who in the upper country have succeeded less
than any other people, as planters. The German set-
tlement in Cape Girardeau extends very near the
French settlement of St. Genevieve ; and here you
have the strong points of national difference brought in
direct contrast. The one race is generally independ-
ent in their condition ; the other produces a few rich
farmers, but is generally a poor race of hunters, crowd-
ed in villages with mud hovels, fond of conversation and
coffee, and never rises from a state of indigence. The
difference produces a corresponding physical difference
even in the body. The Germans are large, stout, and
ruddy-looking men and women. The poorer French
are spare, thin, sallow, and tanned, with their flesh
adhering to their bones, and apparent! v drier! to the
consistency of parchment.

238

The year which I passed in New Madrid, and the
counties of Cape Girardeau and St. Genevieve, afford-
ed me great opportunities to compare the habits of
these various races, as they are more mixed in their
population in this region than elsewhere. As it re-
spects their religious opinions, there are considerable
settlements north of Jackson, that came in a body
from North Carolina ; they are generally Presbyte-
rians, and professors of religion. The Germans, as I
have remarked, are generally Lutherans. The Bap-
tists, the Cumberland Presbyterians, and the Method-
ists have many societies, and the Catholics have a
large settlement here, composed of French and Irish,
extending from St. Genevieve to the county of Cape
Girardeau. Half way between these regions, they
have a large and rather conspicuous building, a semi-
nary for the rearing of Catholic priests, where there
were constantly a convent of eleves preparing for the
ministry.

One general trait appears to me strongly to charac-
terize this region in a religious point of view. They
are anxious to collect a great many people and preach-
ers, and achieve, if the expression may be allowed, a
great deal of religion at once, that they may lie by,
and be exempt from its rules and duties until the regu-
lar recurrence of the period for replenishing the ex-
hausted stock. Hence we witness the melancholy
aspect of much appearance and seeming, frequent
meetings, spasms, cries, fallings, faintings, and, what
I imagine will be a new aspect of religious feeling to
most of my readers, the religious laugh. Nothing is
more common at these scenes, than to see the more
forward people on these occasions indulging in what
seemed to me an idiot and spasmodic laugh, and when

239

I asked what it meant, I was told it was the holy
laugh ! Preposterous as the term may seem to my
readers, the phrase " holy laugh " is so familiar to me,
as no longer to excite surprise. But in these same
regions, and among these same people,- morals, gen-
uine tenderness of heart, and capacity to be guided
either by reason, persuasion, or the uniform dictates
of the gospel, was an affecting desideratum.

LETTER XXI.—MCKSOjY.

I have often witnessed in this country a most im-
pressive view, which I do not remember to have seen
noticed by any travellers who have preceded me. It is
the burning of the prairies. It is visible at times in all
parts of Missouri, but nowhere with more effect than
in St. Louis. The tall and thick grass that grows in the
prairies that abound through all the country, is fired ;
most frequently at. that season of the year, called
Indian summer. The moon rises with a broad disk,
and of a bloody hue, upon the smoky atmosphere.
Thousands of acres of grass are burning in all direc-
tions. In the wide prairies the advancing front of
flame often has an extent of miles. Many travellers,
arrested by these burnings, have perished. The crim-
son-coloured flames, seen through the dim atmosphere,
in the distance seem to rise from the earth to the sky.
The view, before the eye becomes familiarized with
it, is grand, I might almost say terrific ; for nothing
has ever given me such a striking image of our con-
ceptions of the final conflagration.

240

It would require a long chapter, written by an ob-
serving physician, to give an account of the diseases
of the country. I shall only remark in passing, that
diseases of the lungs are less frequent than at the
North. The general type of the disorders is bilious.
When the fevers are continued, they are terrible, and
too often fatal. But most of the fevers are either re-
mittents or intermittents, and when skilfully managed
are seldom mortal. Intermittent fevers are common
and very troublesome. They are easily managed, but
are apt to return. Their frequent returns, and the
course of medicine necessary to check them, soon
break down the constitution. Rheumatism and drop-
sical affections are common in the country. The two
grand remedies, and what almost completes the list of
medicines used here, are bark and calomel.

In looking into the condition of the emigrants in
the northern section of the valley of the Mississippi,
in hearing numberless narratives from the people, of
their condition in the regions from which they emi-
grated, in remarking the strong affection which they
almost universally retain for their own country, and
the place of their birth, in the almost universal betray-
ing of feelings of regret, and a disposition to consider
their place of residence as a banishment, — feelings that
are often transmitted to their children, — I have been
often led in my own mind to contrast the apparent ad-
vantages and disadvantages of emigration to this
country. The advantages of the ancient residence, I
have laid in the portions of the Atlantic country with
which I am most acquainted, the New England states,
and I may add, New York. Nor let any of my read-
ers smile at such speculations, as belonging to the tire-
some and common-place declamations about happiness,

241

which eke out so many sermons and essays. One
hundred thousand New Englanders, resident in these
regions, have already made their election ; and thou-
sands more will continually be following. If a fair and
faithful balance could be struck, between the real
amount of comfort and enjoyment of these people, be-
fore and after their immigration, it would be very far
from being an abstract question about happiness. It
might form the basis of a calculation, that would de-
termine those who were in suspense about emigration,
either to go or stay. And fortunately for New Eng-
land, the increasing demand for manufacturers will
find employment for her sons, if they prefer the land
where are the graves of their fathers and mothers,
without coming to these distant regions.

The disadvantages of immigration are of a mixed
character, partaking partly of a physical, and partly,
but much more, of a moral nature. The inducements
to emigration arise, as most of our actions do, from
mixed motives. There is more of the material of po-
etry than we imagine, diffused through all the classes
of the community. And upon this part of the charac-
ter it is, that the disposition to emigration operates.
and brings in aid the influence of its imperceptible but
magic power. Very few, except the Germans, em-
igrate simply to find better and cheaper lands. The
notion of new and more beautiful woods and streams,
of a milder climate, deer, fish, fowl, game, and all
those delightful images of enjoyment, that so readily
associate with the idea of the wild and boundless
license of new regions ; all that restless hope of finding
in a new country, and in new views and combinations
of things, something that we crave but have not, —
I am ready to believe, from my own experience, and

242

from" what I have seen in the case of others, that this
influence of imagination has no inconsiderable agency
in producing emigration. Indeed, the saturnine and
illiterate emigrant may not be conscious that such mo-
tives had any agency in fixing him in his purpose.
But I need not observe, that those who examine most
earnestly what passes in their own minds, are not
always aware of all the elements of motive that de-
termine their actions. They arrive, after long and
diversified, but generally painful journies, painful, es-
pecially if they have young and helpless members in
their families, in the region for which they started.
The first difficulty, and it is not a small one, is, among
an infinite variety of choices, where to fix. The spec-
ulator, the surveyor, the different circles, all propose
different places, and each vaunts the exclusive excel-
lence of his choice. If the emigrant is a reader, he
betakes himself to the papers, and in the infinity of
advertisements, his uncertainty is increased. Some,
under these circumstances, try all places. I lodged at
the house of a Baptist exhorter, a very aged man, who
had made seven distant removes in less than three hun-
dred miles, being too short a distance to give him a
new trial.

After the long uncertainty of choice is finally fixed,
— which is not till after the expenses and the lapse of
a year, — a few weeks' familiar acquaintance with the
scene dispels the charms and the illusions of the im-
agination. The earth, the water, and the wood of
these distant lands, are found to be the same well
known realities of his own country. Hunting, though
the game be plenty, is a laborious and unproductive
business, and every thing visionary and unreal gradu-
ally gives way to truth and reality. Apart from the

pain of breaking off ties that were knit with our exist-
ence, I know not if others feel in any degree as I do?
the melancholy sensations resulting from seeing every
thins; about me new and strange. But I feel as
though in the midst of a nature and objects long famil-
iar to me, there were some secret sympathy between
that nature and myself. If others feel this to be so,
and I think they do, the immigrant experiences not only
the gloom of seeing himself among strangers to him-
self, to his country, to his opinions, and habits, but he
is even in the midst of a nature that looks upon him
as an intruder. What an affecting circumstance is
that of the Jews depositing the body in a position
directed towards Jerusalem, and putting into the grave
a handful of earth from that fondly remembered land.
It would seem puerile, perhaps, to relate what a
current of recollections has been excited in me in
autumn, on seeing flocks of our northern robins in the
woods of Missouri. Near the house of Mr. Jamieson
at Bonhomme, I saw early in the spring a flock of
those merry and chattering birds, that we call
bob-a-link, or French black-bird. They were seen
that season for the first time in Missouri. Every one
at the North knows, that they are the delight of our
meadows, about the season of planting, that they
chatter almost to tiresomeness, and with every northern
man, they are associated with the most delightful
remembrances of his boyhood. I cannot describe,
how long and painfully these notes turned my thoughts
upon my own country. Many of these recollections
are continually intruding to recall the feelings and the
thoughts of a distant home, never to be seen

agam.

244

Then the emigrant in the pride of his remembrances
begins to extol his own country, its laws, habits, and
men. The listener has the same prejudices. The
pride of the one wounds that of the other. The
weakness of human nature is never more obvious,
than in meetings of immigrants from different coun-
tries, each extolling his own, as the best and happiesfc
in the world. Every person who has passed the same
number of years in the same country with myself,
can supply a thousand recollections. No doubt
there are people here, zealous and honest patriots,
who love these new and adopted states, as well as the
Nevv-Englander loves his own country. But we well
know, that love of country, like love of parents, is an
innate and deeply rooted feeling ; and when we leave
our native country, like a tree torn up by the roots, it
does not instantly flourish in another. A kind of des-
olation of heart, that results from feeling himself an
alien in a strange land, long afflicts the resident in
these new countries.

I think too, that the character of our feelings in
retrospection contributes to the same issue. In re-
membering the past, we forget the painful and re-
collect the pleasant. It is this probably which ren-
ders the delights of youth so dear to the remembrance.
All the vivid perceptions of enjoyment are keenly recol-
lected, the sorrows are overlooked or forgotten. The
distant birthplace, the residence of the years that are
gone, remembered amidst the actual struggles in form-
ing a new establishment, living in a new world, getting
acquainted with a new nature, and competing with
strangers, who in the mind of an emigrant, as they
did to an old Roman, seem much like enemies.
These remembrances, rendered more delightful by the

245

actual contrast of the present, come up to embitter
the present. We cannot in any way understand so
fully the force of habit as in moving to a new coun-
try. We can hardly anticipate beforehand, how many
old enjoyments and ways of passing life, we are
obliged to forego, and even to take up new ones
in their room. Then there are new laws, new in-
stitutions, new ways of rearing children, supporting
schools, and in short a complete change of the whole
circle of associations, feelings, and habits.

To a regularly disciplined inhabitant of the North,
it is not among the smallest of deprivations, that there
is no church-going bell, no going to the house of God
in company. Preaching is uncommon, and when
heard, is altogether different from the calm and rea-
soning sobriety of the discourses which he used to
hear. There is a deficiency of those little circles of
company, into which he used to drop, to relax a day
or an evening, which it may be were not much prized
in the enjoyment, but which arc severely felt in the
deprivation. He sees, too, his fellow mortal struggle
and die. The horror of the scene is not softened,
as at the North, by hearing the voice of prayer about
the bed. The mind ia not soothed with the accents
of hope and the anticipations of immortality. It is
too often a scene of sullen submission on the one part,
and careless indifference on the other, and nothing
shocks him more, than to see the people assemble,
and carry the body to its long home, without prayer
or any religious ceremony. I need not go on to add
circumstances of regret, or of painful remembrance,
that suggest themselves to me, as parts of the unhappi-
ness of an immigrant, nor need I observe, that there
are hundreds of them, who have as little feeling upon

246

all these points, as their brutes. But in hearing the
people from every country, who are well and com-
fortably situated, who have the conveniences and the
luxuries of life, so often speak of their condition in the
tone of repining, in hearing them so constantly calling
up the fond recollections of home, and, in so many in-
stances, looking through the vista of time, with the ulti-
mate hope of returning to spend their last days, and die
where their first days werespent, I have been aware
that feelings of the class above described must have
contributed to this state of mind.

There are some physical disadvantages. New dis-
eases, and the terror annexed to evils, that are coloured
by the imagination, the exhorbitance of the charges of
physicians, these are the most prominent physical diffi-
culties.

There is in all parts of this country a much warm-
er summer, more debilitating and exhausting in its
effects, than the summer of the North. In some
parts, and in some seasons, musquitoes are excessive-
ly troublesome, while in others there are not more
than there are at the North. The grains are equally
good, perhaps better. The wheat is certainly larger,
and the flour finer and softer. Orchards flourish,
and the trees bear much sooner than at the North, and
the fruit is larger and fairer, but less flavoured, and
more insipid ; and a proof of this is, that the cider
has not the same vinous strength, and requires boil-
ing to gain body enough to keep without passing
immediately through the vinous into the acetous fer-
mentation. Strange as it may seem, in this rich
soil, and under this powerful sun, all the roots and
vegetables are more tasteless, than those of the North.
It is instantly perceived, that the onion is more mild,

247

the blood beet less deeply coloured, and this thing
holds good, as far as my experience goes, in the whole
vegetable creation. Take every thing into consid-
eration, this is not so good a country for gardens.
The Irish potatoe, the best of vegetables, is raised
in the states west of the Ohio, but not with the same
ease, or abundance, or goodness, as at the North.
The seed soon degenerates ; a bushel of maize is
raised much easier, than a bushel of potatoes. They
have a substitute, it is true, in the sweet potatoe.
Cabbages and peas, owing to the burning heat of the
sun, and the dryness of the seasons, are inferior in
quality and abundance. The tender vegetables of a
garden generally prefer a milder sun and cooler air.
There are people, who stoutly contest the point,
that the meats are not inferior. It is generally con-
ceded, that beef is so, and my impression is, that all
the meats, not excepting fowls, are so.

But of all the physical inconveniences of the coun-
try, exposure to the ague is undoubtedly the worst.
This is not an universal evil, and will undoubtedly
lessen with the increase of improvement and cultiva-
tion. The difficulty of finding a market for the sur-
plus produce, is not a diminutive evil. There is not
that ease and certainty of raising a small sum of
money by sending the articles of the farm to a sure
market. The plan of sending in flat boats to New
Orleans the surplus of the farms, will not answer in
such an overstocked market as that, except when the
Mississippi boats can get down early, and before the
market is glutted. All articles of life in Illinois and
Missouri have been, for some years, below whet tin-
planters could afford to raise them for, with any view
beyond domestic consumption.

248

For the three past years the grain boats from Mis-
souri have scarcely paid the expense of their build-
ing and transport to New Orleans. The difficulty of
paying taxes, and finding money for those articles
which were originally luxuries, and have come by
use to be necessaries, is great. Hence even the afflu-
ent settlers in these states are obliged in a great
measure to forego wines and brandies, and to be very
moderate in the use of tea, coffee, and foreign sugar.
Many other little items of luxury and comfort come
too high and too hard for common use. There is a
great abundance and variety of wild fowl, and tur-
keys, prairie hens, and partridges, and in their sea-
son, wild geese and ducks. And on the other hand,
the fish, though near the Mississippi in sufficient
abundance, are coarse and tasteless. The salted shad
and mackerel of the North are here brought to the
table as luxuries. Such are some of the obvious in-
conveniences of the country.

We may justly remark, that man is every where a
dissatisfied and complaining animal ; and if he had
a particle of unchanged humanity in him, would find
reasons for complaining and repining in paradise. It
is to be observed, that most of the causes of dissatis-
faction and disquietude are in the mind and in the
imagination, are unreal, and may be overcome by that
effort, equally called for by common sense, philosophy,
and religion, which is made to vanquish all sorrow but
that which is unavoidable and incurable. In my
view, after all the evils of the condition of an immi-
grant are considered, there is a great balance of real
and actual advantages in his favour. There is much
in that real and genuine American independence,
which is possessed by an industrious and frugal plant-

249

er in a great degree. A Missouri planter, with fl
moderate force and a good plantation, can be as in-
dependent as it is fit that we should hi. He can
raise the materials ibr manufacturing his own clothing*
He has the greatest abundance of every tiling within
himself; an ahundancc in all the articles, except
those which have heen enumerated, as not naturally
congenial to the climate, of which a northern farmer
has no idea. One of my immediate neighbours, on
the prairie below St. Charles, had a hired white
man, a negro, and .two sons large enough to begin to
help him. He had an hundred acres enclosed. He
raised, the year that I came away, two thousand four
hundred bushels of corn, eight hundred bushels of
wheat, and other articles in proportion, and the num-
ber of cattle and hogs that he might raise was indefi-
nite ; for the pasturage and hay were as sufficient for a
thousand cattle as for twenty. If the summer be hot,
the autumns are longer and far more beautiful, a :d the
winters much milder and drier, than at the North, and
the snow seldom falls more than six inch Owing

to the dryness and levelness of the country, the roads
are good, and passing is always easy and practi abb
Any person, able and disposed to labour, is forever
freed from the apprehension of poverty : and lei phi-
losophers in their bitter irony pronounce as many
eulogies as they may on poverty, it is a bitter evil,
and all its fruits are bitter. We need not travel
these wilds in order to understand what a blessing it
is to be freed forever from the apprehension of thi
evil. Even here there are sick, and there is little
sympathy; no poor laws, no resource but in the cllftl
ity of a people not remarkable for their feeling.
32

250

Thence it results, that there are the more induce-
ments to form families, and those ties, which are the
cause, that while one is sick the rest are bound for his
nursing and sustenance. A father can settle his chil-
dren about him. They need not be fi hewers of wood
and drawers of water." A vigorous and active young
* man needs but two years of personal labour to have
a farm ready for the support of a small family.
There is less need of labour for actual support. The
soil is free from stones, loose and mellow, and needs
no manure, and it is very abundant in the produc-
tions natural to it, the principal of which are corn,
fruits, and wheat. The calculation is commonly
made, that two days in a week contribute as much
to support here, as the whole week at the North.
Plenty of hay can be cut in the prairies to answer for
working cattle and horses in the periods when the
season is too severe, and where the rushes and pea-
vines are eaten out, and, in the more southern districts,
the cane, so as to require the cattle to be fed.

The objection commonly made is, that this ease of
subsistence fosters idleness. But it is equally true,
that this depends entirely on the person, and a man
of good principles and habits will find useful and
happy employment for all that time, which the wants
of actual subsistence do not require. The orchards,
if the fruit be not so highly flavoured, are much easier
created ; the fruits are fairer and more abundant.
The smaller fruits, plumbs, peaches, quinces, and the
fruit-hearing shrubs, are indigenous, and are raised
with ^reat facility. If the garden is inferior in some
respects, it is superior in others, as in the size of the
tap-rooted vegetables, especially beets, parsnips, car-
rots, and radishes. I have seen one of the latter per-

251

fectly fair, taper, and of a fine colour, as large as a
man's leg, and weighing seven pounds. The fields
are made at once, and are the second year in their
highest state of productiveness. For sickness, more
can he done in this country by way of preventive,
than by way of remedy. Every family ought to have
a good author upon domestic medicine, if such can be
found, and a medicine chest. People who take this
precaution suffer, perhaps, as little from sickness
here, as elsewhere. For, as 1 have remarked in an-
other place, the disorders are more manageable than
at the North. With respect to society, all that the
emigrant has to do is to bridle his tongue and his
temper, cultivate good feelings and kind affections,
and meet every advance of his neighbours with an
honest disposition to reorganize in the deserts, —
where they have met from distant regions and coun-
tries,— an harmonious and affectionate interchange of
mutual kind offices.

As it respects that nationality, which forms so strik-
ing a feature in the people of the western country,
men of education and enlargement of mind arc every
day operating upon the community to lay aside their
prejudices, such as judging of men by their coun-
try, or being prepossessed for or against them on ac-
count of the place of their birth. One of the first
things that a man, who is capable of learning any
thing in this country, learns, is the folly of selecting
his associates according to their country, or of having
his friends and companions of the same country with
himself. He sees good and bad, promiscuously, from
all countries, and soon learns to try and weigh men
by their character, and not by the place of birth.
During the ten years of my acquaintance with the

252

country, I have discovered these feelings lessening
in every place. Educated men and women are alike,
and have many feelings and thoughts in common,
come from what country they may. The time will
come and is rapidly approaching, when all local par-
tialities will be merged in the pride of being a citizen
of our great and free country, a country which is
destined shortly to make a most distinguished figure
among the nations.

For myself, the western country is endeared to me
by a thousand recollections. Its beautiful scenery has
left iraces in my memory, which will never be effaced.
The hospitality of its inhabitants to me, and to those
who are most dear to me, has marked on my heart
deep impressions of gratitude. I hail the anticipation,
that in a century to come it will be a great and pop-
ulous country, as great in a moral point of view, as it
is at present rich in natural resource and beauty.
And taking leave of the upper country, where I have
suffered and enjoyed so much, I might say il salve,
magna parens," or in a still higher phrase, " peace
be within thy walls."

LETTER XXII.— ARKANSAS.

M\v 5, 1819. We were swept round by the strong
current of the Mississippi in our keel-boat between
two green islands covered with rushes and cotton-
wood trees, into a small bay which receives the
waters of White Hiver. This is all a region of deep
and universal inundation. There was from six to ten
•■ » ! water over all the bottoms ; and we had a wide

ioS

display of that spectacle so common in the spring on
the Mississippi, — a dense forest of the largest trees,
vocal with the song of birds, matted with every spe-
cies of tangled vegetation, and harbouring in great
numbers the turkey- buzzard, and some species of
eagles ; and all this vegetation apparently rising from
the bosom of dark and discoloured waters. I have
never seen a deeper forest except of evergreens. The
channel of White River was distinguished by its cur-
rent, the green colour of its waters, compared with
the white waters of the Mississippi, and by an open
channel, marked by willows in full foliage, which so
nearly resembled the leaves of the peach-tree, that I
asked one of the boatmen who was familiar with the
country, what kind of tree it was, who answered with
much solemnity, that it was the wild peach. It was a
new order of things to stem the current, and go up
stream, after floating five hundred miles before the
heavy current of the Missouri and Mississippi. The
current came down the river at the rate of three miles
an hour. It seemed about three hundred and fifty
yards in width, and at this time had fifty feet of water
in depth. In ascending we were struck with the
grandeur of the forest, the immense size of the trees,
and their dark green foliage. The inundation ex-
tends itself almost indefinitely on all sides. It is late
in the season before the floods recede : and fever,
musquitoes, alligators, serpents, bears, and now and
then parties of hunting Indians, are the only tenants
of these woods.

The river received its name from the Indians, on
account of its pellucid waters. They are in appear-
ance rather green than white : and we could see the
huge cat-fish gamboling in the waters, among multi-

254

tudes of fishes of all classes. We eagerly threw them
the hook and line ; but the flooded streams and swamps
offered them such an abundance of food, that we tried
to tempt them with our bait in vain. We made our
way up this opening in the dark forest between five
and six miles, when we discovered a lateral opening
to the left. We rowed into it, and at its mouth were
whirled round by an eddy. Presently, to our aston-
ishment, the current took us through the lateral open-
ing, which was nearly at right angles with the course
of the river, and had nearly the same width and ap-
pearance with the river itself. We continued to float
on through this deep and inundated forest six or
seven miles, when at right angles to our course we
discovered another opening. It was the Arkansas,
moving on with a majestic current of waters of the
colour of Arnotto die.

This is, next to the Missouri, the largest and most
interesting tributary of the Mississippi, and from its
mouth by its meanders to the mountains, is commonly
computed about two thousand miles. Its course has
been traced in these mountains at least five hundred
miles, and it is believed that the sources of the Ar-
kansas have not yet been explored by our people.
One singularity distinguishes this river from any
other of the United States. Where it winds along
among the mountains, all agree that it is a broad and
deep river, and carries a great volume of water.
But no sooner does it emerge from the shelter of
woods and mountains, into a boundless and arid plain,
— composed to a great depth of quicksands, — than it
begins to disappear ; and in a hundred miles from
the very elevated mountain, near which it enters up-
on the plain, it is fordable during the summer. Still

255

lower down it is a stream, according to the well-
known phrase of this country, " sunk in the sand ; "
that is, it trickles amidst the banks of sand and peb-
bles, so as in many places to exhibit a dry channel of
burning sand from bank to bank. Here, on these
vast sandy plains, which will for ages be the Syrtes
of America, the home of elks and buffaloes, are the
wide fields of those rich native grapes, that all travel-
lers in these regions have spoken of in terms of such
admiration. They are said to be conical in shape,
large, of a beautiful blue, and transparent. The
driving sands rise round the stem that advances still
above the sand. This sand performs the best office
of pruning, covering the superfluous growth and foli-
age, inflicting no wounds, and affording a most admi-
rable method of ripening the clusters in the highest
perfection by the reflection of the sun from the sand.
In the Expedition of Major Long, the extreme sweet-
ness of these grapes is recorded, and other travellers
have borne the same testimony. They speak of vast
tracts covered with these rich clusters. I shall have
occasion elsewhere to speak of the classes of this
native grape, which are so much extolled in the in-
ternal provinces of Spain. They are common through
the pine-woods of Louisiana, and known by the name
of the pine- woods grape.

Another peculiarity of the Arkansas is, that it tra-
verses the immense extent of country through which
it passes, receiving fewer tributaries than any other
stream that has so long a course. The upper regions
of this river are remarkably sterile, containing great
tracts of moving sands, and in the islands of verdure,
a rich, short, and fine grass, very different from the
coarse prairie-grass of the prairies of Missouri, and

256

of the country of the Arkansas lower down. This
grass seems to be peculiarly adapted to be the food of
ruminating and grazing animals; and there are vast
droves of buffaloes and other wild animals, and in the
regions a little more south, and in the Spanish coun-
try, countless numbers of wild horses. Providence
seems to have provided that man can hardly subsist
among them, and that these shall continue to be their
retreats for ages. The river itself is generally skirted
with a timbered bottom, which widens, as the river
descends. Over the whole of these vast plains salt
seems to be distributed, even on the surface. In fact,
one of the peculiar features of the whole country west
of the Mississippi, is these licks, — places where the
wild and domestic cattle have beaten firm roads in all
directions round them ; and by continually licking for
the salt, intermixed with the clay, which they swallow
with the salt, there are often wide cavities, sometimes
to a considerable depth, occasioned by the consump-
tion by this continual licking. There are said to be,
and there are. doubtless, on the waters of the Arkan-
sas, wide plains, where this saline matter, dissolved
by moisture, rains, or dews, sublimes and rises on the
surface in appearance like hoar frost, or mountain
snow. There seems to be a kind provision in this
order of things, for the support of the numberless ani-
mals that feed upon these plains.

This river seems to mark the distinct outline of an-
other climate. About the latitude of thirty-three, and
from that to thirty-four degrees, seems to be the out-
line of the region of the profitable raising and growing
of cotton. It is equally marked by new classes of
vegetables, and different species of sensitive plants ;
the running vine, which bears a beautiful species of

237

passion-flower ; and among the robuster vegetable
tribes, the Muscadine grape : and among trees the
singular and beautiful tree called yellow-wood, or
u hois d'arc." But for an accurate view of the tribes
of plants and trees that are peculiar to this interesting
river, it will be necessary to consult Nuttall, who
treats the subject with the precision of a natural histo-
rian.

The soil of the alluvions of this river is much like
that of the valley of Red River, which has become so
extensively known as the finest cotton country. This
river, when it is high, is very turbid, and carries along
a great quantity of extremely fine sand and loam of
a reddish colour, a little fainter than Spanish brown.
The valley of this river is all composed of a soil of
this colour, and it is well known that such is the col-
our of the soil of the valley through which Red River
runs.

This river, too, is the first, in advancing south, that
is never frozen quite over, though ice is often formed on
its shores. The winters are, indeed, very cold, as
measured by the sensations. But it is well known that
in a moist and relaxing climate, where the summer
heats are high, and long eontinued, the sensations
indicate a very didc-rent temperature from the ther-
mometer. They require, during a considerable part
of the winter, much the same amount of fuel, and
thickness of clothing here, as at the North. And the
northern man finds himself astonished, as late in au-
tumn he looks round, and sees every thing in the gar-
dens and in the woods untouched by frost, and in all
the freshness of summer verdure, while his feelings
indicate a very uncomfortable degree of cold. But
the vegetable creation clearly designates this to be a

258

different climate from the contiguous state of Missouri.
Snow seldom falls, and when it does fall, it is little
more than a hoar-frost, which the first clear shining
of the sun dissolves, he the temperature of the air what
it may. In February, frequently, and generally in.
March, the flowering trees and shrubs are in blossom.
The grasses, the garden herbs, are all in full vigour
and verdure, and the amount of snow, ice, and frost,
comparatively so small, that here you feel yourself
leaving the empire of winter.

An appearance, more or less common to all the
western and southern rivers, struck me as being more
distinctly marked in this river, than in any that I
have seen. It is the entire uniformity of the mean-
ders of the rivers, called, in the phrase of the coun-
try, " points and bends.7' On this river they are de-
scribed almost with the precision, with which they
would have been marked off by the sweep of the
compass. The river sweeps round a regular curve
n< arly the half of a circle^ and is precipitated from the
point in a current across its own channel, to a curve of
the same regularity upon the opposite side. In the
bend, the main force, or what is called the thread of the
current, is within a few feet of the shore. Between
this thread and the shore there are generally counter
currents, or eddies; and in the crumbling and ten-
der alluvial so'l, the river is generally making in-
roads upon its banks on the bend side. Opposite the
b( nd there is always a sand-bar; its convexity al-
ways matched to the concavity of the bend, and it is
on these bars that those striking cotton-wood groves
arise, so regular, and rising so gradually, according
to their order of formation, always producing the im-
pression of a pleasure-ground, made of trees disposed

259

according to their age, and rising from the sapling of
the present year to the huge trees of the bottom. So
regular are these curves id all the rivers of the lower
country, that the hunters and the Indians calculate
distances by them. As, for instance, when our boat
hailed boats coming down the river, the question was,
How far have you come to day ? and the answer,
so many points ; and id turn we were told, that we
could make such a point before night. I observed
this conformation on White River, and on the St.
Francis. It is remarkably regular for a great dis-
tance on the Arkansas, and equally so, but with much
smaller circles, on Red River; making the turns very
frequently, and the angles sharp, so that the view of
the river, half a mile ahead, is often completely
closed.

There are, I think, on the Mississippi, three reach-
es between the mouth of the Ohio and the Gulf of
Mexico. These reaches, — as they are called by the
boatmen, — are places where the river is nearly
straight, and deviates from its accustomed sinuosities.
They are equally distinguished on the lower course of
the Ohio. Even in the upper Mississippi, where the
river washes the base of high perpendii ular bluffs of
Ftone, you see the same tendency, as a general law, with
a great number of deviations when its course is among
blufTs and hills. Even the Missouri, sweeping and
terrible as it is, throwing down masses of forest on
one hand, and depositing them on the other, shews its
inclination for points and bends. In fact, the most
majestic bend, which is a third part of a circle, in-
cluding forty miles in its curve, is bounded in the
greater part of this curve by a very high perpendic-
ular stone bind:

260

I have heard various demonstrations given, the re-
sult of which was to show, that a moving mass of
water, on the principles of such a kind of moving
force, will sweep a curve in one direction, be project-
ed from the point of the curve, and then sweep one
in the other. But they were unsatisfactory demon-
strations to me, and it has always seemed to me, that
in a tender and alluvial soil, and under the same cir-
cumstances, a moving mass of water ought to take the
direction of a right line. Nor does it afford a solu-
tion in my view to say, that the river finds an obstacle
which gives it a diagonal direction, and that, when
this course is once established by uniform laws, it
continues this alternation of curves. The course of
all the western rivers, in making points and bends,
is far too uniform to be produced by an accidental
cause. It appears clearly to me that the deviations
from this rule are accidental, and that the law which
creates this arrangement is uniform. I know not but it
may be the same with the Atlantic rivers, but I never
saw it so conspicuous as to remark it. Here
it is one of the first phenomena that impresses the
traveller.

At the distance of fifteen miles below the Post
of Arkansas, settlements begin to be thinly estab-
lished along the river; and from this distance to the
mouth, about forty miles, the bottoms of the river are
too much and too long inundated to be susceptible of
cultivation. In fact, up to the first bluffs, by the
course of the river, is a hundred miles. This singular
river has a very narrow skirt of soil, sometimes but a
few rods in width, and then extending half a mile
back, which is elevated so as to be above the ordinary
inundations. At the distance of a mile or two from

261

the river, there are first thick cane brakes, then a se-
ries of lakes, exactly resembling the river in their
points and bends, and in the colour of their waters.
When the river is high, it pours its redundant waters
into these lakes and Bayous, and the water is in mo-
tion for a width of twenty miles. These lakes are
covered with the large leaves, and in the proper sea-
son the flowers of the " nymphea nelumbo," the largest
and most splendid flower that I have ever seen. I
have seen them of the size of the crown of a hat ; the
external leaves of the most brilliant white, and the
internal of a beautiful yellow. They are the enlarged
copy of the New England pond lily, which has al-
ways struck me as the most beautiful and fragrant
flower of that country. These lakes are so entirely
covered with these large conical leaves, nearly of the
size of a parasol, and a smaller class of aquatic plant,
of the same, form of leaves, but with a yellow flow-
er, that a bird might walk from shore to shore without
dipping its feet in water ; and these plants rise from
all depths of water up to ten feet.

Beyond these lakes, there are immense swamps of
cypress, which swamps constitute a vast proportion of
the inundated lands of the Mississippi and its wa-
ters. No prospect on earth can be more gloomy.
The poetic Styx or Acheron had not a greater union
of dismal circumstances. Well may the cypress have
been esteemed a funereal and lugubrious tree. When
the tree has shed its leaves, for it is a deciduous tree,
a cypress swamp, with its countless interlaced branch-
es, of a hoary grey, has an aspect of desolation and
death, that often as I have been impressed with it, I
cannot describe. In summer its fine, short, and deep
srreen leaves invest these hoary branches withadra

pery of crape. The water in which they grow is a
vast and dead level, two or three feet deep, still leaving
the innumerable cypress <; knees," as they are called,
or very elliptical trunks, resembling circular bee-hives,
throwing their points above the waters. This water
is covered with a thick coat of green matter, resem-
bling green buff velvet. The mnsquitoes swarm
above the water in countless millions. A very
frequent adjunct to this horrible scenery is the moc-
cason snake with his huge scaly body lying in folds
upon the side of a cypress knee ; and if you approach
too near, lazy and reckless as he is, he throws the
upper jaw of his huge mouth almost back to his neck,
giving you ample warning of his ability and will to
defend himself. 1 travelled forty miles along this riv-
er swamp, and a considerable part of the way in the
edge of it ; in which the horse sunk at every step half
up to his knees. I was enveloped for the whole distance
with a cloud of musquitoes. Like the ancient Aver-
nus, T do not remember to have seen a single bird in
the whole distance except the blue jay. Nothing
in tempted the death -like silence, but the hum of mus-
quitoes.

There cannot be well imagined another feature to
the gloom of these vast and dismal forests, to finish
this kind of landscape, more in keeping with the rest,
than the long moss, or Spanish beard, and this fune-
real drapery attaches itself to the cypress in preference
to any other tree. There is not, that I know, an object
in nature, which produces such a number of sepul-
chral images as the view of the cypress forests, all
shagged, dark, and enveloped in the hanging festoons
of moss. If you would inspire an inhabitant of
New England, possessed of the customary portion of

feeling, with the degree of home-sickness which
would strike to the heart, transfer him instantly from
the hill and dale, the bracing air and varied scenery
of the North, to the cypress swamps of the South,
that are covered with the long moss.

This curious appendage to the trees is first visible in
the cypress swamps at about thirty-three degrees, and
is seen thence to the Gulf. It is the constant ac-
companiment of the trees in deep bottoms and swam-
py lands, and seems to be an indication of the degree of
humidity in the atmosphere. I have observed that in
dry and hilly pine woods, far from streams and stag-
nant waters, it almost wholly disappears ; but in the
pine woods it reappears as you approach bottoms,
streams, and swamps. I have remarked too, that
where it so completely envelopes the cypress, as to show
nothing but the festoons of the dark grey moss,
other trees are wholly free from it. It seems less in-
clined to attach itself to the cotton wood trees, than
to any other.

This moss, called, by what authority I know not,
tilloiidsia usneaides, is a plant of the. parasitical spe-
cies, being propagated by seed, which forms in a cap-
sule that is preceded by a very minute, but beau-
tiful purple flower. Although when the trees that
have ca^t their leaves are covered with it, they look
as if they were dead, yet the moss will not live long
on a dead tree. It is well known that this moss,
when managed by a process like that of preparing
hemp, or flax, separates from its bark, and the black
fibre that remains is not unlike horse-hair, elastic,
incorruptible, and an admirable and cheap article for
mattresses, of which are formed most of the beds of
the southern people of this region.

264

For some distance below the Post, the strip of land
on each side of the river that is above the inundation,
is of considerable width, affording a depth sufficient
for a number of cotton plantations that are contiguous
to one another, and from the resemblance of this
part of the shores of the river to the lands on the low-
er part of the Mississippi, it is called the coast.

The Post of Arkansas is situated on a level tract
of land, which has a slight elevation above the ad-
jacent bottom. It lies between two Bayous, that are
gullied very deep, on the bend of the river. The soii
about the town is poor and heavy, and covered with
shrub oaks and persimon trees. So perfectly level
is the country, that there is not a hill or a stone in
forty miles distance. The highest point of land in
all this extent is scarcely ten feet above the highest
inundations of the river. The court-house is situated
within three hundred yards of the river in front,
and about the same distance in the rear from a
swamp, into which, in high water, White River flows,
which is distant thirty miles. In all directions the
country is a dead level, and there are innumerable
communications between the rivers, in high water, by
one of which, a little below the Post, a canoe has gone
out of the Arkansas into the Washita, and from that
again into Red River, and from that into the Bayou
Chaffatiot and from that into the Gulf of Mexico, a
communication eight hundred miles in extent.

A short distance west of the town commences a
prairie of various breadth, but its medial width I
would suppose five miles. It stretches west a hun-
dred miles, preserving much the same distance from
the river the whole way, and what is surprising is, that
in its regular curves of points and bends it corres-

265

ponds very accurately to the same changes in the riv-
er. There are scattered over this vast prairie, as
over all the other alluvial prairies, islands and clusters
of trees, which have a singular effect in the landscape.
This prairie is of a soil very inferior to those in the
upper country. Instead of the black and friable soil
there, it is generally a heavy grey clay, and indented
on the surface, with innumerable little cones of earth
raised by the crawfish, a circumstance which is well
known. to indicate a cold and wet soil. The lands, that
will yield crops without manure, lie at the points of
the bends of the prairies, where the soil is uniformly
much richer than the average quality of the prairie.
But as these prairies are always skirted on their edges
with young cane, aiTor* ing winter range, as the sum-
mer range for cattle is inexhaustible; as these open
plains are more swept by the winds, and}are more free
from musquitoes, and healthier than the bottoms : all
the planters, who prefer raising cattle to cotton, are
settled on the edges of the prairies.

When I first arrived at the Post, the population of
the territory, — for it had been recently separated
from Missouri, as a territory, — amounted, probably,
to about ten thousand. These were in long and de-
tached lines, the one along the Mississippi, called the
St. Francis settlement; the other on the Mississippi
below the mouth of the river, called point Ohico set-
tlement, the settlement on the waters of White River,
a settlement far up the Arkansas, called Mulberry set-
tlement, and the settlements on the table land between
the Arkansas and lied Rivers, called Mount Prairie.

I did not travel as extensively here as in Missou-
ri ; but I travelled enough to see an ample speci-
men of the people and the country. The valley of the
34

266

Arkansas, with very little exception, is sickly. Re-
mittents and intermittents are so common, that when
a person has no more than simple fever and ague, he
is hardly allowed to claim the immunities of sickness,
and it is remarked that he has only the ague. The
autumn that I was there, it appeared to me that more
than half the inhabitants, not excepting the Creoles,
had the ague.

South of the thirty fourth degree the lands are fine
for cotton. I have no where remarked finer fields of
cotton, than at the settlement of Bairdstown, about
forty miles above the Post, on the river. The season
cannot be quite so long as it is on Red River, but the
cotton seemed not inferior in luxuriance of growth.
They affirmed, too, that the staple was equally good.
The uplands of the country are, with few exceptions,
miserable; being either flint knobs, bare hills, or
shrubby plains. Mount Prairie is a most interesting
exception. This is a circular eminence of table land,
perhaps sixteen miles in diameter, rising considerably
above the adjacent country. The soil is of a tex-
ture of marl and clay, as black as ink, rather inclined
to bake and open in fissures, but very rich. Through
this extraordinary stratum of earth, apparently the
deposit of a lake or swamp, they dig nearly an hun-
dred feet in order to find water in their wells. What
is still more extraordinary, on this curious mound,
nearly equidistant between Red and Arkansas Rivers,
and at five hundred miles distance from the Gulf of
Mexico, are found large marine shells, bleached to the
purest white, and in the greatest abundance. And
these shells are found equally intermixed with the soil
to the bottom of the wells. Being in a state of decay,
they yield a very unpleasant taste, and it is supposed

267

rather unhealthy properties to the waters. It is an
extremely rich and productive soil.

As soon as you reach the high lands north of the
Arkansas, the hillv regions, watered by White River
and its numerous branches, the country is broken into
barren knobs, is generally precipitous and poor, but,
as if in return, is delightfully watered, and has hun-
dreds of pure spring branches winding among the
hills, which, upon the falling of a shower, rise and
overflow their banks, and inundate their cane bot-
toms. They would be beautiful situations for mills,
were they not exposed to sudden inundation ; as it
is, this is the natural position for the manufacturing
establishments of the country. It is rather too much
exposed to frosts to be favourable to the culture of
cotton. But it is fine for corn and sweet potatoes.
Where it has been tried, it is affirmed that even
wheat succeeds well, and it is unquestionable that
rye yields a fine crop in southern regions, where
wheat entirely fails. On the numberless exposed
slopes, that occur in this land of hills and springs,
must certainly be the home of the cultivated grape.
At present, strange as it may seem, in this high coun-
try, where springs occur almost every mile, where
there are no swamps, and where the air, in ascending
from the boundless, marshy swamps of the Arkansas,
has a balsamic influence upon the organs, it is said,
that fevers are to the full as fatal as in the bottoms ;
and they, who ascend in the season of fever from
those low plains, have the course of their disorder
precipitated. It breaks out at once, and proves still
more unmanageable than it would have been in the
region where the seeds of it originated.

268

The plains far up the Arkansas, and at a sufficient
distance from the influence of its waters, are very dry,
have an atmosphere of great purity, and must be
healthy. They are the resorts of the Osage and
Cherokee Indians. Still farther up, the Pawnees of
the northern waters of the Arkansas meet those of
the southern waters of the Missouri ; and they are
sometimes joined by the wandering tribes of the inte-
rior provinces of Spain. Here their principal object
is to hunt the buffaloe, which is here found in greater
numbers than in any other region. These immense
naked plains, reaching from the Gulf of Mexico in
the internal provinces to the Chepywan mountains
west, and beyond the Missouri north, are almost uni-
versally untimbered. They are sufficient in extent for
large empires, are the wide range of buffaloes, elks,
and bears, and will in ages to come be the resorts of
shepherds.

On a stream denominated the Six Bull, which comes
in from the north side of the Arkansas, is situated the
mission family ; of the situation and prospects of
which, the public is sufficiently informed. Not very
far from this station, — which is in a measure connect-
ed by the Six Bull and the Osage with an establish-
ment of the same kind on the Missouri, — is the milita-
ry station on the Main River, and about six hundred
miles from its mouth.

in the vicinity of that station is the settlement called
Mulberry. It is understood that the boatable waters
of the Osage approach within an hour's walk of those
of the Six Bull 5 and thus the rivers Missouri and Ar-
kansas might easily be interlocked. Indeed, the facil-
ity with which all the western rivers, that are not in
1 his way actually connected, might be united, is a cir-

269

cumstance of astonishment to a person, acquainted
only with the Atlantic rivers.

I was at Arkansas at the setting up of the territorial
government ; and it exhibited a scene sufficiently pain-
ful and disgusting. Our government cannot be sup-
posed to be omnipresent or omniscient. Yet if all
favouritism were avoided in the appointment of offi-
cers in these distant regions ; if they took pains to
learn how these organs of their will performed their
functions, things would be different. But as it is, the
recommendations are made by members of congress,
who have cousins perhaps qualified, but who perhaps
have been a burden on their hands, and they are happy
to get rid of them by sending them to these remote re-
gions to fill the new offices, created by the erection of
a territorial government. The persons who procured
the appointment have an interest in withholding un-
favourable views, and the parties are not disposed to
betray themselves; and these men, dressed out in a
•' little brief authority," perform deeds to make u the
high heavens weep."

They were re-enacting in that distant and turbulent
region, what they would call " the blue laws " of old
Virginia, relating to gambling, breach of the Sabbath,
and the like ; and having promulgated these laws, on
the succeeding Sabbath, — in the face of their recent or-
dinances, and of a population who needed the enforce-
ment of them, — the legislators and judges would fall to
their usual vocation of gambling through the day.

The people of this region are certainly more rough
and untamed than those of the state of Missouri, or
of the more northern and western regions. J3ut yet,
even the inhabitants here were far from deserving the
character that has generally been given to the best of

270

the population of these countries. The redeeming in-
fluence of American feelings, laws, and institutions, was
sufficiently infused into the new government to carry it
into quiet effect throughout the country. Courts were
established, and whatever were the character and ex-
ample of the judges, the decisions of those courts wrere
respected. There were, indeed, some murders com-
mitted in the remote extremities of this country. In
one instance the murderer was brought to the Post,
and discharged because it was an interregnum be-
tween the dissolution of the Missouri authority and
the setting up of the new one. Two persons, who
were supposed to have murdered their partner on the
saline far up the Arkansas, under circumstances of
atrocious barbarity, were brought to the Post while I
was there. Never were seen more diabolical counte-
nances. I spoke seriously to them, but they held all
council, reproof, and fear, in utter derision. They
were imprisoned, and would undoubtedly have been
executed, but they contrived in a few days to escape.
Many amusing traits of the government of the
Spanish regime were related. They exhibited a very
great analogy to their modes of managing elsewhere.
The government consisted, as usual, of the priest, a
few soldiers, and the commandant; and the Ameri-
cans who came under their jurisdiction were consider-
ed as a dangerous species of animal, with whom the
commandant entangled himself as little as possible.
[ saw a noble looking Quawpaw chief, rather advanc-
ed in age, who was universally reported to have per-
formed a noble action for the last Spanish command-
ant. It seems that a party of the Muskogee Indians,
— as the Creek sare called by the other tribes, and by
themselves, — had penetrated to the Post, found the

271

only child of the commandant, — but just advanced
beyond the age of infancy, — so unguarded or so far
from the house, that they seized on him and carried
him off. The commandant, upon learning the fact,
was, as may naturally be supposed, in an agony. The
Quawpaw in question proposed, for some trifling com-
pensation, to follow the party down the Arkansas, and
recover the child ; and he fulfilled his promise in this
way : — he descended behind them to the grand " cut-
ofT,'? the Bayou that unites White River and the Ar-
kansas ; and at the point of the vast island made by
this Bayou, the Arkansas, and the Mississippi, he
found the savages encamped, holding high jubilee over
the roasted carcase of a bear. It is the custom of the
savages of these regions to send forward some noted
warrior, like the herald of the Romans, who, at the
commencement of the first battle, threw a javelin into
the enemy's camp, and devoted them to the infernal
gods. This warrior, as the " avant courier " of his
tribe, rushes upon the enemy, singing the war-song,
and shouting defiance. So did this intrepid Indian, —
and the Muskogees, supposing the united Spanish and
Quawpaws to be behind, sprung to their canoes, leav-
ing their utensils, their unfinished feast, their whiskey,
and the child, behind, and the crafty savage immedi-
ately seized the child, and began his return up the
river. The same savage performed an office, scarcely
less dangerous, for me, in recovering a valuable yawl
from the ferocious Choctaws, who had stolen it and
carried it far up the river.

The remaining period which I spent in this country
was, from a hundred circumstances, a time of gloom
and dejection. Every member of my family was vis-
ited with fever, except myself. The lives of two were

272

in jeopardy for a number of days. All the neighbours*
were sick, and many were dying about me. A negro
child died in my family. Our only servant was sick,
and in this season of general distress no other could be
procured. The only physician in whom we had con-
fidence, and who had been a member of my family, was
sick. The air was excessively sultry, and the mus-
quitoes troublesome to a degree, which I have not ex-
perienced before nor since. I was obliged to rise from
my bed at least, ten times a night, for forty nights. I
slept under a very close musquitoe curtain. I would
soon become oppressed for want of breath under the
curtain, and when I drew it up and attempted to inhale
a little of the damp and sultry atmosphere, the musqui-
toes would instantly settle on my face in such num-
bers that I was soon obliged to retreat behind my
curtain again. Thus passed those dreadful nights,
amidst the groans of my family, calls for medicine
and drink, surfocation behind my curtain, or the agony
of musquitoe stings, as soon as I was exposed to the
air. These were gloomy days indeed '; for during the
day the ardours of the sun were almost intolerable.
My accustomed walk, to change the scene and to diver-
sify the general gloom a little, was down a beach to-
wards the upper Bayou, under the shade of some lofty
cypress trees ; and even here, the moment I was out
of the full heat of the sun, the musquitoes, which, dur-
ing the heats of the day, took shelter in the shade,
would rise in countless swarms from the grass to at-
tack me.

During all this gloomy summer, we could not take
our food until a fire, kindled with the most offensive
materials, and under the table, dispersed its suffocating
fumes to drive them away. Even when I wrote a

273

letter, it was necessary that some one should be at
hand to brush off the musquitoes. In truth, the lower
course of the Arkansas is infested with these torment-
ing insects in a degree in which I have never seen
them elsewhere. The inhabitants, while jesting upon
the subject, used to urge this incessant torment as an
excuse for deep drinking. A sufficient quantity of
wine or spirits to produce a happy reverie, or a dozing
insensibility, had a cant, but very significant name, —
" a musquitoe dose."

There is an unknown depth of power to sustain
suffering, which is never felt in its extent, until it is
tried. It seems to me in retrospection, that such a
frail nature as mine could not have endured the
watching, the anxiety, the debility, the heat, musqui-
toes, and privations of that summer. But this I did
endure, unfriended, unaided; and with days elapsing
without seeing an individual, except the sick members
of my family.

I had preached regularly every Sabbath, in the
court-house, up to the time when my family was
taken sick. My congregation was principally French,
and although at that time my pronunciation of their
language was defective, I attempted in the best man-
ner in my power to address them in their own lan-
guage. They are always in such circumstances polite,
and seem attentive. But in regions like this, where
the habits, unchecked by any serious influence, inlaw-
ed by any example, have been gathering stability for
an age, a few sermons, be they impressive or other-
wise, cannot be expected to have much effect. One
thing has been indelibly impressed in my mind by
deep conviction ; — that religion nowhere has much in-
fluence unless its rites have some degree of uniformity,

274

unless the associations of awe, of tenderness, and of
piety, are established by frequent and long repetition.
Hence it is, that the transient labours of itinerants,
manifested in earnestness and exclamation, seem to
operate on a region over which it passes like the
flames of a stubble field. There is much appearance
of flame and smoke ; but the fire passes slightly over
the surface, and in a few days the observer sees not a
trace of the conflagration left. I did not flatter my-
self that my services were of much utility.

The French people generally camp to the place of
worship, arrayed in their ball-dresses, and went direct-
ly from worship to the ball. A billiard room was
near, and parts of my audience sometimes came in for
a moment, and after listening to a few sentences, re-
turned to their billiards. Nor is here the only place,
where the preacher has to endure the heart-wearing
agony of having an audience interchanging their at-
tention repeatedly between the sermon and the bil-
liard-room, in the delivery of one discourse.

All the conversation of my family, during their con-
valescence, was of returning either to New England,
or to Missouri. Either country, contemplated in the
strong contrast of hope and of memory, seemed to us
the happiest place of deliverance. Circumstances
that the reader can easily imagine, determined us, as
soon as our convalescence would allow us, to go on
board a boat to return to the upper country, which
alone appeared to us capable of restoring our health,
and dispelling our gloom. I could relate many inci-
dents of this period, but they all partook of the gloomy
colouring of my residence in that region, and are
therefore omitted.

275

Before I left the country, I crossed die river to view
the wretched remains of that singular class of enthusi-
asts, known in this country by the name of the " Pil-
grims.'" This whole region, it is true, wears an aspect
of irreligion ; but we must not thence infer, that we do
not often see the semblance and the counterfeit of
religion. There is no country where bigotry and en-
thusiasm are seen in forms of more glaring absurdity,
and, at the same time, of more arrogant assumption.
There were, I think, six persons of them left, — the
' prophet/"' so called, and his wife, and another wo-
man, and perhaps three children. They were sick and
poor ; and the rags with which they were originally
habited to excite attention, and to be in keeping with
their name and assumption, were now retained from
necessity. The "prophet" was too sick to impart
much information, and the others seemed reluctant to
do it. But from the wife of the prophet I gleaned
the information which follows, of their origin, pro-
gress, and em\. I have collated her information with
the most authentic notices of them, which I obtained
at every stage on the Mississippi where they were
seen, and where they stopped.

It seems that the fermenting principle of the socie-
ty began to operate in Lower Canada. A few re-
ligious people began to talk about the dcadness and
the unworthiness of all churches, as bodies, and they
were anxious to separate from them, in order to
compound a more perfect society. The enthusiasm
'•anght in other minds like a spark fallen in flax.
A number immediately sold every thing, and prepared
to commence a course towards the southwest. In
their progress through Vermont they came in contact
with other minds affected with the same longing with

276

themselves. There can be no doubt that most of them
were perfectly honest in their purpose. The " pro-
phet," a compound, like the character of Cromwell, of
hypocrite and enthusiast, joined himself to them, and
from his superior talents or contributions to the com-
mon stock of the society, became their leader. They
went on accumulating through New York, where
their numbers amounted to nearly fifty. Here they en-
countered the Shakers, and as they had some notions
in common, a kind of coalition was attempted with
them. But the Shakers are industrious and neat to a
proverb, and are more known to the community by
these traits, than any other. But industry made little
part of the religion of the Pilgrims, and neatness still
less ; for it was a maxim with them to wear the
clothes as long as they would last on the body, with-
out washing or changing ; and the more patched and
particoloured the better. If they wore one whole
shoe, the other one, — like the pretended pilgrims of
old time, — was clouted and patched. They made it a
point, in short, to be as ragged and dirty as might be.
Of course, after a long debate with the Shakers, — in
which they insisted upon industry, cleanliness, and
parting from their wives, proving abundantly and
quoting profusely that it ought to be so ; and the Pil-
grims proving by more numerous and apposite quota-
tions, that they ought to cleave to their dirt, rags,,
laziness, and wives, and that they ought to go due
southwest to find the New Jerusalem, — the logoma-
chy terminated as most religious disputes do ; each
party claimed the victory, and lamented the obduracy,
blindness, and certain tendency to everlasting destruc-
tion of the other ; and they probably parted with these
expectations of each other's doom.

277

I knew nothing of their course from that place to
New Madrid below the mouth of the Ohio. They
were then organised to a considerable degree, and had
probably eight or ten thousand dollars in common
stock. The prophet was their ruler, spiritual and
temporal. He had visions by night, which were ex-
pounded in the morning, and determined whether they
should stand still or go on ; whether they should ad-
vance by land or water ; in short every thing was set-
tled by immediate inspiration. Arrived at New
Madrid, they walked ashore in Indian file, the old
men in front, then the women, and the children in the
rear. They chanted a kind of tune, as they walked,
the burden of which was " Praise God ! Praise God ! "

Their food was mush and milk, prepared in a trough,
and they sucked it up, standing erect, through a perfo-
rated stalk of cane. They enjoined severe penances,
according to the state of grace in which the penitent
was. For the lower stages the penance was very se-
vere, as to stand for four successive days without re-
clining or sitting, to fast one or two days. In fact
fasting was a primary object of penance, both as severe
in itself, and as economical. They affected to be rag-
ged, and to have different stripes in their dresses and
caps, like those adopted in penitentiaries as badges of
the character of the convicts. So formidable a band
of ragged Pilgrims, marching in perfect order, chant-
ing with a peculiar twang the short phrase u Praise
God ! Praise God ! " had in it something imposing to
a people, like those of the West, strongly governed by
feelings and impressions. Sensible people assured
me that the coming of a band of these Pilgrims into
their houses affected them with a thrill of alarm which
they could hardly express. The untested food before

278

them lost its savour, while they heard these strange
people eall upon them, standing themselves in the pos-
ture of statues, and uttering only the words, " Praise
God, repent, fast, pray." Small children, waggish
and profane as most of the children are, were seen to
shed tears, and to ask their parents, if it would not be
fasting enough, to leave off one meal a day. Two of
their most distinguished members escaped from them
at New Madrid, not without great difficulty, and hav-
ing been both of them confined to prevent their escape.
One of them, an amiable and accomplished woman,
whose over-wrought imagination had been carried
away by their imposing rites, died soon after, worn
down by the austerities and privations which she had
endured. The husband had an emaciated look, like
the Shakers, a sweet voice for sacred music, and was
preaching in union with the Methodists. At Pilgrim
Island, thirty miles below, and opposite the Little
Prairie, they staid a long time.

Here dissensions began to spring up among them.
Emaciated with hunger, and feverish from filth and the
climate, many of them left their bones. They were
ordered by the prophet, from some direct revelation
which he received, to lie unburied ; and their bones
were bleaching on the island when we were there.
Some escaped from them at this place, and the sheriff
of the county of New Madrid, indignant at the star-
vation imposed as a discipline upon the little children,
carried to them a pirogue of provisions, keeping off
with his sword the leaders, who would fain have pre-
vented these greedy innocents from satiating their ap-
petites.

While on this island, a great number of boatmen
are said to have joined, to take them at their profes-

279

sion of having no regard for the world, or the things of
it, and robbed them of all their money, differently
stated to be between five and ten thousand dollars.
From this place, reduced in number by desertion and
death, in their descent to the mouth of the Arkansas,
there were only the numbers surviving, which I saw.
When I asked the wife of the prophet, why, instead
of descending in the summer to the sickly country,
they had not ascended to the high and healthy re-
gions of Cape Girardeau, in order to acclimate them-
selves before their descent ; their answer was, that
such calculations of worldly wisdom were foreign to
their object; that they did not study advantage, or
calculate to act as the world acts upon such subjects,
but that suffering was a part of their plan. When
I asked them, why they deserted their station at the
mouth of the Arkansas on the Mississippi ; they an-
swered, that they could neither get corn, pumpkins, nor
milk, at the mouth of the river, as the people there
had neither fields nor cows : that they could obtain all
these things in the region where they were, and
had come thither for this purpose. When I ob-
served to them that this was reasoning precisely of a
character with that, which I had been recommending to
them, in respect to ascending the river to Cape Gi-
rardeau, and that, unknown to themselves, they were
acting upon the universal principle of attempting to
better their condition; they discovered that the) had
committed themselves, and had proved, that they act-
ed from motives contrary to their avowed principles,
and replied, that they were not used to such discus-
sions, and that they reasoned as differently from the
world, as they acted. This history of the delusion,
and destruction of between thirty and forty people,

280

most of them honest and sincere, left a deep and melan-
choly impression of the universal empire of bigotry, and
its fatal influences in all ages and countries. To this
narrative I shall only add, that I heard an aged man, with
a long beard, preaching, as they called it, at New Ma-
drid. He descended the Mississippi a year after these
unfortunate people, and he also called himself a Pil-
grim. He was as wild and visionary as they were,
and talked and acted like a maniac. He was descend-
ing the Mississippi, as he said, to the real Jerusalem
in Asia. He appeared deeply impressed, that by
going on in that direction he should finally reach that
city. There was a numerous audience, and I heard
many of them expressing their admiration of his
preaching. Let none think that the age of fanati-
cism has gone by.

I will record in this place another narrative that
impressed me deeply. It was a fair sample of the
cases of extreme misery and desolation, that are often
witnessed on this river. In the Sunday school at New
Madrid we received three children, who were intro-
duced to that place under the following circumstances.
A man was descending the river with these three children
in his pirogue. He and his children had landed
on a desert island, on a bitter snowy evening of De-
cember. There were but two houses, which were
at Little Prairie, opposite the island, within a great dis-
tance. He wanted more whiskey, although he had
already been drinking it too freely. Against the per-
suasions of his children he left them, to cross over
in his pirogue to these houses, and renew his sup-
ply. The wind blew high, and the river was
rough. Nothing would dissuade him from this dan-
gerous attempt. He told them that he should return

281

to them that night, left them in tears, and exposed
to the pitiless pelting of the storm, and started
for liis carouse. The children saw the boat sink,
before he had half crossed the passage. The man
was drowned. These forlorn beings were left with-
out any other covering, than their own scanty and
ragged dress, for he had taken Ids last blanket with
him. They had neither fire, nor shelter; and no
other food than uncooked pork and corn. It snowed
fast, and the night closed over them in this situation.
The elder was a girl of six years, but remarkably
shrewd and acute for her age. The next was a girl
of four, and the youngest, a boy of two. It was af-
fecting to hear her describe her desolation of heart, as
she set herself to examining her resources. She made
them creep together and draw their bare feet under her
clothes. She covered them with leaves and branches,
and thus they passed the first night.

In the morning the younger children wept bitterly
with cold and hunger. The pork she cut into small
pieces and made them chew corn with these pieces.
She then persuaded them to run about by setting
them the example. Then she made them return to
chewing corn and pork. It should seem as if Prov-
idence had a special eye to these poor children, for
in the course of the day some Indians landed on die
Island, found them, and as they were coming up to
New Madrid, took them with them.

In a cabin at the mouth of the Arkansas, I saw a
woman, apparently very sick of fever and ague, lying
on the floor of the cabin, on a bear skin, with an
infant babe also sick by her side. She had been
evidently a beautiful woman, and by her countenance,
and her manner, as well as by remnants of tattered
36

382

lace and finery, I saw that she had not been born and
reared in this country. I asked her for her story
With great labour and exhaustion, and with accents
often interrupted, she told me the following tale. She
was born in London, and had married a sergeant in the
British army. He had been ordered on the service
against New Orleans. After the defeat of the eighth
of January, he was a prisoner, and chose to remain in
the country She had crossed the Atlantic in pursuit
of her truant husband, had landed at New York, and
made her way to Cincinnati ; being here in extreme
misery and want, and in despair of ever finding her
husband, she had, as the horrid but familiar phrase of
this country is, "taken up with a man " at Cincinnati,
by whom she had this child. After living with her a
few months, he had deserted her. She then came
down in a boat, until within sixty miles of the Arkansas,
had then and there been taken extremely ill of fever
and ague, and had been taken in by a family who
kept her as long as she had any clothes or trinkets
left. The men of the family had then taken her from
bed after sunset, put her in a pirogue, and rowed her
down during the night to the mouth of the river, and
there left her on the sand-bar. The hank which it
was necessary to mount, before arriving at a house,
Wns sixty feet high. She made various attempts, as
the morning sun began to beat upon her head, to
mount this bank, in hope of finding either a house, or
shelter. All her exertions failed, and she laid herself
down and tried to resign herself to die.

It happened that some men, who cut wood for the
steam -boats, hoarded at the house above the bank.
They were crossing the river a third of a mile above
the mouth, to go to their morning task. They heard

283

the wailings of the infant that was lying by its moth-
er. One of the men insisted that the cries were those
of a child. The rest ridiculed the idea, and insisted
that it was the scream of owls, that in these countries
often utter their notes in the morning. He would not
he ridiculed out of his persuasion, crossed back to the
side of the river from which he started, descended it
to the mouth, and there on the bar found the woman
and her babe. She was taken in at the house on the
bank, and treated as kindly as their circumstances
would admit. We gave her counsel, and a small sum
of money, collected in common from all who heard
her story, and left her. I know nothing of her histo-
ry beyond that time.

When we arrived at the mouth of the river, we found
the Mississippi lower than it had been for thirty years.
No steam-boat was expected for some time, at least not
until the river should rise. We concluded, as we had
a comfortable boat, to make use of our sails when the
wind would serve, and make as much of our way as we
could with only two hands. We went on securely,
though slowly, to the mouth of the St. Francis, nearly
a hundred miles, and it was a work of twelve days.
The season was more beautiful than I can describe,
and the moon shone sweetly on the clean white sand-
bars.

At the St. Francis settlement, we were acquainted
with an opulent family of the name of Phillips. The}
hospitably urged us to spend the winter there. Mr.
Phillips offered us part of his house, an apartment
sufficiently large and commodious. Considering the
circumstances of my family at this time, it was my
wish and my advice to stay. Mrs. F. was so ex-
tremely anxious to reach the upper country, that wc
concluded to go directly on.

Soon after we loft the St. Francis, both our hands
were taken ill of fever and ague, and we were oblig-
ed to leave them behind. We were now left with
none but my own family, in the midst of the wilder-
ness, the heavy current of the Mississippi against us,
and more than four hundred miles still before us.
The river was so low, that steam-boats were scarce
on it, and the i'ew that attempted to ascend it were
aground on the sand bars. In fact, no boats were
seeu ascending or descending, and it seemed impossi-
ble for us to procure hands in lieu of those who had
left us on account of sickness. The wind generally
blew up the stream, and was favourable for sailing, ex-
cept in the curves, or bends of the river, which were
often so deep as to cause that the wind, which was
directly in favour at one point of the bend, would be
directly against us at the other. We made use of our
sail, when it would serve, and of our cordelle, when
it would not; and in this way we went on cheerfully,
though with inexpressible fatigue to myself, to the
point between the first and the middle Chickasaw
bluff. In arriving here, we had the most beautiful
autumnal evenings that I ever witnessed. We were
" a feeble folk," alone in the wilderness. The owls,
forty in concert, and in every whimsical note, from
the wailings of an infant babe, to the deep grunt of
a drunken German, gave us their serenade. Ever and
anon, a wolf would raise his prolonged and dismal
howl in the forests. The gabbling of numberless
water fowls of every description on the sand-bars,
was a kind of tambourine to the grand accompaniment
of the owls and the wolves. The swan you know nat-
urally plays the trumpet. My family had the ague, and
the paroxysm creates a kind of poetical excitement,

285

so that a person who is just rising from the fit, is in
the highest degree capable of enjoyment, in a state of
mind not unlike that produced by the agency of
opium. Then, when we were made fast in a cove on
the wide sand bar : when the moon, with her circum-
ference broadened and reddened by the haze and
smoke of Indian summer, rose, ami diffused, as Cha-
teaubriand so beautifully says, the " great secret of
melancholy over these ancient forests;" — alter our
evening prayers, and the favourite hymn, ''The day is
past and jjone," &-c- I have spent hours in traversing
the sand-bars entirely alone.

But I hasten to matters more appropriate to my
narrative. I could describe to you two days of exces-
sive fatigue, in which we made repeated attempts to
pass a rapid place in the river, too rapid to be passed
with oars, too muddy to afford bottom for poles, and
the shore a quagmire for a mile in extent, and of course
not admitting the use of a cordelle. We tried to sur-
mount this place for two days, and failed, exhausted
in ever} attempt. We crossed the river, anil attempt-
ed to ascend on the bend sine, to a point, where (ali-
en-in timber forbade our going higher. We then re-
crossed, and both times fell below the impassable place.
Discouraged and wearied out, we gave up the attempt,
aad expected to lie there, until a rise in the rivet
should enable us to pass the place, or until a passing
steam-boat might tow us up. How often do we find
relief at a moment of tie' deepest despondency! .Just.
as we had agreed to lie by, and had resigned ourseh
to our lot, a fine breeze sprang up, we hoisted our sail,
and passed the difficult place with perfect ease

A difficulty still more formidable now awaited us.
We had expected to be able each day to replenish

286

our stork of provisions from the descending boats.
The season was sultry, and we took with us no more*
than could be preserved from clay to day. We were
in this wilderness eight days without seeing a single
boat pass. You can easily imagin° what followed.
Fortunately we at length descried a flat boat descend-
ing ; we hailed her, and she told us to come on board.
We did, and were lashed beside her. She instantly
discovered our situation, and made her own calcula-
tions ; and we paid thirty dollars for a barrel of pork
and one of flour, meanwhile descending the river three
miles, which we were obliged, with great toil, to re-
mount, in order to gain the point where we hailed the
boat.

We arrived opposite to the second Chickasaw bluff
on the twenty-sixth of November. The country on
the shore receives and deserves the emphatic name of
" wilderness." At ten in the morning we perceived
indications of a severe approaching storm. The air
was oppressively sultry. Brassy clouds were visible
upon all quarters of the sky. Distant thunder was
heard. We were upon a wide sand bar far from any
house. Opposite to us was a vast cypress swamp. At
this period, and in this place, Mrs. F. was taken in
travail. My children, wrapped in blankets, laid them-
selves down on the sand-bar. I secured the boat in
every possible way against the danger of being driven
by the storm into the river. At eleven the storm burst
upon us in all its fury. Mrs. F. had been salivated
during her fever, and had not yet been able to leave
her couch. I was alone with her in this dreadful sit-
uation. Hail, and wind, and thunder, and rain in tor-
rents poured upon us. 1 was in terror, lest the wind
would drive uay boat, notwithstanding all her fasten-

287

ings, into the river. No imagination can roach what I
endured. The only alleviating circumstance was her

perfect tranquillity. She knew that the hour of sor-
row, and expected that of death, was come. She was
so perfectly calm, spoke with such tranquil assurance
about the future, and about the dear ones that were at
this moment " 'biding the pelting of the pitiless storm '
on the sand-bar, that I became calm myself. A little
after twelve the wind burst in the roof of my boat, and
let in the glare of the lightning, and the torrents of
rain upon my poor wife. 1 could really have ex-
postulated with the elements in the language of the
poor old Lear. I had wrapped my wile in blankets,
ready to be carried to the shelter of the forest, in case
of the driving of my boat into the river. About four
the fury of the storm began to subside. At five the
sun in his descending glory burst from the dark masses
of the receding clouds. At eleven in the evening
Mrs. F. was safely delivered of a female infant, and
notwithstanding all, did well. The babe, from pre-

ceding circumstances, was feeble and sickly, and I saw
could uot survive. At miduight we had raised a blaz-
ing fire. The children came into the boat. Supper
was prepared, and we surely must have been ungrate-
ful not to have sung a hymn of deliverance. There
can be but one trial more for me that can surpass the
agony of that day, and there can never be on this
earth a happier period than those midnight hours.
The babe staid with us but two days and an half, and
expired. The children, poor things, laid it deeply to
heart, and raised a loud lament. We were, as I have
remarked, far away from all human aid and sympa-
thy, and left alone with God. We deposited the body
of our lost babe. — laid in a small trunk for a coffin. —

288

in a grave amid the rushes, there to await the resur-
rection of the dead. The prayer made on the occa-
sion by the lather, with the children for concourse and
mourners, if not eloquent, was, to us at least, deeply
affecting The grave is on a high bank opposite to the
second Chickasaw bluff, and I have since passed, the
rude memorial which we raised on the spot ; and I
passed it, carrying to you my miserable and exhausted
frame, with little hope of its renovation, and in the
hourly expectation of depositing my own bones on the
banks of the Mississippi. But enough, and too much,
of all this.

After this disaster, we found two excellent hands,
whom we engaged to assist us to work our boat to
the upper country. Little occurred between this and
our reaching that country, worth relating. You are
aware that for the sake of something a iittle like ar-
rangement, in these desultory remarks, I have thrown
together the events that happened to us after our re-
turn, and that they have been already related under
the general head of our first residence in the upper
country. I remember being deeply impressed with
the view of the Missouri at St. Charles, after an ab-
sence of two years. It has been always a most im-
pressive spectacle to me. You, perhaps, will smile,
that the sight of this river produced one of those poetic
explosions, that have so seldom occurred to me as to
be eras. To transcribe the result to you, would be the
jackdaw croacking to the swan. You know that I
never assumed to be acquainted with the muses, and
never flattered myself that I possessed more than the
madness, without the inspiration, of poetry. But you
have charged me to tell all. So here you have lines
occasioned by revisiting the Missouri.

289

REFLECTION'S ON CROSSING THE MISSOURI.

Missouri, king of floods ! my pilgrim course
Once more has led me to thy turbid wave.
Thy broad expanse, re-opening on my eye,
Calls up anew the fading images,
And shifting scenes of joy and sorrow felt
In long sojourn, while wandering on thy shores.
How oft at solemn eve 1 've heard the roar
Gigantic of thy sweeping tide, among
The funeral columns of thy fallen sons,
Who erst in filial piety held out
Their verdant arms to shade thy banks ;
Till, undermined by thee, with thundering crash.
They fell, imbedded de^ep beneath thy wave.
Oft have 1 seen thy feathered chiefs moor in
Their frail canoe from the far distant west ;
Or hunter's bark, responsive to the song
Of sturdy oarsmen, measured to the oar.
Imagination, kindled by thy course
lnterminous, thy rapid-whirling tide,
Kas traced thy devious channel to its source.
Where from a thousand snow-topt piles
Precipitous of nameless mountains, vast
And drear, a thousand urns pour down
Thy tribute, clear, pellucid as the air;
Till, mingling with thy level world below,
Thou tak'st the stain hat such alliance gives.
Borne on thy bosom I have coursed thee down,
'Midst hills, and cliffs, and outstretched prairies smooth,
\\ here antelopes, and bounding elk. and buffalo
Lave in thy stream, and from afar espy
The ascending bark, and at the unwonted vi'V.
Of man, they snuff the air of Iiberl
And hie away, where trace- of his •■
" 37

290

Are never seen. And I delight to view
The dress fantastic, and the giant forms
Of varying hordes, thy wandering foresters,
Who rise, mature, and die, amidst thy vales
Unknown ; unconscious that the pride of man
Has called for more than thou canst give.
And still thy volume swells, advancing on
With added tribute from a hundred streams
That wind amidst their own vast solitudes;
Till, far away from those hoar hills and rocks,
Whence thou didst spring, great nature's reign,
In thy rich intervals and forests deep,
I hear the tinkling bell, the woodman's axe,
The baying dogs, the lowing herds, and see
The first faint efforts rude of social toil.

And then anticipation, rapt away,
Forestals thy future glory, when thy tide
Shall roll by towns, and villages, and farms,
Continuous, amidst the peaceful hum
Of happy multitudes, fed from thy soil ;
When the glad eye shall cheer at frequent view
Of gilded spires of halls, still vocal with the task
Of ripening youth ; or churches sounding high,
Hosannas to the living God. Mark now!
Sure harbinger of thy renown in days to come,
Against thy mighty force moves proudly on
The gay steam-boat ; tracing her path in foam,
And from her croaking tube emitting high
The curling smoke. The wild uproar suspends
The mellow whistle of thy favourite bird,
That marks his frighted course 'mid the green leaves.
In living, purple light. Thou, mighty stream!
Not only nourishest the beauteous mead,
That teems with flowers of every scent and hue,
And forests dark and deep; but thou giv'st birth
To solemn thought, and moral musings high ;
For I remember well, when from the gates
Of death arising, feeble, faint, and wan,

291

And trembling on my staff, I gained thy bank,
And first inhaled again thy cooling breeze;
1 drew strong contrast of thy mighty force,
With human feebleness; thy lengthened path
And everlasting roll, with life's short span.
Thy current, too, still urging on to meet
The ocean-wave, su^csted clear to me
My own brief passage down the tide of time
To thy dread shore, Eternity ! the place
Of union with those dear and distant friends,
Who started with mo at life's opening dawn.

I have touched already on the sickness that myself
and all m\ family experienced on our arrival in the
" point," below St. Charles, where we afterwards
cultivated a small farm. In this position, and in this
period of dismay, we received from you, and from that
friend, so noble, so disinterested in his kindnesses,
proofs of a remembrance so different from the com-
mon tokens of friendship, that I dare not trust my pen
or my heart in the expression of my feelings. If my
career and my sufferings have been somewhat differ-
ent from the common lot, my friends have differed si ill
more from those of the every-day class, that are called
by that name. 1 have, perhaps, my share of pride.
But gratitude is not a proud feeling. Were it not that
I have a dear family, who will, 1 hope, survive me, I
would tell all. I would at least do one good thing for
my age and country. I would prove by unquestion-
able fact, that in an age when selfishness and avarice
seem to increase with the increasing refinement of the
day, and with the increasing ability of wealth to pur-
chase enjoyment, there are at least some minds, which
"modern degeneracy has not reached." M Age, mac-

te virtute." The doings of such minds need not be
blazoned. " They are satisfied from themselves."
By the help and the advice of those friends, in the
autumn of 1822 we descended the Mississippi to iNevv
Orleans.

LETTER XXlll.—JYEJV ORLEANS.

The fourth of Oct. 1822, Mr. William Postell, a re-
spectable citizen of St. Charles, and myself having
built a flat boat in company, and fitted it for the re-
ception of a family, we began to descend the upper
Mississippi for New Orleans. We had descended but
a few miles, when we were brought up by a sand bar,
on which we lay four days. Having unloaded the
boat, and got off the sand-bar, we passed the mouth
of the Missouri, and arrived at St. Louis on Saturday
evening. On the Sabbath I preached to a v^ry seri-
ous audience a farewell discourse. Many circum-
stances concurred to give solemnity to this parting.
From this place to the mouth of the Arkansas nothing
material occurred ; and having passed through this
region and attempted to describe it before, it is un-
necessary to add any thing here. We passed this
river the last of October. There is a settlement fifty
miles below its mouth, called Point Ohieo. With
this small exception, the greater proportion of the
country is an unbroken and inundated wilderness,
for nearly two hundred miles. At Point Ohico, or
the great Cypress Bend, we first discover that very
singular drapery that appends itself to the forests,
and gives them such a funereal gloom, the long

293

moss. About the same place we first see that we are
in a new climate, by witnessing the palmetto, or fan
palm, a beautiful evergreen, having a character ap-
parently between a shrub and an herb, and of which 1
shall hereafter attempt a description. I have per-
haps remarked, that there is but one bluff visible on
the west shore of the Mississippi, from Cape Girar-
deau to New Orleans. That is the St. Francis bin If.
On the eastern shore, the bluffs appear, bounding the
river, or in many places in the distance. Below the
mouth of the Ohio there come in no important riv-
ers, until you arrive at the mouth of the Yazoo, of
famous memory in the ancient Georgia land specula-
tions. Soon ai'ler you pass the mouth of that river,
your eye is cheered with the green heads of the Wal-
nut Hills. They are beautiful and rich eminences,
clad with an abundance of those trees whose name
they bear. Here, too, you begin to see the southern
style of building, the indications of being among the
opulent cotton-planters. The stranger inquires the
object and use of a cluster of little buildings that lie
about the principal house, like bee-hives. These are
the habitations of the negroes. When 1 descended the
.Mississippi, there was no village on the eastern shore
of the river, above Warrentou. A very considerable
village, Vicksburgr, has arisen between (hat time and
this, at some distance above : and from the number ol
houses and stores, and of boats lying in the harbour, I
should suppose it a place of considerable trade. A
town in this region, with a fortunate location, is like
Jonah's gourd, the growth of a night.

Asa general remark it may be observed, that from
the commencement of the Walnut Hills to Baton
Rou^e, between two and three hundred miles, the

294

bluffs either bound the river, or approach very near to
it on the eastern shore. They have every variety of
form, and are often of the most whimsical conforma-
tion, and crowned with beach and hickory trees.
Here also you begin to discover ihe ever- verdant laurel
magnolia, with its beautiful foliage of the thickness
and the feeling of leather. The holly and a variety of
evergreens beein to show themselves among the other
trees. On the opposite shore, you still have the som-
bre and inundated forest, deep covered with its drape-
ry of crape, and here and there indented with its
plantation.

Warrenton is the first considerble village below
New Madrid. Indeed there are two villages com-
menced, the one on the high bluff, formely called Fort
Pickering, and now Memphis, in Alabama, and anoth-
er at the St. Francis bluffs, in the territory of Arkansas.
They are both inconsiderable. At Warrenton there are
regular streets, brick buildings, and good houses and
stores, and I should suppose nearly one hundred
dwellings. In descending, we passed part of a day
and a night here. I inquired if there were, in the
village, any professors of religion ; and I was directed
to a young lady, whose husband had something of
the appearance of a dandy, and who answered my
inquiries about the profession of his wife, with a
shrug, and a half-suppressed smile, informing me that
she was a Methodist, but would be glad to converse
with any person who wore the garb and appearance
of a minister. He gave me clearly to understand that
it was no affair of his, and that I must converse with
her alone. She spoke discouragingly about the wil-
lingness of the people to assemble for public worship.
1 retired, considering it as a hopeless attempt, and in-

295

tendmg to pass on without any public exorcise. But
in the course of the evening a number of the citizens
came on board, offering their houses, and wishing to
have public worship. There was a full house and
apparently an attentive audience. When we left, the
next morning, the people expressed regret, that in so
considerable a village, in the midst of an opulent set-
tlement, whence very considerable1 quantities of cot-
ton were shipped, the people should have so little
public spirit, and so little religious feeling, as to have
no place of public worship.

Natchez is romantically situated, in two divisions.
The river business is transacted at the town, " under
the hill/'* as it is called, a repulsive place, the centre
of all that is vile, from the upper and lower country.
At the proper season a thousand boats are lying here
at the landing, and the town is full of boatmen, nm-
lattoes, houses of ill fame, and their wretched tenants,
in short, the refuse of the world. The fiddle screaks
jargon from these faucibus orci. You see the
unhappy beings dancing; and here they have what are
called "rows," which often end in murder. The
town is situated on the summit of a bluff, three hun-
dred feet in height, from which you look upon the
cultivated strip of Concordia, on the opposite shore,
in the state of Louisiana, and the boundless and level
summits of the cypress swamps beyond. On the
eastern side, the country is waving, rich, and beautiful ;
the eminence is crowned with neat country lion
The town itself is quiet, the streets broad, some of
the public buildings handsome, and the whole has ihe
appearance of comfort and opulence. It is the prin-
cipal town in this region for the shipment of cotton,
With bales of which, at the proper >D, ihe at*

296

are almost barricaded. Some of the planters who re-
side here are opulent. I remember to have heard a
Mrs. Turner spoken of, as possessing a great planta-
tion, and " force," as the phrase is. The income of
the planters is, in some seasons, from ten to forty
thousand dollars a year. The Baptists, Methodists,
and Presbyterians, have each a church here. The
Presbyterian church and society is large and respecta-
ble. A stranger is kindly received by the opulent
people of this town, — city I should say, for they call it
so. It has a < harming aspect of quietness and repose.
Here too, you see the ruins of Fort Rosalie, and the
scene of the wild, but splendid and affecting romance
of Atala. You can refer to the census for the num-
ber of the inhabitants. You know that I write " with-
out book." I should suppose that both towns, the
upper and lower, might contain seven or eight thousand
inhabitants. • Notwithstanding its cleanliness, ele-
vation, and apparent purity of atmosphere, it has had
repeated and severe visitations of yellow fever.

On the opposite shore, the state of Louisiana is
bounded by the western shore of the Mississippi, a
considerable distance above this; the limits between it
and the territory of Arkansas being 3o^. The state
of Mississippi extends on the eastern shore for a con-
siderable distance below. The scenery has little va-
riation. You are struck with the curious stripes of
red, yellow, and white, in the earth of the bluff banks
on the eastern shore. They mark tiie strata of the
soil, and are of wonderful regularity. The planta-
tions, too, become more common, and the streets of
little buildings, that cluster about the principal one, in-
dicate a greater number of negroes. Eighty miles be-
low Natchez, on the western, or Louisiana side, comes

297

in Red Fiver, of which I moan to speak in another
place. Not far from the point opposite to the month of
this river, the sate o( L misiana is bounded by Missis-
sippi, and the river runs wholly in that state to the
Gulf of Mexico.

At about one hundred and fifty miles above New
Orleans commences the levee, on the western shore.
It is an artificial mound of earth, of considerable ele-
vation, raised to prevent the inundation of the river.
It commences, too, on the eastern shore, a little below
this, and is continued on both sides to New Orleans.
Were it not for these mounds, this rich, beautiful, and
productive strip of soil, called " the coast," would be
annually inundated. At Point Coupe, the coast
commences in its beauty. Here you begin to see
orange groves, and the spreading, and verdant branch-
es of the live-oak. Here, too, you see that mag-
nificent plant, which the French call " peet," with its
foliage perfectly green during the winter, and the
extremities of its leaves terminating with a thousand
thorny points. In this village lived, and died, Mr.
Poydras, greatly distinguished for his wealth and
benevolence. Let the great have columns, and their
names be " written on a pillar/'* when they die ; for
me, I would covet, above all things, the monument of
Poydras. He endowed orphan asylums in the city
of New Orleans ; he gave the proceeds of a hand-
some property, twenty thousand dollars, I believe,
to be distributed in marriage portions to a num-
ber of poor girls in the adjoining parishes; and he
left various other magnificent charities. He left in
particular an ample endowment to the school in lii^
own parish.

298

Opposite to this place is the town of St. Francisville,
a considerable village, in which is published a weekly
paper. It is the seat of justice for the parish of Feli-
ciana, a parish affording fine plantations, and possessing
a broken but very rich soil. There are about this town
many delightful plantations and houses. The owners
have had the taste and discernment to leave beautiful
groves of trees about their houses. Here the different
species of laurel trees begin to make a considerable
proportion of the whole forest. The planters in this
vicinity are " novi homines " — men who have made
their own fortunes. Many of them are very opulent,
and vast quantities of cotton are shipped from this
place.

Below here you begin to discover that a new and
most beautiful species of cultivation, — the sugar-cane,
— alternates with the cotton-fields. Baton Rouge is a
village charmingly situated on the eastern bank of the
Mississippi, one hundred and fifty miles above New
Orleans. It is the last of the bluffs on the eastern
shore. It does not, like the bluffs above, rise perpen-
dicularly from the river, but by a gentle and gradual
swell. The United States barracks are built in a fine
style, and are, I should suppose, among the most com-
modious works of that class. From the esplanade,
the prospect is most delightful, including a great ex-
tent of the coast, with its handsome houses and rich
cultivation below, and commanding an extensive view
into the back country at the east. There are general-
ly two or three companies of United States troops
stationed here, under high discipline, and with a fine
band of music. On the parade stands a beautiful
monument of white marble, consecrated to the mem-
ory of some officers of the garrison, who deceased

299

here. It is not an expensive, but a very striking mon-
ument ; and the inscription is worth recording, as tend-
ing, perhaps, to show how very important a being
man is in these regions, where disease and mortality
are so common. As far as my memory serves me,
these are the verses after the record of the names and
ages of the deceased :

" Like bubbles on a sea of matter borne,
We rise, we burst, and to that sea return."'

It is matter of regret, that in a country professedly
christian, any inscription should ever find a place on a
funeral monument, that bears no allusion to our hope
of immortality.

In the winter of 1823, in January, I ascended the
Mississippi. The verdure of the country about this
town, as seen from the steam-boat, was brilliant ; and
the town itself, rising with such a fine swell from the
river, with its singularly shaped French and Spanish
houses, and green squares, looked in the distance
like a fine landscape painting. The village is com-
pact, and probably contains two or three thousand
inhabitants. I might remark, that below the mouth
of Red River, below this town, at different points
between this and the Gulf, there burst out of the
Mississippi what are called Bayous, which form very
considerable rivers, and carry off no inconsiderable
portions of the waters of the river by their own sepa-
rate channels to the Gulf of Mexico. Some of them
are boatable, and, like the parent stream, have high
and cultivated banks.

Below Baton Rouge the banks on both sides of the
river become uniform. The levee is continuous. The
cultivation of cotton, sugar-cane, and rice, has become
regular. The breadth of the cultivated lands is gene-

300

rally two miles ; a perfectly uniform strip, conforming
to the shape of the river, and every where bounding
the deep forests of the Mississippi swamp with a regu-
lar line. In the whole distance to New Orleans,
plantation touches plantation. I have seen in no part
of the United States such a rich and highly cultivated
tract of the same extent. It far exceeds that on the
banks of the Delaware. Noble houses, massive sugar-
houses, neat summer-houses, and numerous negro
villages succeed each other in such a way, that the
whole distance has the appearance of one continued
village. The houses are airy and neat, some of them
splendid, and in the midst of orange groves and pretty
gardens, in which are the delicious cape jessamine, a
flowering shrub, multitudes of altheas, bowers of the
multiflora rose, and a great variety of vines and flower-
ing shrubs, that flourish in this mild climate. Among
the noblest of the plantations is that of General Hamp-
ton, one of the questionable heroes of the late war.

It produces a painful sensation in the mind of a seri-
ous Protestant, that there is not discoverable in all the
distance from St. Francisville to New Orleans, on
cither shore, a single Protestant house of worship.
We need not cross the ocean to Hindostan to find
whole regions destitute of even the forms of christian
worship. The Catholics have, indeed, churches here;
and the spires, seen at intervals of six or seven miles,
cheer the eye. In ascending or descending through
this richest agricultural district, in the Union, the trav-
eller has an eager curiosity during the first passage.
There is a novelty and freshness in the picture which
keeps alive curiosity. But the country is so level, the
mansions so uniform, the fields so exactly alike, and
the whole aspect has such a tiresome sameness, that a

301

traveller is apt to sail a second time past this rich land-
scape without interest or curiosity. It is indeed al-
ways pleasant to see the fields, the gardens, the line
houses, apparently moving; past as you descend, like
the landscapes in a magic lantern. There is one
curious circumstance worthy of notice in this descent,
especially if the river rises to its banks. You seem to
move on an elevated plain, and you look down on the
subjacent plantations some feet below you. The
strokes of the axe and the report of guns have a sin-
gular sound in the ear, as though the noise com-
menced under water.

One hundred miles from the mouth of the Mississippi,
and something more than a thousand from the mouth
of the. Ohio, just below a sharp point of the river, ir>
situated on its east bank, the city of New Orleans,
the great commercial capital of the Mississippi val-
ley. The position for a commercial city is unri-
valled, I believe, by any one in the world. At a prop-
er distance from the Gulf of Mexico, — on the banks
of a stream which may be said almost to water a
world, — but a little distance from Lake Ponchartrain,
and connected with it by a navigable canal, — the im-
mense alluvion contiguous to it, — penetrated in all di-
rections either by Bayous formed by nature, or canals
which cost little more trouble in the making, than
ditches, — steamboats visiting it from fifty different
shores, — possessing the immediate agriculture of its
own state, the richest in America, and as rich as any in
the world, with the continually increasing agriculture of
the upper country, its position far surpasses that of
New York itself. It has one dreary drawback — the in-
salubrity of its situation. Could the immense swamps
between it and the binds be drained, and the improve-

302

merits commenced in the city be completed ; in short,
could its atmosphere ever become a dry one, it would
soon leave the greatest cities of the Union behind.

Great efforts are making towards this result. Un-
happily, when the dogstar rises upon its sky, the yel-
low fever is but too sure to come in its train. Not-
withstanding the annual, or at least the biennial visits
of this pestilence ; although its besom sweeps off mul-
titudes of unacclimated poor, and compels the rich to
fly ; notwithstanding the terror, that is every where as-
sociated with the name of the city, it is rapidly ad-
vancing in population. When I visit the city, after
the absence of a season, I discover an obvious change.
New buildings have sprung up, and new improvements
are going on. Its regular winter population, between
forty and fifty thousand inhabitants, is five times the
amount which it had, when it came under the Ameri-
can government. The external form of the city on
the river side is graduated in some measure to the
curve of the river. The street that passes along the
levee, and conforms to the course of the river, is cal-
led Levee street, and is the one in which the great-
est and most active business of the city is transacted.
The upper part of the city is principally built and in-
habited by Americans, and is called the " fauxbourg
St. Mary." The greater number of the houses in
this fauxbourg are of brick, and built in the American
style. In this quarter are the Presbyterian church
and the new theatre. The ancient part of the city,
as you pass down Levee* street towards the Cathedral,
has in one of the clear, bright January mornings, that
are so common at that season, an imposing and bril-
liant aspect. There is something fantastic and unique
in the appearance, I am told, far more resembling Eu-

303

ropean cities, than any other in the United States.
The houses are stuccoed externally, and this stucco is
white or yellow, and strikes the eye more pleasantly
than the dull and sombre red of brick. There can be
no question, but the American mode of building is at
once more commodious, and more solid and durable,
than the French and Spanish : but I think the lat-
ter have the preference in the general effect upon the
eye. Young as the city is, the effect of this humid
climate, operating upon the mouldering materials, of
which the buildings are composed, has already given
it the aspect of age, and to the eye, it would seem
the most ancient city in the United States. The
streets are broad, and the plan of the city is perfectly
rectangular and uniform. There are in the limits of
the city three malls, or parade grounds, of no great
extent, and not yet sufficiently shaded, though young
trees are growing in them. They serve as parade
grounds, and in the winter have a beautiful carpet of
clover, of a most brilliant green. Royal and Charter
streets are the most fashionable and splendid in the
city. The parade ground, near the basin, which is
a harbour, dug out to receive the lake vessels, is the
most beautiful of the parades.

Its most conspicuous public buildings, arc the cathe-
dral, the Presbyterian church, the charity hospital,
and the New Orleans college. The cathedral, to
me who profess to know nothing of architecture, is a
most imposing fabric, not so much from its size, as
its structure, the massiveness of its walls, and within,
its wonderful adaptation in my mind to excite relig-
ious feelings. Under its stone pavements arc deposit-
ed the illustrious dead. In niches and recesses are
figures of the saints, in their appropriate dress, and

304

with those pale and unearthly countenances, that are
so fully in keeping with the ideal image which I
have formed of them. The walls are so thick, and so
constructed, that although in the very centre and hus-
tle of the noise and business of the city, you hear
only a kind of confused whisper within, and are almost
as still as in the eentre of a forest. This deep and
unalterable repose, in the midst of noise and life, fur-
nishes a happy illustration of the state of a religious
mind, amidst the distractions of the world. You go
but a few paces from the crowds that are pressing
along Levee street, and from the rattle of earriages
that are stationed near this place, and you find your-
self in a kind of vaulted apartment, and in perfect
stillness ; the tapers are burning, and some few are al-
ways kneeling within, in silent prayer. Images of
death, of the invisible world, of eternity, surround
you. The dead sleep under your feet. You are in
the midst of life, and yet there reigns here a perpet-
ual tranquillity. To me there is something in this
stillness, within these massive walls, in this apartment
so dimly lighted, and in these finishings of imperisha-
ble and shapeless stone, more congenial to religious
feeling, than in the brilliant and highly finished, and
strongly lighted interior of Protestant churches.

The Presbyterian church is of brick, and is a very
large and handsome building. The Episcopal church
is .small, but light and neat in its structure. The jail
and the French theatre are \ei-y large, and, externally,
disagreeable buildings ; though the coup tfceil of the
view in the interior of the French theatre is very bril-
liant. The charity hospital, though not a very beauti-
ful building, has a moral beauty of the highest order.
It is probably one of the most efficient and useful char-

305

Hies in the country. New Orleans is of course expos-
ed to greater varieties of human misery, vice, disease,
and want, than any other American town. Here
misery and disease find a home, clean apartments,
faithful nursing, and excellent medical attendance.
Under this roof more miserable subjects have been shel-
tered, more have been dismissed cured, and more have
been carried to their long home, than from any other
hospital among us.

The college has hitherto been of very little utility
to literature, though it has swallowed up ample funds.
It has been recently organized and constituted anew
under a learned president, and it is hoped will redeem
the past, and give a new character to the literature of
the city. There is a convent of Ursuline nuns, with
whose interior regulations I am not acquainted, though
I understand that they receive day scholars, and board-
ers, for the various branches of rudimental instruction.
The female orphan asylum is a most interesting chari-
ty, dating its efficient operations from the charity of
the benevolent Poydras. When I visited this place,
there were between seventy and eighty female chil-
dren under sober and discreet instructresses, all plainly
and neatly clad, all engaged either with their sewing
or their book, and all rescued from a condition the
most completely forlorn and destitute. There is a
iberality in their religious instruction, about the merit!
of which people of course will differ. They arc
dressed in uniforms of domestic cotton, and plain
white bonnets, and under their instructresses they
worship one part of the time in the cathedral and tin
other in the Presbyterian church. They have com*
menced an institution of the like character* for desti*

.39

306

tute boys ; and various other charities are in com-
mencement or contemplation.

The police of the city is at once mild and energetic.
And notwithstanding the multifarious character or the
inhabitants, collected from every country and climate,
notwithstanding the multitudes of boatmen and sail-
ors, notwithstanding the mass of people that rushes
along the streets is of the most incongruous materials,
I have seen fewer broils and quarrels here than in any
city where I have resided so long. For all the evils
that naturally arise among such a people, the munici-
pal court finds a prompt if not a proper remedy.
Nothing so effectually operates to prevent larcenies
and broils in such a place, as administering prompt
justice. They have not to complain here of the "law's
delay" in all these matters.

They have been at great expense in erecting steam
works to supply the city with water. That of the
Mississippi, when filtered, is admirable. The streets
are also washed, and the sewers cleansed, by water
from the river. When these works are carried into
complete operation, no city in the Union will be more
amply supplied with better water than this place. The
taverns and hotels are numerous, some of them splen-
did, and on as respectable footing as the best in the
Atlantic states.

In respect to the manners of the people, those of the
French citizens partake of their general national char-
acter. They have here their characteristic politeness
and urbanity ; and it may be remarked, that ladies
of the highest standing will shew courtesies that
would not comport with the ideas of dignity enter-
tained by the ladies at the North. In their convivial
meetings there is apparently a great deal of cheerful

307

familiarity, tempered, however, with the most serupu-
lous observances, and the most punctilious decorum.
They are the same gay, dancing, spectacle-loving
race, that they are everywhere else. It is well known
that the Catholic religion does not forbid amusements
on the Sabbath. They fortify themselves in defending
the custom of going to balls and the theatre on the
Sabbath, by arguing that religion ought to inspire
cheerfulness and that cheerfulness is associated with
religion.

That all the citizens do not think alike upon this
subject, will appear from an anecdote which I will
take leave to relate. The French play-bill for tin;
play of Sabbath evening was posted, as usual, on Sab-
bath morning at the corners of all the streets. To-
wards evening of the same Sabbath, I observed that a
paper of the same dimensions, and the same type, but
in English, was every where posted directly under the
French bill. It contained appropriate texts from the
scriptures, and was headed with these words; " Re-
member the Sabbath day to keep it holy,*' and men-
tioning that there would be divine service at a place
that was named, in the evening.

The Americans come hither from all the states.
Their object is to accumulate wealth, and spend it
somewhere else. But death, — which they are very lit-
tle disposed to take into the account, — often brings them
up before their scheme is accomplished. They have,
as might be expected of an assemblage from different
regions, mutual jealousies, and mutual dispositions to
figure in each other's eyes; of course the New Or-
leans people are gay, gaudy in their dress, houses, fur-
niture, and equipage, and rather fine than in the best
taste.

508

There are sometimes fifty steam-boats lying in the
harbour. A clergyman from the North made with me
the best enumeration that we could, and we calculated
that there were from twelve to fifteen hundred flat
boats lying along the river. They would average
from forty to sixty tons burden. The number of ves-
sels in the harbour from autumn to spring is very
great. More cotton is shipped from this port than
from any other in America, or perhaps in the world.
I could never have formed a conception of the amount
in any other way, than by seeing the immense piles of
it that fill the streets, as the crop is coming in. It is
well known that the amount of sugar raised and ship-
ped here is great, and increasing. The produce from
the upper country has no limits 10 the extent of which
it is capable ; and the commerce of this important city
goes on steadily increasing.

This city exhibits the greatest variety of costume,
and foreigners; French, Spanish, Portuguese, Irish in
shoals, in short, samples of the common people of all
the European nations, Creoles, all the intermixtures
of Negro and Indian blood, the moody and ruminating
Indians, the inhabitants of the Spanish provinces, and
a goodly woof to this warp, of boatmen, " half horse
and half alligator;" and more languages are spoken
here, than in any other town in America. There
is a sample, in short, of every thing. In March the
town is most filled ; the market shows to the greatest
advantage; the citizens boast of it, and are impress-
ed with the opinion that it far surpasses any other. In
effect this is the point of union between the North and
the South. The productions of all climes find their
way hither, and for fruits and vegetables, it appears to
me to be unrivalled. In a pleasant March forenoon,

309

you see, perhaps, half the city here. The crowd cov-
ers half a mile in extent. The negroes, mulattoes,
French, Spanish, Germans, are all crying their several
articles in their several tongues. They have a won-
derful faculty of twanging the sound through their
noses, as shrill as the notes of a trumpet. In the midst
of this Babel trumpeting, " un picalion, un piealion,"
is the most distinguishable tune.

Much has been said about the profligacy of man-
ners, and morals here ; and this place has more than
once been called the modern Sodom. Amidst such a
multitude, composed in a great measure of the low
people of all nations, there must of course be much
debauchery, and low vice. Where it appears in this
form, it is so disgusting, and the tippling houses, and
other resorts of vice, have such an aspect of beastli-
ness and degradation, as to render them utterly unbeara-
ble. Perhaps the tenants of these houses, without
intending it, do a good office to the inhabitants in
general, acting as the Helotes, to the Spartan children,
rendering these exhibitions of vice, and degradation
more odious and disgusting. Society here is very
much assorted. Each man has an elective attraction
to men of his own standing and order. It is a ques-
tionable point, and has excited discussion here, wheth-
er it is not disgraceful to the city, to license j_r imbiing,
and other houses of ill fame. Much is said in de-
fence of this practice, that since vice will exist, they
had better have a few houses filled, than all spoiled ;
they had better bring vice as much together as pos-
sible, and compel it to act under the trammels of law
and order, and that by devoting the great funds, that,
arise from this license, to the charity hospital, and oth-
er benevolent purposes, they compel, in the phrase of

310

the country, " the devil " to pay tribute to virtue. 1
have never, of course, seen the interior of the " tem-
ple of fortune." But I have often heard it described.
Every thing that can tempt avarice or the pas-
sions is here. Here is the "roulette," the wheel
of fortune, every facility for gambling, and in all
quarters piles of dollars, and doubloons, as nest cges,
to make new gulls lay to them. Here is every thing
to tempt the eye, and inflame the blood. Here the
raw cullies from the upper country come, lose all,
and either hang themselves, or get drunk, and perish
in the streets. A spacious block of buildings was
shown me, which was said to have been built by a
gambler from the avails of his success. One night
he lost every thing, and the next morning suspended
himself from the roof of an upper apartment.

Much has been said about certain connexions that
are winked at with the yellow women of this city. I
know not whether this be truth or idle gossiping.
The yellow women are often remarkable for the per-
fect symmetry of their forms, and for their fine ex-
pression of eye. They are universally admitted to
have a fidelity and cleverness as nurses for the sick,
beyond all other women. When a stranger is brought
up by the prevailing fever, the first object is to con-
sign hin to the care of one of these tender and faithful
nurses, and then he has all the chance for life, that the
disorder admits.

On the whole, I judge from an observation at differ-
ent times, of thirty weeks, that this city, as it respects
people who have any self-estimation, is about on a foot-
ing witli the other cities of the Union in point of morals.
There are many excellent people here, many people
who mourn over the prevailing degeneracy. Among

311

the Protestants, when I was there, there were many
unions for religious purposes, female religious Societies,
efforts making to erect a mariners' church, a Bethel
flag flying, and apparently much excitement of reli-
gious feeling. And nothing can be more desirable,
than that this place, which is the common centre of
the West, and has such an immense bearing upon the
fashions, opinions, and morals of the inhabitants of the
Mississippi valley, should' have suit thrown into its
fountains. Multitudes of reflections on this subject
crowd upon me, which the brevity of my plan excludes
from this work.

With regard to the unhealthiness of this city, it is
undoubtedly estimated according to the fact. The
hearse is seen passing the streets at all hours. During
the prevalence of the epidemic, tin? destroying angel
carries in his hand a besom. Multitudes of the poor
Catholic Irish, with their ruddy faces, without propel
nursing, in crowded apartments, poor strangers of all
nations, and the northern young men in preference to
all the rest, are swept away with unpit)ing fury.
During the sicklv season of the year in Which I arriv-
ed there, there had been nu nbered more than two
thousand deaths, besides multitudes of cases where
the patient died unnoticed and unrecorded. I have
heard details of miser) and suffering, thrilling tales of
whole families of poor, unable to- help themselves, or
procure help, falling together, which have chilled the
blood in the relation. The chance for an imncdirnnt-
ed young man from the North surviving the first slim-
mer, is by some considered only as one to two. '*> i I
no provisions that humanity can devise, or benevolei
carry into effect to alleviate these evils, are left unat
tempted. But in such sweeping calamities must

3\t

necessarily be much misery which no human exertions
can alleviate.

When the river is full, the common level of the city
is but a few feet above that of the river. Of course,
tli** graves that are dug four feet deep will have one
or two feet of water. One of the circumstances
dreadful to the imagination of a sick stranger, is the
probability of being buried in the water. To prevent
this, all that decease, whose estates are sufficient, have
their remains deposited in tombs or vaults above the
ground. The old Catholic cemetery is completly cov-
ered either with graves or monuments. The monu-
ments are uniformly either of white marble, or plais-
ter, or painted white, and by the brilliant moonlight
evenings of this mild climate, this city of the dead, or
as the more appropriate phrase of the Jews is, of the
living, makes an impressive appearance. Here, in
these evenings, I have delighted to wander. Here,
where the hearse deposites its contents at every hour
of the day, and sometimes of the night, I have consid-
ered how transient, how uncertain is the dream of life ;
how vain is that of wealth, which brings so many ad-
venturers from foreign climes to die here. Among the
multitudes of the monuments here, a curious collec-
tion of inscriptions might be made. The remembrance
of two only have so far remained on my memory, as
that I can recal the substance of them. The eastern
external wall of the cemetery is composed of contig-
uous monuments in two tiers. On one of the upper
tier, with a handsome slab, and with gilded letters, it
is recorded "II moruit victime d'honneur ; " meaning
that the person died in a duel ; a circumstance, which,
at the North, would have been reserved only for the
private instruction of friends. Here it is apparently

313

recorded as matter of eulogy. The inscription on an-
other plain but respectable monument was to me af-
fecting. It purports to be erected as a grateful record
of the long, faithful, and affectionate services of a
black slave. The whole inscription wears a delight-
ful simplicity, and honours the master that erected it,
as much as the slave. In the Protestant burial-
grounds I was affected to read great numbers of nanu -
of men who died in the prime of life, from Boston,
Salem, and vicinity. Multitudes of the adventurous
and promising young men from New England have
here found rest, and it is generally recorded that they
died"du fievre jaune," of the yellow fever, or the
prevailing epidemic.

The communications from this city with the interi-
or, are easy, pleasant, and rapid, by the steam-boats.
More than a hundred are now on these waters. Some
of them, for size, accommodation, and splendor, ex-
ceed any that I have seen on the Atlantic waters.
The Washington, Feliciana, Providence, Natchez, and
various others, are beautiful and commodious boats.
The fare is sumptuous, and passives arc. comparative-
ly cheap. I have also uniformly found the passengers
obliging and friendly. Manners are not so distant or
statclv as at the North ; and it is much easier to be-
come acquainted with your fellow passengers. A trip
up the Missi.-sippi at the proper season of the year i-
delightful.

On the whole this is an interesting town. Its im-
portance as a commercial capital is very great. Von
can no where have more or better opportunities of
becoming acquainted with human nature. And a
stranger can find means to render a staj of a i'rw
40

*314

weeks, during the healthy season, as pleasant and as
instructive as in any other town in the United States.
The same line of contiguous plantations on each
side of the river, as we have described above, is con-
tinued for some distance below the city. The coun-
try then becomes too low and inundated to admit of
plantations. At the north part of the city is the ba-
sin, a harbour which has been dug to admit vessels
from the lake. There is a canal perfectly straight,
which leads from this basin to the Bayou St. John,
a sluggish stream flowing from the swamps above
into lake Pontchartrain. The canal is two miles in
length, and the distance from the mouth of the canal
to the lake is four miles more. There are some very
pleasant plantations, gardens, and orange groves, on
the Bayou St. John, and where it enters the lake,
there are thirty or forty houses, occupied by fishermen,
who draw great seines in the lake, and supply the city
with fish. Near the mouth of the Bayou, is a huge
old Spanish fort of brick, with cannon of vast calibre.
The fort is so ruinous, that a discharge of one of the
guns would probably shatter the walls. The making
of the canal, and the clearing out of the Bayou, and
deepening the channel over the bar, at what is called
u the pickets," was a work of great expense. The toll is
heavy, and is complained of by the owners of the
lake vessels as a great grievance. By this channel, the
city communicates with the country on the lakes, with
the lower parts of the state of Mississippi, with west
Florida, and with Mobile. There are, I believe, near-
ly three hundred schooners engaged in this trade, and
the commerce of New Orleans, by this channel alone^
would be sufficient to form a considerable city.

315

LETTER XXIV.

You are acquainted with the circumstances that in-
duced me not to return to New England, as I had
proposed. I became acquainted with some of the
respectable citizens of New Orleans, whose represen-
tations concurred with these circumstances, and in-
duced me, on the approaching summer, after my arri-
val there, to go over lake Pontchartrain, to take
charge of a seminary there, and to supply, as a min-
ister, the two villages of Madisonville and Covington.
It was a dark and stormy March evening, when my
family embarked on the lake. The lake is justly
dreaded, as subject to frequent storms, having but few
harbours, and those difficult to make. The waves are
short, and the swell of that angry and dangerous char-
acter, called a "ground swell," owing to the shallow-
ness of the water. The lake is thirty miles wide, and
no where more than twenty feet in depth, ft has a
great abundance and variety of fish. The approach
to it by the Bayou St. John, is through a creeping
marshy stream, as sluggish as the " Cocytus " and the
dead swamp around it, and the blasted trees, covered
with long moss, have a most disheartening aspect of
desolation. The borders of the lake are so nearly on
a level with its surface, that when tin; lake is rough,
the surf breaks far into the swamp When the lake is
calm, its surface has an appearance altogether different
from any water I ever saw. A covering, as of a coat-
ing of paint of various hues, overspreads the surface.
This covering is opening, shifting, and changing its col-

i •

ours under your eye, displaying the most singular sport
of this kind that can be imagined. When the water is
drawn up, this coating disappears, or is only discern-
ible in a slight precipitation, that seems subsiding to
the bottom. I judge it to be vegetable matter, brought
in by the Bayou, by which the lake communicates
with the Mississippi, and like that singular appearance
on the northern lakes, called " fever and ague blos-
soms." From the centre of the lake, the land is so
low on all its shores, that the air must be very trans-
parent to enable you to discern land. As you ap-
proach the Florida side, the aspect is, if possible, more
sombre and funereal, than on the New Orleans shore.
You are now out of the region of the Mississippi al-
luvion. You are approaching the region of sterility,
sand, and pine forests. The beach is just above the
surface of the lake, and is a belt of sand, of almost
snowy whiteness. If you have come down the Mis-
sissippi, you may have come two thousand miles with-
out seeing a pine tree. Here, every thing is pine.
The green border is rendered more dark, in contrast
with the whiteness of the beach, and the festoons of
crape, in the form of long moss, that hang down like
mourning weeds from the trees.

You enter over a bar with only five feet water, a
broad placid stream called Chiffuncta, and you sail up
this stream, still bounded by a dead swamp, two miles
to Madisonville, a small village, to which the citi-
zens repair for health, in the summer months, from
New Orleans. There is one large hotel, and a num-
ber of neat and comfortable houses for entertainment,
which in the sickly months are generally full. Some
cotton is shipped from this village, and a number of
packet schooners ply between it and New Orleans.

317

The sailors employed in this desultory and slavish trade
are generally of that class, that have been sifted out of
all better employment, and are the most abandoned
and blasphemous of the profession. The rivers that
run through these level and swampy pine forests, are
called, in the Indian language, "Bogue," with some
attribute denoting the character of the stream ; for in-
stance, " Bogue Chitto," " Bogue Falaya," denoting
the river of laurels, or chincopins. The people are a
peculiar race of " petits paysans," small planters, en-
gaged »n the lumber trade, in making tar and char-
coal, or shepherds engaged in raising cattle. The
wealth of a young lady about to be married is mea-
sured by the number of her cows, as in the planting
part of the state, it is by her negroes. Some have
two thousand cattle: and the swamps afford ample
winter range, while the pine woods furnish grass in
the summer.

There are a number of Bogues that arc navigable
by schooners for some distance into the country. The
most considerable village is Covington, the seat, of jus-
tice for the county of St. Tammany. You ascend the
Bogue Falaya, twenty miles by water, and six by
land, from Madisonville to this village. It contains
about a hundred houses, employs a considerable num-
ber of schooners, and as it is the head of navigation
on the river, ships very considerable quantities of cot-
ton, from Pearl River, Florida, and the lower part of
the state of Mississippi. Goods in return from New
Orleans arc deposited here, to be conveyed to their
destination in the country by v. is. There is a

navy-yard between Madisonville and (his place, where
it was proposed to build gun-boats. Much money
was expended here, and the place is now abandoned.

318

There is nothing worthy of notice in the village of
Covington, except that, contrary to the common prac-
tice, they have a burial-ground substantially and hand-
somely enclosed ; and that, equally out of the fashion
of the country, the people were united and punctual
in their attention to religious worship.

All that part of Florida that I have seen, has one
aspect, and from information I judge that to be a fair
sample of all the rest. It is divided into savannas, or
low grass prairies, pine woods, or inundated swamps
on the margins of the rivers. The soil is no where
beyond second rate, and, even in the richest alluvions,
pine trees make their appearance among the laurels,
beeches, and oaks, that compose the mass of the tim-
ber on the lands capable of cultivation. The swamps,
as every where in this country, are occupied by the
cypress, and loblolly pine, and for animal life, by alli-
gators, moccasin snakes, and musquitoes. Nine tenths
of the country are covered with the long-leaved pitch
pine, which rises before you, as you ride along, in
countless millions, as straight and as uniform as a file
of soldiers. The country is so level, and every where
so exactly uniform, that I have never been in a region
where it wis so easy to get lost, and so difficult to find
your way again. '*' Haud inexpertus loquor." This
I have found to my cost. Thirty miles from the sea,
which is every where bounded by white sand beaches,
the pine lands become rolling and dry.

Such is the general face of the country in West
Florida. It possesses in its swamps a considerable
quantity of live oak, and masts and spars enough for
all the navies in the world. It is capable of furnish-
ing inexhaustible supplies of pitch, tar, &c. The high
grass, which grows every where among the pine trees.

319

opens an immense ran^e for cattle. There are some
tolerable tracts of land along the rivers ; but generally
the land is low, swampy, and extremely poor. The
people, too, are poor and indolent, devoted to raising
cattle, hunting, and drinking whiskey. They are a
w ild race, with but little order or morals among them ;
they are generally denominated " Bogues," and call
themselves " rosin heels." The chief town is Pensa-
cola, which grew rapidly, and received an increase of
many inhabitants and handsome houses, until the fatal
summer of 1822, when it suffered so severely from
yellow fever, since which it has declined. It has a
fine harbour, and the government has made it a na-
val depot, which will probably raise it once more.

We passed a tranquil and pleasant summer at Co-
vington, in the discharge of duties so uniform in char-
acter as to furnish nothing of interest for relation. In
the autumn we crossed the lake, and returned to
New Orleans. Ministers of different denominations
established a series of weekly lectures, in which I took
an active part, and they were numerously attended.
It became with me a matter of painful solicitude,
whether it was the way of duty and expediency to
settle at New Orleans. You arc aware of the views
which I always entertained of city life. This, too,
was a place of such a character as to require removal
from it every summer, at least for all that were noi
either reckless of life, or unable to move. I had many
friends who advised me to stay, and who judged that.
our acclimation was sufficient to give us confidence to
reside in the city through the summer. During this
state of suspense, I was requested to take charge <>i
the seminary over which 1 now preside, which had
become vacant by the death of the Rev. Mr. Hull.

320

We finally concluded to accept the appointment, and
to move to Alexandria on Red River. We took an
affectionate leave of our friends, and went on board
the steam-boat Spartan, which we chartered for the
purpose of conveying our family to their destination.
We lay in the same place where the year before I had
seen depart the steam-boat Tennessee, and the cir-
cumstance brings to my recollection the disastrous fate
of that boat. It was a beautiful morning when she
started. Her deck was absolutely crowded with pas-
sengers, not less, I was told, than three hundred being
on board. They cheered the multitude, waved their
hats, fired their swivel repeatedly, and went off with
unusual demonstrations of gaiety. Above Natchez, in
a dark and sleety night, and in one of the furious cy-
press bends of the river, the boat struck a snag. She
began to fill, and every thing was consternation and
despair. One wretch seized a skiff and paddled round
the boat calling on a passenger to throw his saddle-
bags into the skiff, informing with great agony, that
all his money was in them. He might have saved a
dozen persons, but he kept so far aloof that no one
could get on board. We sometimes see, in the very
same crisis, that one man will exhibit the dignity and
benevolence of an angelic nature, and another will dis-
play the workings of a nature almost infernal. The
engineer, who was greatly beloved, was invited to
save himself in the yawl. His reply was noble; —
".Who will work the engine, if I quit ? I must do my
duty." They tried in vain to run her on a bar. She
sunk, and this intrepid man, worthy of a statue, was
drowned in the steam-room. The passengers, men,
women, and children, separated, and in the darkness
were plunged in this whirling and terrible stream.

321

The shrieks, the waitings, soon died away. I believe
it was not ascertained how many perished, but it was
known to exceed thirty persons. The rest made the
shore as they could.

We had a very pleasant company on board our boat,
and made a quick and delightful trip to the mouth of
Red River. It is five or six miles above the outlet of
the Bayou Chaffatio, by which Wvd River in all prob-
ability formerly found its own separate channel to the
Gulf. Approaching nearer and nearer to the " father
of waters/' she finally merged her bloody current in
his broad channel. The river meets the Mississippi at
right angles, and for the first reach is wide, and
straight, and deep, like a canal. It is on all sides at
the point of junction an inundated swamp. You move
up the same broad and placid stream, through a drear J
and monotonous forest. Thirty or forty miles above
the mouth, you see a very narrow channel strike off to
the left. Here the river forks into Black River,
which has previously received the Washita. They ,
here unite their waters, and How in one broad chan-
nel to the Mississippi. Above this junction. Red Riv-
es, though the largest in Louisiana, next to its parent
stream, seems no more than a serpentine and very deep
canal. It winds to every point of the compass. Its
waters, when full, are of a deep red tinge : and when
low, its bars show shoals of alligators, great and small,
basking in the sun, or crossing the stream, as though
logs had found the power of locomotion. Not \»t\
far above the forks, the river passes over rapid-, in low
water, which are not perceived when the river is high.
They are " rapions," and the passage in low stages of
the water is rather dangerous.
41

S5*6

In passing up you now and then see a solitary
wood -cutter's cabin in this lonely swamp. But there
are no settlements worthy of the name, until you reach
the " Avoyelles," where an extensive prairie comes up
to the river, with a high bank above the inundation.
This constitutes a parish, of a moderately rich soil, in
which some cotton is made. But the great employ-
ment of the people on these pleasant and grassy plains,
is the raising of cattle. The inhabitants are princi-
pally French, and say that before the Americans had
learned them how to manage " un proems," a lawsuit,
and to love whiskey, they were a race of grown up
infants, free from actual transgressions, and the very
Arcadian race, about which so much has been said and
sung.

Above the Avoyelles the banks of the river begin to
rise above the inundation, and at considerable inter-
vals you see a cotton plantation, and this is the usual
aspect of the banks, until you reach Alexandria,
./rhis is a pleasant and neat village, on the western
bank of Red River, about one hundred and fifty miles
by the windings of the river from its mouth, and not
more than a third of that distance in a right line.
The road to the Mississippi is passable only in the
autumn. In the spring it is an inundated swamp.
Alexandria is handsomely situated, on a plain perfect-
ly smooth, and carpeted with the richest verdure.
The white houses show themselves with their piazzas
from under the shade of the beautiful China trees,
and Catalpas. The forest, beyond the village, and
beyond the cultivation, deep and magnificent, com-
posed of trees of vast size, and covered with the usual
drapery of long moss, and the ground under them, is
bright with the verdure of the palmetto. But the

313

Jand, as is common on all these waters, soon descends
to the cypress swamp, the everlasting abode of alliga-
tors, snakes, anil noxious animals. The swamp is here
from fifteen to twenty miles in depth. On the oppo-
site shore, pine bluffs come into the river. Just above
this village there is a rapid, composed of soft rock,
apparently in a state of formation from clay. The
pitch, at low water, may be ten feet) and over this pitch
pours the volume of waters, collected from mountains
two thousand miles above. It is a romantic view, and
the incessant roar in the village resembles in the car
the distant roar of a sea beach, and lulls you pleasant-
ly to sleep.

Tins rapid is a great impediment to the navigation
of the river. Steam boats cannot surmount it more
than two thirds of the year. Other boats ascend ii
with difficulty, in low stages. The state legislature
has appropriated a very considerable sum, for the re-
moval of this obstruction, but the work has not jet
commenced.

The village of Alexandria is an important depot of
cotton, issues a weekly paper, has a number of res-
pectable lawyers and physicians, and many verj
respectable citizens. It is a place of recent growth,
and yet three Presbyterian ministers have alreadj laid
their ashes here. There are two banks and a hand-
some court house here, and it is the seat of justice of
the parish of Rapide, perhaps as rich a cotton raising
parish, as there is in the state* The college, as it i^
termed, over which 1 preside, is a huge and tolerablj
commodious, but rather ngly building, upon which
great sums of money have been expended, and to
which eight hundred dollars, besides the proceeds of
tuition, are annually appropriated. Literature if al i

324

very low ebb. I have made assiduous efforts to ex-
cite a feeling of regard to it. But the people forti-
fy themselves against it, in the persuasion that an edu-
cation can be acquired only at the North.

The legislature has made as munificent appropria-
tions for the advancement of literature, according to
her population, as any other state in the Union. Eight
hundred dollars are annually appropriated to every
parish in the state for the support of schools. Put
the act is so darkly worded, and the modes of appro-
priation so indistinctly defined, that this noble provis-
ion has been hitherto not only inefficient, but has ex-
cited altercation and dispute. To which schools in
the parish it shall be appropriated, and in what pro-
portions, are knotty points to settle. In some it
lies in the treasury ; in others, it is said, it has been
reserved to make up a purse for a horse-race.

All the appropriations of this state are respectable,
and indicate the views of a high-minded people. The
salaries are more ample, than even those of New
York. Nothing has been spared in attempting to
make something of the New Orleans college. They
are making great efforts to establish a college at Jack-
son. But as yet the people seem to feel as though
there were only three matters very important, to wit,
cotton, eugar, and dollars.

Just below the rapids, which I have mentioned,
comes in the Bayou Rapide, on the banks of which
are continued ranges of cotton plantations for twenty-
five miles, and on this Bayou, and that of Bayou Bceuf,
are as productive cotton farms, as any in the state.
The soil is of a red tinge, not unlike Spanish brown,
and of an exhaustless fertility. The weeds grow up
to the size of considerable shrubs. The land is level,

325

and has a pleasant aspect of softness and fertility, that
renders the view of a cotton plantation, of itself a
beautiful object, when in full flower, a landscape
rich almost to gatidiness.

The cotton is an annual plant, with leaves not un-
like those of the hollyhock. It branches considerably,
grows on the rich lands, as high as a man's head, and
bears a beautiful yellowish-white flower. The rows
are made perfectly straight, and six feet apart, and
kept entirely clean of weeds. In September the balls
begin to open, picking commences, and is continued,
until the stocks are ready to be pulled up, burned off.
and the plowing to commence anew.

Sugar-cane, the next important article of culture in
this state, is extending in cultivation every year.
There have long been noble plantations along the coast.
They are now extended to the Teche, a v< r\ impor-
tant Bayou, which breaks out of the Mississippi, and
runs through the fine and fertile parish of Attakapas.
They are also making sugar plantations along the
gulf, and in some of the islands near the shore. Suffi-
cient sugar might be made here for the consumption
of the United States. The plantations have lx en pro-
ductive for a number of years in succession. The on-
ly impediment to extending this species of cultivation is
the great capital that it requires to commence the
business profitably. A sugar establishment i> neces-
sarily a very expensive one. The sugar houses on the
coast resemble our large cotton factory buildings at
the North. The process of inanufaeturing the BUgar,
though expensive, is simple. The cane i> planted tin
latter part of the autumn in slips, and W hen in full
growth is not unlike a field of maize in appearand e.
The stalk is about the size of that of southern corn,

326

and the juice, though deemed a luxury here, has to
me rather an u pleasant sweetness.

Rice and indigo were formerly cultivated here to a
greater extent than at present. The rice of this coun-
try has a whiteness and fairness, that render it more
valuable than that of Georgia, and the indigo, that
was formerly made on Red River, is said to have been
not much inferior to Spanish float. Corn, sweet po-
tatoes, melons, and all northern fruits, with the excep-
tion of apples, flourish here ; though the planters find
the great staples, cotton and sugar, so much more profi-
table than any other kinds of cultivation, that many
of them calculate to supply themselves with provisions^
almost entirely from the upper country. Figs are
raised here in great abundance and perfection. The
figtree grows luxuriantly, and is raised with ease.
Oranges, when I descended the Mississippi for the
first time, were lying under the trees as abundantly
as the apples fall in the North country. The bitter
orange, of which the French are fond, was far more
abundant than the sweet ; but that was abundant, and a
sufficient quantity raised, and of a very fine quality, for
the supply of all the Western states. The winter of
1823, the coldest that had been known in this coun-
try for twenty years, killed the trees generally, with a
few exceptions. New suckers have sprouted up, and
in a few years, the orange groves will have found re-
juvenescence, and will probably furnish an ample sup-
ply again. Nothing can have a grander, and more
rich appearance, than these delicious orange groves,
either when their blossoms yield their ambrosial per-
fume, or when their golden fruit, shows itself from
the beautiful evergreen foliage. The noble and spread-
ing live oaks, too, make a delightful appearance

about the magnificent houses on the coast. No orna-
mental tree equals in beauty the China tree, except,
perhaps the catalpa. Both are conspicuous for their
splendid tufts of flowers. The magnolia graudillora
is a fine tree, but has been vaunted, and especially its
flowers, too much. Its flowers are large, the fragrance
rather sickening, and a tree seldom puts forth many at
a time, but brings them along in succession for a long
time. The flowers of some of the other species, of
laurels, are more delicate and have a liner fragrance.
The wild honey-suckle, or meadow-pink, is a most
delightful flowering shrub, fringing the banks in spring
with brilliant peach-blow blossoms, whose appearance
and fragrance are altogether delightful. The cultivat-
ed cape jessamine has an unrivalled fragrance. The
yellow wild jessamine is a beautiful flower, and in
March, when nature is in blossom, the wild wood here
displays such a variety of flowers of every scent and
hue, that the gale is charged with fragrance, as if
from " Araby the blest." Millions of splendid flow-
ers waste their sweetness on the desert air.

Were I to go into any statistical details, my plan
would be frustrated, by extending these remarks be-
yond their intended brevity. The soil, that is cultivat-
ed in these regions, is exuberantly rich. In no othei
place does the planter accumulate so fast from mere
agriculture. Louisiana undoubtedly exports more
value according to the extent of laud cultivated, than
any other country. The cotton plantations yield from
ten to fifty thousand dollars a year, and many sugar
planters, probably, derive twice thai sum from their
annual crop. It is a question, which i^ the better kind
of cultivation, cotton or sugar. Each has its parti-
sans. " Lis est subjudi

328

Of wild fruits, there are the pawpaw, the persimon,
the Chickasaw plum, and the pine woods grape.
This grape ripens in June, is cone-shaped, transpa-
rent, and delicious. It would probably be an admira-
ble grape to cultivate. There are also varieties of
autumnal grapes, and wonderful accounts are given of
the immense quantities of grapes that ripen on the
sand plains at the sources of Red River. The hun-
ters assert, that they are richer than any cultivated
grape.

LETTER XXIV.

Very mistaken ideas seem to have been entertained
respecting this state, as though it were in a great
measure composed of alluvion and swamp. It is true
it has more alluvion and swamp, in proportion, than
any other state, and of the alluvion, an uncommon
proportion is swamp. I should suppose that two
thirds of the state was covered with pine woods, of
the same character as those in Florida. These
woods have their millions of pine trees, and the soil
is covered with grass. They are finely undulated
with hill and dale, and in the valleys burst out innu-
merable springs. The streams that water them have
clear, transparent water, that runs over a white sand,
and are alive with trout and other fish. The soil is
comparatively poor. The bottoms are only second
rate land. They will bring three or four crops of
corn without manure, and are admirable for the sweet
potatoe. The people who live in the pine woods gen-

329

erally support themselves by raising cattle, which they
number by hundreds. The planters in Attakapas and
Opelousas have, in some instances, four or five thou-
sand cattle. Nothing can be easier than subsistence
in the pine woods. There being little call for labour,
the inhabitants labour little, and are content with in-
dolence, health, and poverty. For it may be observ-
ed, that, in general, the pine woods are healthy. All
families that can afford it move from the alluvions on
the rivers and Bayous, where their plantations lie, in-
to the pine woods, during the summer. Here they
breathe a pure air, impregnated by the terebinthine
odour of the evergreens. A slight breeze always
sighs in the elevated tops of the pines, and the fleck-
ered mixture of light and shade creates a pleasant
appearance and a delightful freshness of air. Through-
out this country, the region of plantations is the re-
gion of wealth and sickness, and of the pine woods,
of health and poverty. The inhabitants of New Orleans
retire in the summer, either to the North or into tho
pine woods. The pine woods, in the ear of a Loui-
s', tnian, is a synonymc with health.

Next in order to the pine woods, are the prairies,
of which there is a vast extent, scattered over all the
region west of the Mississippi. The parishes of At-
takapas and Opelousas are principally prairie regions.
The former has many sugar and cotton plantations,
but is principally devoted to raising cattle. The prai-
ries differ little in appearance and character from those
in the upper country.

One circumstance in the history of the alluvions
strikes you as a wonderful singularity. All the rivers
and Bayous of this country, when full, run upon ele-
vated plains higlierthan the subjacent country. This
42

330

circumstance probably results from the deposition of
the alluvial matter, carried along by the waters. The
sand, the coarser and heavier particles, subside first, and
near the banks. The finer particles remain suspended
longer and are deposited farther from the shores of the
rivers. We find in fact, that the soil on the banks is
loamy and more coarse, and as you recede farther, the
clay becomes finer and stiffer. It results from this cir-
cumstance, that almost all the cultivation of the coun-
try is in narrow and contiguous strips along the mar-
gin of the streams. The extent of cultivable land
varies from one to three miles in depth from the bankn
of the river or Bayou, Beyond this are the cypress
swamps. You ascend a river or Bayou, and you pass
by all the plantations that belong to that region.

I have not inquired, as I ought, the derivation of
the term " Bayou" but it is understood here to mean
an alluvial stream with but little current, and some-
times running from the main river, and connected with
it again, as a lateral canal. It seems generally to im-
port a sluggish alluvial stream. In these vast alluvi-
ons, there are innumerable Bayous. Some, as 1 have
remarked, burst from the Mississippi. One leads
from that river to lake Maurepas, and through that
to lake Pontchartrain. The Chaffatio, the Plaque-
mine, and the Teche, are the principal Bayous, that
burst out from the west side of the river.

Red River is, after the Mississippi, the most consid-
erable stream of Louisiana. Its sources have not
been fully explored. But it is traced for a length of
twenty-live hundred miles. It rises probably in the
same range of mountains with the Arkansas, and is
much of the same length and size, though not so wide.
But it makes up for this in greater depth. In its col-

331

our, in the character of its alluvion, in the saltness
of its brackish and impotable waters, it is the twin
brother of the Arkansas. It runs through the same
kind of country and lias, like that river, its numberless
lakes and lateral Bayous. Unlike that stream, it of-
ten divides itself into numerous branches, w Inch re-
unite. This takes place between Alexandria and
Natchitoches. Like the former river, it first runs
through an immense extent of sand prairies, and then
through a low and timbered region.

It has one striking peculiarity about a hundred miles
above Natchitoches — the great raft. Here the river
runs through a vast swamp. The river divides into in-
numerable channels. These channels are closed up,
by logs, carried along by the current and jammed to-
gether. This takes place for a length of eighty miles.
This is a great impediment to navigation. Steam-
boats may ascend at certain seasons, when the wa-
ter is high, but with great difficulty. Keel boats make
their way through it with severe labour of cutting
away logs, and mistaking their channel, and if the}
succeed in making their way, are occupied lour times
as long as would be requisite to ascend a char river.
Above the raft, the river becomes a broad, deep, ai d
placid stream. About eight hundred miles above
this raft, the United States have a garrison, two com-
panies of soldiers, and convenient barracks. What a
magnificent idea of the extent ol ourcountn ! Natch-
itoches is considered, at the North, as /'//'/ incognita
Nine hundred miles above, on the Kiamesia, the Uni-
ted States have a garrison.

On an island in the midst of this swamp, a boatman
was kit by mistake, and subsisted nine days on noth-
ing but one squirrel, and the bark of trees. lb:

332

relates, that he cut up a handkerchief for a line, and
made a hook of a nail, which he had about him ; with
this fishing tackle, he took a fine cat-fish. He carried
it a little distance from the bank, and was cleaning it
to roast, for he had fire. As he went to the river, an
alligator started from the mud, and made for the fish.
In his extreme weakness, the alligator arrived first,
seized the fish, and swallowed it in a trice. He re-
lates, that in despair, he then laid himself down to die,
and slept for a great length of time. When he awoke,
the love of life returned upon him. He remembered
to have seen a canoe, that had a hole in the bottom,
which had been thrown by the stream upon the wreck
of logs. The little labour requisite to roll it into the
stream, caused him to faint repeatedly. But he final-
ly achieved the task, stopped the hole with moss and
his handkerchief, daubed it with mud, and committed
himself to the stream. Providentially, the boat took
the right channel. This canoe struck a log, and turn-
ed over. But he was enabled to hang to it, until he
floated down to a French house. The Frenchman
was milking his cows at night. The man was a liv-
ing skeleton. He grasped the pail of milk from the
Frenchman's hands, and had he not been prevented,
would have druuk his death. When he arrived at
Natchitoches, the people describe him as a perfect
Captain Riley, from the Arabian deserts. It is won-
derful how much human nature can endure, before
the thread of life is broken.

Washita is the next river in point of size to Red
River. It rises in the mountainous country between
the Arkansas and Red River, receives a number of
tributaries, runs by the celebrated warm springs in
the territory of Arkansas, passes through the parish of

333

Washita and Catahoola, in Louisiana, and mingles with
Red River, as I have observed, not a great way from
the Mississippi. The parish of Washita is fertile in
cotton, and has many wealthy planters. The river is
broad and deep, and furnishes good steam-boat navi-
gation to the Mississippi. Its comparative course may
be about nine hundred miles.

The Sabine is a considerable stream which rises in
the high prairies northwest of Louisiana, runs three
or four hundred miles, dividing that state from the
Spanish country, and two hundred miles below, where
the great road from Natchitoches to Mexico crosses it,
the river falls into the Gulf of Mexico. I conversed
with two very respectable officers of Cantonment Jes-
sup, who had descended the river from the crossing to
the Gulf. They describe it as a deep stream, and ca-
pable, when the logs and impediments in the way-
should be removed, of steam-boat navigation from
that point to the Gulf. There are many smaller riv-
ers in this state, which the brevity of my plan forbids
me to notice.

This state being almost uniformly level, and extend-
ing from 30° to 33°, has a climate which might be nat-
urally inferred from its position. The summer is tem-
perate, the thermometer seldom indicating so much
heat as there often is at the same time at the North.
But the heat is uniform and Unremitting) and tin i
what renders the summer oppressive. The days arc
seldom fanned by the northwestern breeze. The au-
tumn becomes cool, almost as early as at the Noi th.
It is dry, and the atmosphere of that mild and delight-
ful blue, peculiar to a southern sky. This season, BO
delightful elsewhere, is here continued three months.
The leaves are long iu acquiring their mingled hues.

334

of red, yellow, and purple. Frost sometimes occurs in
November, but not often before December. Then the
leaves yield to the wind, and drop into the pool, and
we have that season, that invites to "solemn thought,
and heavenly musing." January is chilly, with frosty
nights, but never sufficiently severe to freeze tender
vegetables in the house. A few flakes of snow some-
times fall, though I have seen none during my resi-
dence in the country. Even in this month there are
delightful days, when we sit with comfort at the open
window. The daffodil and multiflora rose arc in full
blossom through the winter. The turnip patches are
yellow with flowers, and the clover has a vigorous
growth, and a delightful green. I have eaten green
peas in January, and many garden vegetables arc
brought to the market. In February the rainy season
commences, and spring begins to return. The ni^ht
brings thunder clouds and copious rain, often with
loud thunder. In March, the spring is in her gayest
attire. Planting commences with the first of the
month, and continues until July. In the first of the
summer, there are thunder showers, attended with
vivid lightning, and terrible peals of thunder.

The latter part of the summer is generally dry.
The diseases, except the New Orleans epidemic, differ
little from those of the upper country. The bowel
complaint is more common and fatal. The bilious
disorders commence earlier in the season, and run
more rapidly to their crisis.

The races of people here are as numerous as in
any other part of the western country. Of the In-
dians I have spoken. The French and the Americans
are nearly in equal proportions. In the country they
live in great harmony. Unfortunately in New Or-

335

leans a great deal of party feeling exists between
them. This spirit infuses itself into their municipal
regulations, and their elections. It has threatened re-
cently to disturb the peace of the city. There are, on
the coast, many descendants of the Germans, who
were removed from what the French called Acadia, or
Nova Scotia. There are many poor Catholic Irish in
New Orleans. There remain in some places Spanish
families. In general all these different races live to-
gether in great harmony.

The opulent planters of this state have many amia-
ble traits of character. They are high-minded and
hospitable, in an eminent degree. I have sojourned
inueli among them, and have never experienced a
more frank, dignified, and easy hospitality. It is ta-
ken for granted, that the guest is a gentleman, and
that he will not make an improper use of the great
latitude, that is allowed him. If he do not pass over
the limits, which just observance prescribes, the more
liberties he takes, and the more at ease he feels with-
in those limits, the more satisfaction he will give to
bis host. You enter without ceremony, call for what
you wish, and intimate your wishes to the servants.
In short you are made to feel yourself at home. This
simple aud noble hospitality seems to be a general
trait among these planters, for I have not yei called at
a single house, where it has not been exercised to-
wards me. Suppose the traveller to be a gentleman,
to speak French, and to have letters to one respe< table
planter, it becomes an introduction to the settlement,
and lie will have no occasion for a tavern.

It results in some way from their condition, from
their ample income, or perhaps as they would raj
from the influence of slavery, that thev are liberal in

336

their feelings, as it respects expenditure, and are more
reckless of the value of money, than any people that
I have seen. The ladies no doubt have their tea-ta-
ble, or rather their coffee-table scandal. But I con-
fess, that I have seen less of that prying curiosity to
look into the affairs of neighbours, and have heard less
scandal here, than in other parts of the United States.

The luxury of the table is carried to a great ex-
tent among them. They are ample in their supply of
wines, though Claret is generally drunk. Every fam-
ily is provided with Claret, as we at the North are
with cider. I have scarcely seen an instance of in-
toxication among the respectable planters. In drink-
ing, the guests universally raise their glasses, and
touch them together instead of a health. In the mor-
ning, before you rise, a cup of strong coffee is offered
you. After the dessert at dinner, you are offered
another. It is but very recently, that the ladies have
begun to drink tea. During the warm months be-
fore you retire, it is the custom in many places
for a black girl to take off your stockings, and per-
form the ancient ceremonial of washing the feet.

They are easy and amiable in their intercourse with
one another, and excessively attached to balls and par-
ties. They certainly live more in sensation, than in
reflection. The past and the future are seasons, with
which they seem little concerned. The present is
their day, and "dum vivimus, vivamus," in other
words, " a short life and a merry one," their motto.
Their feelings are easily excited. Tears flow. The
excitement passes away, and another train of sensa-
tions is started. In the pulpit they expect an ar-
dour, an appeal to the feelings, which the calmer and
more reflecting manner of the North would hardly
tolerate.

337

An intelligent and instructed planter's family is cer-
tainly a delightful family in which to make a short so-
journ, and they have many of the lesser virtues exer-
cised in a way so peculiar, and appropriate to their
modes of existence, as to impress you with all the
freshness of novelty. Unhappily, as appertains to all
earthly things, there is a dark ground to the picture.
The men are ••sudden and quick in quarrel." The
dirk or the pistol is always at hand. Fatal duels
frequently occur. They are profane, and excessively
addicted to gambling. This horrible vice, so intimate-
ly associated with so many others, prevails like an
epidemic. Money gotten easily, and without labour,
is easily lost. Betting and horse-racing are amuse-
ments eagerly pursued, and often times to the ruin of
the parties. A Louisianian will forego any pleasure,
to witness and bet at a horse-race. Even the ladies
visit these amusements, and bet with the gentlemen.

It is true that there are opulent French planters, rear-
ed in the simplicity of the early periods of Louisiana,
who can neither read nor write. 1 have visited more
than one such. But it is also true, that the improv-
ing spirit of the age, the rapid communication l»\
steam-boats, which brings all the luxuries, comforts,
and instructions of society immediately to their doo
is diffusing among the planters a thirst for information,
an earnest desire that their children should have all
the advantages of the improved modes of present in-
struction. They have, in many instances, line collec-
tions of books. A piano is seen in ever) good house.
Their ear, taste, and voice, and their excitability of
character, Gt the ladies for excellence in music. In
common with those in other parts of the I uiou, great
and too much stress i^ laid upon accomplishments

338

merely external, and there is not attached sufficient
importance to that part of education which fits for
rational conversation and usefulness. It is asserted
here, even to a proverb, and so far as my observation
extends, with great truth, that the Creole ladies are,
after marriage, extremely domestic, quiet, affectionate,
and exemplary wives and mothers.

It is a well known fact, that the human form devel-
opes more early in the South than in the North. It is
equally true, that the apprehension is quicker, the imi-
tative arts more easily acquired, and the faculties un-
fold earlier. Children born at the North have firmer,
and more staid habits, attain greater combination of
thought, and think more profoundly. But the Creole
learns more easily to write a fair hand, to sketch a
drawing, or copy a rose. Marriages take place when
the parties are very young, and mothers of fifteen are
not uncommon. The pernicious habit of novel-read-
ing, which is an appetite at the North, has here an in-
satiable craving.

An improving taste for literature has had, I am in-
formed, a very obvious influence not only on the moral
habits of the planters, but has introduced more liberal
pleasures, and a better way of spending the time, that
used to hang on their hands. Much of that time is
now spent in reading. The fruit of thus passing
their time, has had a happy influence upon the condi-
tion of a numerous class of people, of whom I pro-
pose shortly to speak — the slaves. Among their an-
cient amusements, which are still unchanged, is hunt-
ing. Their wide forests, their impenetrable swamps,
their tangled cane brakes, will harbour, for generations
to come, bears, deer, panthers, and a great variety of
game. They keep fine horses, and have their trained

339

packs of hounds. The planter loads you to his ken-
nel, blows his bugle, and the hounds rush forth, raise
their noses, and utter their mingled cries of joy, from
the deep bass of the ancient leader, that carries the
bell, down to the whipster, whose voice is not yet form-
ed. The owners discuss the success and chances of
the chase and the breeding and qualities of the dou^.
their mode of feeding, and medicining them apparent-
ly in the knowing style.

Their most interesting hunts are practised b) night,
and are called fire-huntinjrs. The dogs are leashed to-
gether. One dog carries a bell. Two or three black
boys carry over their shoulders fire-pans, being a
grating of iron hoops, appended to a long handle, and
filled with blazing torches of the splinters of fat pine.
The light is brilliant and dazzling. A group of gen-
tlemen, clad in their hunting frocks, mounted on fun:
horses, the joyous cry of the attending dogs, the.
blacks with their fire-pans, the whole cavalcade as
seen at a distance by the flickering light among the fo-
liage of the trees, furnisfics altogether a striking spec-
tacle. They scour the woods. The deer is tracked.
The hound that carries the bell is unleashed. The
other dogs know his note and chime in on his key.
The bell indicates w here he is. The deer, dazzled and
appalled by the glare and the noise, arouses from
sleep, and »;azes in stupid surprize. The eyes are dis-
covered, shining like balls of lire. The hunter anus
his rifle between the eyes, and the poor animal is sure
to fall. Such is the most common mode. They ralcu
late upon success with so much certainty, that I hav<
often been promised for the next day a haunch of veni-
son from a deer yet running in the wild woods. I
seldom failed to receive my promised present.

340

It is justly said, that the protestant worship has less
hold of the people here, than in any other part of the
United States. 1 have personally found a very af-
fectionate and attentive audience in the place where I
reside, and friends who are justly dear to me. The
people too are as punctual in their attendance on pub-
lic worship as in other and more favoured regions.
But there are very few Protestant churches of any sort.
I have no minister, with whom I could interchange,
nearer than Natchez, a distance by the rivers of two-
hundred and thirty miles. The people in the villages
have not yet begun to feel, as they do in most of the
villages in other parts of the United States, that the
spire of a church is associated in the mind of the be-
holder with the respectability of the place. There
are perhaps three Baptist churches in the state, and
the Methodists labour with their customary zeal.
Their known feelings on the subject of slavery ope-
rate as an impediment to their usefulness. The Cath-
olics have a great many churches and societies, and
the influence of their worship here differs little from
that which it exercises in other places. Another
would say that this was the region of moral desolation.
My heart, indeed, withers in want of the society and
converse of some one like-minded with myself upon
this deepest of all concerns, this holiest and most in-
teresting of all subjects. But, while I see that relig-
ion is not in all their thoughts, and see a thousand
things to be amended in their general character, I
should do injustice to my own convictions, did I not
say, that I see many things in the character of this
people, that might be profitably transferred to the
more serious people of the North. A man, grossly
immoral, or grossly ignorant, is not welcomed in good

341

society, merely because he is rich. I know of no
people among whom such a man would sink into more
certain contempt The people have a great regard tor
truth, are not addicted to scandal, and when ;i man
is discovered to have committed a cruel or a treacher-
ous act, he will no where experience an indignant ex-
pression of public feeling more universally.

LETTER XXVII.

In attempting to give you some idea of the con-
dition of the slaves in the southern and western coun-
try, I feel assured, that you will not sav. that my
heart has been hardened, or my sensibility benumbed
by the influence of southern feelings, or familiarity
with the spectacle before me. I have never had but
one feeling on this subject, and in the verv regions
where I reside, I have never expressed but one senti-
ment. I have never owned a slave, and I Mould to
God, that there were not one on the earth. But w Inn
I hear the opinions that are expressed in your region,
and see the bitter influence of misrepresentation upon
this subject, and read the intemperate and inflammatory
productions of the day, productions, which, I doubt
not, are in many instances L''>t up merely l<»r political
purposes, I tremble, in contemplating their probable
influence upon public feeling at the South.

Now was the happiest crisis that has occurred since
the commencement of our government, for breaking
down sectional harriers, and extinguishing sectional
feelings. The southern people were beginning to i »-

342

teem and regard the northern character. The term
yankee began to be a term rather of respect than re-
proach. It is easy to see how soon all this will be re-
versed, if we incautiously and rashly intermeddle in
this matter. The natural result of such an interfer-
ence is, to exasperate the masters, and to enhance the
sufferings of the slaves.

Let us hear, for a moment, the sou I hern planter
speak for himself, for I remark that if you introduce
the subject with any delicacy, I have never yet heard
one, who does not admit that slavery is an evil and
an injustice, and who does not at least affect to de-
plore the evil.

He s^ys, that be the evil ever so great, and the thing
ever so unjust, it has always existed among the Jews,
in the families of the patriarchs, in the republics of
Greece and Rome, and that the right of the master in
his slave, is clearly recognised by St. Paul ; that it
has been transmitted down, through successive ages, to
the colonization of North America, and that it existed
in Massachusetts, as well as the other states. " You,"
they add, " had but a few. Your climate admitted
the labour of the whites. You freed them because it
is less expensive to till your lands with free hands,
than with slaves. We have a scorching sun, and an
enfeebling climate. The African constitution can
alone support labour under such circumstances. We of
course had many slaves. Our fathers felt the neces-
sity, and yielding to the expediency of the case. They
have entailed the enormous and growing evil upon us
Our support, our very existence, as well as that of our
slaves,, depend upon their labour. Take them from us,
and you render the southern country a desert. You des-
troy the great staples of the country, and what is

845

Worse, you find no way in which to dispose of the
millions that yon emancipate." If we reply, thai W€
cannot violate a principle, for the sake of expediency]
they return upon us with the question, " What i^ to
be done: The deplorable condition of the emanci-
pated slaves in this country is a sufficient proof, that
we cannot emancipate the rest and leave them here.
Turn them all loose at once, and ignorant and reckless
as they are, ignorant as they are of the use or the
value of freedom, they would devour and destroy
the subsistence of years, in a day, and for want of
other objects upon which to prey, would prey upon
one another. It is a chronic moral evil, the growth
of ages, and such diseases are always aggravated by
violent and harsh remedies. Leave us to ourselves,
or point out the way in which we can gently heal this
great malady, not at once, but in a regimen of years.
The evil must go off as it came on, bj a slow and
gradual method of cure. Even tin1 grand sch< me "I
sending them, when emancipated, to Hayti, or their na-
tive shores, does not altogether meet the difficult*
for negroes avail themselves of every opportunity t<>
return to their own country, and many <>l them have
in fact secreted themselves in tin; holds of the .ships
returning, and showed themselves oulj when it was
too late to carry them back." To all this, and much
more of the same sort, I can only repeat their own
language, that it ir> a great and an increasing evil,
much easier to measure and weep over, than to heal,
am. that it is obviously unjust to reproach the people
of the South with this evil, without pointing out a
proper and practicable remedy. I '<> me it clearlj ap-
pears from actual and long observation, ol the condi-
tion and character of the free negroes, that the ufli

344

of emancipation ought to be slow, cautious, and tested
by experience.

In this method of cure, substitutes would be grad-
ually found for their labour. The best modes of in-
structing them in the value of freedom, and rendering
them comfortable and happy in the enjoyment of it,
Wi'iild be gradually marked out. They should be
taught to read, and imbued with the principles, and
morals of the gos| el. Every affectionate appeal
should be made to the humanity, and the better feel-
ings of the masters. In no instance should we ex-
pect to instil compassion in favour of their slaves into
their bosoms, by asserting that the practice is abomina-
ble, and that they are brutal tyrants to exercise their
power over them. Such arguments neither persuade
nor convince. Who knows but that gentle admoni-
tions, in the spirit and benevolence of the gospel, might,
in the end, excite among them purposes to inquire for
the best plan, in which to commence an efficient effort
for iheir gradual, distant, but final emancipation ?
Certain it is, that the spirit in which this subject has
been discussed at the North, and by the friends of
immediate emancipation among them, has had any ef-
fect rather than to conciliate the masters, and induce
them to set themselves to work in earnest, to melio-
rate the condition of the slaves. But I very willingly
dismiss a discussion, which would lead me far beyond
m) limits, and return to what is much surer ground —
the cc-nsideration of the actual character and condition
of the slaves.

I have elsewhere expressed my conviction, that
the negroes possess a gentle, susceptible, and affection-
ate nature. Their bosoms are more open to the im-
pressions of religion, than those of the whites,

345

Wherever the Methodists come in contact with thei
their earnest and vehement address softens the obdura-
cy of the blacks at once. They have gained many
converts among the slaves. They use a langua
that falls in with their apprehensions, and possibly
their popularity with them is enhanced by the preva-
lent impression, that the Methodists arc the exclusive
friends of slaves, and of emancipation.

In the region where I live, the masters allow entire
liberty to the slaves to attend public worship, and as
far as my knowledge extends, it is generally the case
in Louisiana. We have regular meetings of the blacks
in the building where I attend public worship. I hive,
in years past, devoted myself assiduously, ever) Sab-
bath morning, to the labour of learning them to read.
I find them quick of apprehension, The) learn die
rudiments of reading quicker thau even the whites,
but it is with me an nndoubting conviction, that hav-
ing advanced them to a certain point, it is much more
difficult to carry them beyond. In other words, they
learn easily to read, to sin:;, and scrape the (iddle.
But it would be difficult to leach them arithmetic, or
combination of ideas or abstract thinking <>l any bind.
Whether their skull indicates this b\ the modern prin-
ciples of craniology, or not, I cannot say. But I am
persuaded, that this susceptible and affectionate race
have beads poorly adapted to reasoning and algebra.

I had heard, before I visited the slave stales in tin-
West, appalling stories of the cruelly and harb;iiii\ »f
masters to slaves. In effect 1 saw there instances <>|
cruel and brutal masters, lint I u.i^ astonished to find
that the slaves in general bad the most cheerful coun-
tenances, and were apparently the happiest people
that 1 saw. They appeared to me to In: ;is well fed
44

316

and clothed, as the labouring poor at the North*
Here I was told, that the cruelty and brutality were
not here, but among the great planters down the Mis-
sissippi. So strongly is this idea inculcated, that it is
held up to the slave, as a bugbear over his head to
bind him to good behaviour, that if he does not behave
Well, he will be carried down the river, and be sold.
When I descended to this country, I had prepared my-
self to witness cruelty on the one part, and misery on
the other. I found the condition of the slaves in the
lower country to be still more tolerable, than in that
above ; they are more regularly and better clothed, en-
dure less inclemency of the seasons, are more syste-
matically supplied with medical attendance and medi-
cine, when diseased, and what they esteem a great
hardship, but what is in fact a most fortunate cir-
cumstance in their condition, they cannot, as in the
upper country, obtain whiskey at all.

It is a certain fact, and to me it is a delightful one,
that a good portion of the lights of reason and human-
ity, that have been pouring such increasing radiance
upon every part of the country, have illumined the
huts of the slaves, and have dawned in the hearts of
their masters. Certain it is, that in visiting great
numbers of plantations, I have generally discovered in
the slaves affection for their masters, and sometimes,
though not so generally, for the overseers- It appears
to be a growing desire among masters, to be popular
with their slaves, and they have finally become im-
pressed, that humanity is their best interest, that
cheerful, Well fed and clothed slaves, perform so much
more productive labour, as to unite speculation and
kindness in the same calculation. In some plantations
they have a jury of negroes to try offences under the

eye of the master, as judge, and it generally happens
tSiat he is obliged to mitigate the severity of thi ir s< n-
teuee. The master too has hold of the affection of
the slaves, by interposing his authority in certain eases
between the slave and the overseer. Where the mas-
ter is realy a considerate and kind man, the patriarchal
authority on the one hand, and the simple and affec-
tionate veneration on the other, render this relation of
master and slave not altogether so forbidding, as we
have been accustomed to consider it.

The negro village that surrounds a planter's house,
is, for the most part, the prototype of the village of
Owen of Lanark. It is generally oblong rows of
uniform huts. In some instances I have seen them
of brick, but more generally of cypress timber, and
they are made tight and comfortable. In some part of
the village is a hospital and medicine chest. Most
masters have a physician employed by the job , and
the slave, as soon as diseased, is removed there. I'ro-
vision is also made for the subsistence and comfort
of those that are aged and past their labour. In this
village by night you hear the hurdy-gurdy, and the
joyous and unthinking laugh of people, who have do
care nor concern for the morrow. 1 enter among
them, and the first difficulty appears to arise from
jealousy, and mutual charges of inconstancy, between
the husbands and wives. In fact, the want of any
sanction or permanence to their marriage connexions,
and the promiscuous intimacies that subsist among them,
are not only the sources of most of their quarrels and
troubles, but are among the most formidable evils, to a
serious mind, in their condition. Yoti now and then
see a moody and sullen looking negro, and if you in-
quire into the cause of his gloom, you will be informed

348

that he lias been a fugitive, that he has lived long in
the woods upon thieving, that he has been arrested
and whipped, and is waiting his opportunity to escape
again. Judging of their condition from their coun-
tenances, and from their unthinking merriment, I
should think them the happiest people here, and in
general, far more so than their masters.

It is a most formidable part of the evil of slavery,
that the race is far more prolific than that of the
whites, and that their population advances in a greater
ratio. They are at present in this region more nume-
rous than the whites, and this inequality is increasing
every day. Thinking people here, who look to the
condition of their posterity, are appalled at this view of
things, and admit that something must be done to
avert the certain final consequences of such an order
of things. I remark, in concluding this subject, that
the people here always have under their eye the con-
dition and character of the free blacks. It tends to
confirm them in their opinions upon the subject. The
slaves are much addicted to theft, but the free blacks
much more so. They, poor wretches, have the bad
privilege of getting drunk, and they avail themselves
of it. The heaviest scourge of New Orleans is its
multitudes of free black and coloured people. They
wallow in debauchery, are quarrelsome and saucy, and
commit crimes, in proportion to the slaves, as a hun-
dred to one.

The population of Louisiana is supposed to be, at
present, between two and three hundred thousand.
Alter New Orleans, the most populous parishes are
Baton Rouge, Feliciana, Rapidd, and Natchitoches.
P, uishes in this region are civil divisions, derived from
the former French regime. They are often larger

349

than our counties at the North. This country, from
the character of its soil, cannot have a dense popula-
tion, until the swamps are drained. The population,
except the sparse inhabitants of the pine woods, is
fixed along the margin of the water courses, and the
greater part of the planters can convey their 'produce
immi diatelv oil board the steam-boats.

I could not, without consulting books on the subject,
give you other than general ideas upon the manage-
ment of the government, and the administration of
justice. 1 have not touched upon these subjects, in
my remarks upon the upper country, because in all
these points there is so little difference between that
region and yours, as hardly to call for a description.
Here it is otherwise. The machine of government
is managed somewhat differently hire. The legisla-
tive department is substantially the same with yours,
and is elected much in the same way. Your political
disputes turn upon principles. Here they turn upon
men. The speaker of the house, and the president of
the senate, ought to understand French, for half the
debates are in that language. The laws are promul-
gated equally in French and English. .Motions are
put in both languages. Some of the French legisla-
tors are very animated speakers, and use a great deal
of gesture. Their speeches that 1 heard, however;
struck me as being rather florid, and in bad taste.
The French and American partus are nearly balanced.
Sometimes the one gains the ascendancy, and some-
times the other.

In the administration of justice, the civil eode fa
paramount authority, and common law is not supposed
to have weight. They quote it, I beliere, in illusfra
tiou of points and for precedent. The courts

350

ganized, and justice administered in other respects as
with you, except that a most, important officer in this
department is the " parish judge." He deeides pro-
bate affairs, and holds a parish court, which takes cogni-
zance of a great variety of causes. He is said here
to be a kind of general heir to the estates of deceased
persons, from the great power entrusted to his hands
in the setting of successions. The office is very res-
ponsible, and the salary, as is the case in fact of all
the officers in the state, is ample.

I might say something of the distinguished men of
this state, but my limits are too narrow, and I know
them not sufficiently to speak with confidence. In
our profession, the brilliant and pious Larned, who
has left such a deep impression at New Orleans, has
gone. His voice of music is still, and the lightning
of his eye is quenched. The present Presbyterian
minister has few compeers in the elegance of his fine
essay style. He is an instance of an extemporaneous
speaker, who lays sentence after sentence, and para-
graph after paragraph, entirely fit for the press, and
who trips seldomer than a person reading from notes.
The Rev. Dr. Dubourg, the Catholic bishop, has a
fine form, the most dignified manner, graceful gesture,
and the deep and mellow tones of an organ. From
him Protestant ministers might learn how manner
will recommend indifferent matter. Livingston, au-
thor of the new code, is a man of first rate powers.
I have not read more elegant or brilliant discussions,
than his preliminary defences of his code. The amia-
ble Hawkins, whose premature death was so deep-
ly lamented, and by none more than myself, was a
rising lawyer. General Ripley is sufficiently known
at the North as a brilliant man. There is much

351

smartness and future promise in Eustis. Mr. Brown,
tin- minister to France, is spoken of as full, brilliant,
ami profound. Among the French, Mazzereau, and a
number of others, arc fine speakers. Indeed there
seems to be in the men of this region an aptitude for
fine speaking. I might easily swell this catalogue,
and add here the names of men of this profession
wirh respect to whom I feel the partiality of friend-

p. 1 speak only of those whom 1 have heard
speak. There are doubtless many others who are
equally distinguished. The bar has certainly gn
p ver here. Fees are verv great, litigation common,
and •• .x rever the carcase is, there will the eagles be

acred." The bar has many brilliant men in the
region where I reside. Hie \ ;ry great fortunes ac-
quired by successful lawyers furnish the excitements,
th U create and call forth whatever can be generated in
the mind.

I shall only glance at the history of this country.
It was first explored by adventurers fro u Canada,
who extended their walks b vond the lakes, until, to
their astonishment, they found themselves on rivers
that flowed west, and in a direction Opposite to the
great river of their own country. These rr.
brought them on the l> isom of the mighty Mississippi.
As they sailed down its dark and silent forests, u is
carious to hear with what naivete* they describe the
grandeur, the richnees, and luxuriance of the -■•< ■in-.
The poor and sour grapes were to them grapes ol
paradise; the screaming blue-jay was a nightingale,
and every object furnished them a theme \<>v exclama-
tion and delight. It was afterwards explored by
French navigators from the Atlantic shore,' wa
tied, ami became the theatre of the fatal golden dreai

352

of Law's speculation. I have seen three persons of
the gipsey race, said to be descended from a colony
from the Grecian islands, that was transported (o the
bay of Biloxi to cultivate the olive and the vine.
This interesting colony perished. The settlement be-
came the scene of misery, disease, and starvation, was
broken up, and renewed. At one lime, the Span-
iards fell upon the French, and massacred them, not
as enemies, but as heretics, enemies of God and the
Virgin. The French retaliated upon ihe Spaniards,
not as enemies, but as traitors and cut-throats. The
whole colony, root and branch, was well nigh being
destroyed by a combination of Indians.

Under Iberville, the colony began to acquire per-
manence, and to establish those beautiful plantations,
that now adorn the country. In 1763, it was ceded
to the Spaniards, and after the French revolution,
transferred again to the French government. During
the administration of Mr. Jeft"»son, it was purchased
by the United States from the French government, for
fifteen millions of dollars. It included all the country
west of the Mississippi, that is now divided into the
state of Louisiana, the territory of Arkansas, and the
state of Missouri. Under the American government,
the aspect of things changed rapidly. The lands in-
creased in value. New Orleans increased greatly in
population ; its sugar cultivation was much extended,
and its agriculture became extremely prosperous*
During the late war, it sustained a most formidable
attack by a large British force, under general Pack-
enham. Under the energetic and wise command of
General Jackson, on the eighth of January, 1815, the
American forces gained a very decisive victory over
the British, in which the British lost their leading gen-

353

erals, and more than two thousand men. Louisiana
\v:ls soon after evacuated by rfie British, and has been
constantly advancing in wealth and prosperity since
that period.

The first year that I Spent in Alexandria, passed
pleasantly in the discharge of uniform duties. My
society was small, but embraced some of (he most
amiable families, with which I have been acquainted.
You are informed how I here came in contact with r
respectable citizen of Alexandria, of high standing in
the country, a graduate from our own alma mater, and
with whose father, a clergyman in my vicinity while
in New England, I had a long, intimate, and af-
fectionate intercourse. Such an acquisition was in-
valuable. If any one would know the value of a
companion, bred in the same region, formed to similar
habits, versed in all kinds of literature, a scholar, a
gentleman, and a man capable of sincere and ardent
friendship, let him wander without such a friend ten
years in the wilderness of tin.' West, and then, where
such a thing was least expected, let him find such a
friend.

The people, too, were attentive to my ministry*
We formed a sinning society, and the people were tx
ginning to cultivate a taste for sacred music* My
residence was every way comfortable, and I W88 be-
ginning to hope for that repose, so necessary to a
frame, so exhausted by fatigue and disease ;i^ mine*
The climate, however, of this delightful village where
I reside, is fatal. It is embowen d by china and
catalpa trees, is perfectly dry and level, and its sin
are kept clean, and ev< ry thing would seem to prem-
ise health. But in this pleasant village the unseen
*eeds of disease are always sowing* In the lattei

354

part of the winter, I found that my severe duties,
concurring with the damp and sultry atmosphere, be-
gan to wear upon me. I made some inquiries
respecting the best place of retirement for the sum-
mer ; for the people here retire in the sickly months
to different points in the pine woods. I selected a
spot where two families had already fixed with the
same intentions. My particular friends built houses
in the vicinity of mine. In the latter part of May
I became seriously ill, and we moved into the pine
woods. I there soon regained comfortable health.
You have wished some details of our manner of pas-
sing our time there, and I will give them.

We are situated on a fine hill-slope, where the tall,
straight pines rise by thousands on every side. The
soil is a greyish gravelly sand, as dry in an hour after
the greatest rain, as before. We were obliged to fell
a hundred trees that were tall enough to have reached
our house. There are nine or ten houses occupied by
neighbcurs and friends, all within call. We have fine
springs and spring-branches, and the air has an aro-
matic and terebinthine odour, that is deemed healthy,
and at least is grateful. At a little distance from us
is a beautiful and clear stream, shaded with laurels
arid grape-vine arbours, and yielding the greatest
abundance of fish of any stream that I ever saw.
During the summer, 1 took more than two thousand
trout myself, besides pickerel and other fish. The
trout are beautifully mottled with white and gold, and
Would weigh on an average a pound. We had pub-
lic chowder-parties, where sixty people sat down un-
der grape -viae arbours, to other good things beside
fish.

355

Bur our own private way of getting along was still
more pleasant. There were three or lour intimate
and endeared families, that had no ceremony in their
meeting, and we took our evening tea alternately at

B7 •— ' J

each other's houses. In tlie morning we rose with the
sun, breathed the balsamic air of the pines, took oill
angling rods, followed by our wives and children to
the brink of the stream. A carpet was spread under
the beeches, and close by a line spring. We naught
the trout, and threw them over the bank to the black
girls, who had kindled a lire for cooking litem. It
seldom cost us half an hour to take enough for twenty
people. The other necessary articles were supplied
as each guest furnished the proportions most conven-
ient to him. I have never made more delightful re-
pasts ; nor have I ever passed a summer more pleas-
antly. A kind of sad presentiment tised to hang over
my mind, to embitter even this pleasanl summer, an
impression, that as it was so delightful, it would be
the last pleasant one allotted to me on the earth.
"When we left the pine woods the hist of September,
for Alexandria, when, like the patriarchs, we had pre-
pared the line of march with our '•stuff ;unl our
little ones, through the woods to our house in town,
the poetical paroxysm came on me again, and I pro-
duced the subjoined ;' Farewell to the Pine Woods."
I make no apology for adding also rerses b) m\ gun,
on the same occasion. I hope it will not be ;i surfeit
of poetry, if I close the account with rerses of his,
entitled " Reminiscences." as ih»-\ also fall i<i with the
strain, and the object of this work. Perhaps \ou will
take into view his youth, and the rnexperi< nee of hiv
muse, and find them tolerable.

35$

FAREWELL TO THE PINE WOODS.

Ha?mus, sweet stream, I've passed the sultry days

Most pleasantly, along thy verdant hanks ;

And it befits me, ere I turn again

To life's hard toil, to pay thee tribute due.

For I remember well the scorching day,

When, weary, faint, and wan, [ saw thee first,

Expecting soon to lay the load of life

Beneath the turf; but thy cool wave

And healthful breeze inspired other hopes.

Thy fountains, springing midst the wavy pines.

Well from the hills, to join thee, o'er a sand

As pure as mountain-snow ; so bright,

That the gay red-bird tunes his note of joy,

Soon as lie settles on thy laurel branch.

How often, ere the jocund morn had ting'd

Thy groves with gold, my angling rod in hand,

From thy pellucid wave I've drawn the trout,

In all his pride of mottled white and gold,

And borne the cumbrous prize, triumphant, home.

And still, with each returning summer morn,

Thou didst supply the inexhausted feast;

And, while we've set us on thy cooling bank,

We've carolled, told the mirthful tale in joy,

As careless, as the roving Indian wild.

And we have had good store of courteous dames,

Who brought their little prattlers to our home,

Arching, and open, like the o'erhanging sky,

Unconscious of the jealous lock, or latch.

By joint consent with these dear friends we threw

Observance, form and state all to the winds;

All unsophisticated, like the first pair.

And then, when evening from the azure east,

Threw her deep mantle o'er the dark-brown pine,

397

Weve sat, well pleased, to list the breezy moan,
Nature'- Eolian harp, to sink, or swell
Along the boundless forest-tops, in strains,
That awe, impress, or counsel sleep : —
This vesper hymn prolonged, till the bright moon,
Thron'd on her silver car, ami twinkling stars
Seem but to float just o'er the forest lops.
Sudden the blazing torches rise around,
And pour their flickering light amidst the trees,
And spread illusions o'er our humble sheds,
As those, that mark enchantment's fabled tales.
\ Our cabins turn to palaces, and the dark pine,
Seen half in living light, and half in shade,
Half lucid verdure, and half deepening gloom,
Shows, like the light of life, shut by the grave
From the dark regions of eternity.

WRITTRN" ON LEAVING THE PINE WOODS.

Farewell, ye groves, that I am leaving,
Where I've spent the summer heai> ;
Autumnal g;iles now force us, grieving,
To resume our winter seats.

The breezes o'er thy pine tops playing,
Strike the ear with mimick roar ;
Like surges, which the storm conveying,
Dash madly on some rocky shore.

Oft hath their murmur lull'd me sleeping,
]l<ard amid the silent night ;
While solemn owls their vigils keeping,
Sang a requiem o'er ibe light.

Farewell, thou stream, from fountains sprintrinjr.
Crystal waters form thy flood J

358

Grape-vine arbours, o'er thee Hinging,
Mark thy course amidst the wood.*

How oft thy grateful coolness courting,
In thy bosom did I lave ;
Or watch the finned tribes thick sporting,
In thy clear pellucid wave.

How oft along thy banks I've wandered,
Viewed thee rippling o'er the sand ;
And, lost in thought, how deeply pondered
On my distant, native land.

That land shall own each fondest feeling,
Twin'd about this swelling breast;
Till death, its hopes and fears concealing,
Sinks them both alike to rest.

Her granite cliffs, that breast the ocean,
Dashing back the Atlantic wave ;
Her sons, that o'er its wild commotion
Bid their country's banner wave :

Her vales with gentle slope descending,
Frequent with the glittering spire;
Her hills, where first our sires contending,
Bade their haughty foes retire :

Such were the subjects of my musing,
A? 1 wandered down thy glade ;
E'en now, myself in fancy losing,
From my subject I have strayed.

How oft, beneath yon empty dwelling,
Did we pass the cheerful day ;
While o'er yon hills, our music swelling,
Died in softest notes away.

* To an inhabitant of the valley of Red River, a clear running stream is a
iarity.

359

When night, her dusky mantle throwing,
Clad the earth with sable vest ;
The cheerful torch-light brightly glowins,
Showed u scene by magic drest.*

E'.cU blazing torch is now extinguished,
Night and silence reign supreme ;
The cricket's chirp alone distinguished,
Yields another mournful theme.

Once more, ye groves and valleys smiling
Fast receding from my view,
With future hopes my grief beguiling,
1 must turn and say, adieu

REMINISCENCES.

The following stanzas were written in the leisure noun <il leveraJ days.
They are quite unconnected and unfinished, for 1 find the lubiect almost in
exhaustible.

\ wanderer long in that wide spreading vale,
Through which with devious course and lengthened Way,
The western Nile, through many a varied dale,
Through shifting scenes and changing clime doth stray,
From those hoar hills where crystal fountains play,
And form tne parent stream's transparent tide,
By mighty streams, that each their tribute pay,
To where those gathered lh> - ! majesctic glide,
And mingle with the boundless waste of wal

* We m bile in the pi i *nl • i"t< li •

kniitf, which were placed on ' ;> little 'li-1 • from 'li<- hou»e, nnd

which when lighted op by night, gave a singular apot
and the surrounding WOodl

360

Nature, in evsry varied dress I've seen, — -
From forests which returning winters blight,
To i'airer fields clad in perennial green, —
From climes clothed in her snowy garb of white,
To those where southern suns with radiance bright.
On happier lands diffuse their softened ray,
From plains where vision only bounds the sight,
Which like a verdant sea, out-spreading lay,
To forests dark and dense, that half exclude the day.

I've me; the Indian on his native wild,
Free and unfettered as the mountain wind.
And I have marked him as in scorn he smiled,
On the lull city, with its arts refined.
Perchance compared it in his haughty mind
With his own solitudes far in the west,
Where free from laws, by limits unconfined.
He sought his game, where'er it liked him best,
As nature prompted, took his pleasures or his rest.

And those rude foresters, who lead the van,
Who through untrodden wilds the highway pave,
On which the march of civilized man
Rolls steady onward to the western wave,
Reekless of law, but generous and brave,
They ever met with welcome kind,
Which I received as freely as they gave.
And oft beneath their cabins rude did find
That noblest guest, a happy, independent mind.

In these primeval scenes, there is a spell,
To me more dear, than all the mouldering heaps
On which imagination loves to dwell :
For there, beneath the crumbling ruin, sleeps
A buried world, o'er which the poet weeps,
While here, a bursting empire meets his eye,
The spreading wave of life still onward sweeps,
And as he views the mighty flood roll by,
His bosom beats with proud anticipation high:

361

I love to rove beneath the spreading shade
Of mighty forests, whose grey columns stand,
From age to age, in hoary moss arrayed,
And cast their giant foliage o'er the land
In wild luxuriance. There I trace the hand,
That guides the rolling planets in their spheres,
That moulds a grain, and numbers every sand,
Fur there, unveiled, his powerful arm appears,
Whether in wrath it prostrates, or in mercy rears.

Whether he made the winged winds his steeds,
And on the dark tornado rode alone,
Majestic and sublime ; while crushed like reeds,
The sylvan monarchs in his path were strown,
Or on the midnight cloud, his gloomiest throne,
Let forth the angry lightnings from their cell-,
And with his thunder drowned the sullen moan,
Which ever from the storm rocked forest swells,
As wails aloud the fiend who in the tempest dwells.

Or whether, borne upon the zephyr's wing,
From milder climes he held his joyous way ;
"While in his train, the rosy footed Spring,
Crowned with the flowery diadem of May,
Exulting came, or with the genial ray
Of that bright sun, where his effulgence glows,
Reared from the earth, the countless germs that lay
Within her breast; till, wakened from repose,
Around its sleeping sires an infant forest rose.

I felt his presence in the midnight storm,
Alike as in the balmy breath of Spring,
I saw his glance in radiant sunbeams warm
Its smile of gladness o'er the green earth flii
He bloomed in flowers, inspired the birds to ing,
His finger traced the river's endless course,
He bade its thousand streams their tribute bring,
And piled the snowy mountains at its source,
Creation was his home — Omnipotence his for< •

362

While wandering in that solitary world,
How oft by the majestic river's side,
When not a ripple on its bosom curled,
At eve 1 lay, and saw the mighty tide,
Broad and resistless, down its channel glide,
A flood of silver in the moonlight beam,
While o'er the sleeping forest far and wide,
And o'er the star-gemed bosom of the stream,
Deep brooding silence sat and reigned with sway supreme.

Or when the cheeiful light of ruddy morn
Had wakened nature from her deep repose,
How sweet the starting boatmen's bugle horn
Re-echoing from the silent forests rose,
As from his willow haven forth he goes
To tempt the dangers of the tedious way,
Till far away from the still whitening snows,
That on his native mountains bleaching lay,
He finds a clime, mild as their softened breeze of May.

But see, emerging from the verdant slope
Of yonder point, where the lithe willow rears
In files successive to the poplar's cope,
The gay steam-boat in all her pride appears,
As up the stream, the sturdy helmsman steers,
The patient leadsman chants his measured song,
And mark, as in her rapid course she nears,
How backward driven as she ploughs along,
The foaming waters high around her bosom throng.

Proudly she cleaves the wave, while thundering by,
And leaves the forest echoes all awake.
But soon, beyond some point fades from the eye,
While swelling in her widely spreading wake,
The angry waves in wild commotion break,
Until at last they reach the distant shore,
Where -to the beach the murmuring waters make
Their sullen plaint ; and when that feeble roar
Has sunk to rest, they glide as silent as before.

363

Through the long vista of the coming years,
Prospective thought dwells with enchanted eye
On the bright pictUN as it then appears,
Where smiling art with nature seems to vie,
As all around the cheipiered landscapes lie,
Where spire-crowned villages successive ris ,
Where thronging cities rear their towers on high,
Where labour still his thousand weapons plus,
And commerce brings her gilts from earth's remotest skies.

But had departed grandeur pleased me best,
Each simple pyramid that rears its head
Among the boundless prairies of the West,
Is but a mighty mass of slumbering dead,
The tomb of generations that are lied.
Their bones in those dark mounds alternate lay,
The flesh that wrapped them once, now forms their bed ;-
For it hath long since mingled with the clay,
And formed these massy heaps of dull unvarying grey.

Yes — could that senseless dust revive again,
And each dark mound pour forth its sleeping dead,
To rove once more across yon smiling plain ;
Or could the mighty mammoth leave his bed,
Burst from the earth which lime has o'er him spread.
And rearing his broad front, with thunder scarred,
Eye the dark storm thick lowerin . o'er his bead,
With proud defiance or with calm regard,
Then might we find our native themes fit for the bard.

Oh could we draw the curtains of the p
Unveil its bidden secrets to the light,
Sure fancy here might find a rich repast ;
Could we outstrip the years in their swift :'
Gaze on the future from time'- farthest height,
And as the grand procession rolled aloo .
Of after ages sweeping into sight,
See our proud empire foremost in the thronr,
That were a subject, worthy of the noblest S(

364

But cease, my muse, ' tis not for thee to soar,
Thy simple strains suit not the mighty theme,
Thine own sweet Red-bird doth his wild notes pour,
From the green copses of his native stream ;
But the bold eagle starting with a scream,
From his wild cliff, with bolder pinion soars
High in mid air, and drinks the sun's bright beam
Fresh from its source, pure as the ray he pours
From cloudless skies, on Greece, or fair Italia's shores.

In October of the last year, we resumed our labo-
rious duties in the seminary. I had my son and
another young man under a particular course of per-
sonal instruction. I had boarders, a numerous school,
preached after a sort and as I could, and was trying
to digest this work. A few weeks of this overplied
exertion began to make me feel the illness, which
brought me to your country. I struggled to vanquish
it, by resolution and exercise, until the eighth of last
December. I was then seized with a bilious com-
plaint, accompanied with spasm, which confined me
to my bed. All the aids of medicine were unavailing.
The middle of January, I was just able, with assis-
tance, to mount on horse back. Accompanied by my
friend, Judge Bullard, of whom you have so often
heard me speak, I commenced a journey to Natchito-
ches and the interior beyond for my health. We as-
cended the Bayou Rapide, and traversed its lines of
beautiful plantations. At the head of the Bayou, and
twenty-five miles from Alexandria, we enter the pine
woods. At the ferry of the river Aux Canes, Red
River is divided into three parallel rivers, each possess-
ing their tiers of cotton plantations. Thence by
pleasant houses, and rich plantations adjoining each
other, and through a charming country, we passed to

365

Natchitoches. The weather was delightful. The
river was fringed with clover. Mocks of beautiful
birds were seated on the weeds that had been seared
by the frost, and were gathering the seeds. But lor
my extreme illness I should have enjoyed this pk
ant ride, as I always do the view pf novel Bceneryi
and the richness of nature. I had occasion again to
remark the hospitality of the French planters We
were expected, and were met by the gentleman at
whose house we passed the first night. Had I not al-
readv clo\ed you with descriptions) I would give you
the picture of this house and establishment. It was
surrounded by cabins, in which dwelt.it may be, eigh-
ty negroes, pens in which were some hundred ofb<
cattle, goats, geese, little negroes, and some domesti-
cated Indians. Every thing in and about the house
was in perfect keeping. We. had for sup| er, duck-
pies, coffee, and claret. In the morning duel
milk, custards, coffee, and claret. The owner accom-
panied us some miles to where he was laying off ■
new town, and showed us a man recently from Paris,
who played off surprising tricks of legerdemain. lb
showed us. apparently with no little pride, a dancing
hall, ornamented in ancient French Style, with d I
ons, coarse paintings, hangings of different coJoi
rendered more gay with the beautiful plum of some
of their birds. Wherever we called, the opuleol pi. in
ters vied in attention to us.

Natchitoches is a very ancient town, settled, I be-
lieve, originally bj Spaniards from the internal ; i
inces. It is Bai l i(, lie more ancient in ii in than

Philadelphia. The scenery about the tOWD IS SU
ingly pleasant The village i^ compact, largei I
Alexandria, and composed oi Spani b, I rench,

366

American houses, and a population composed of these
races together, with a considerable mixture of Indian
blood. There are many respectable families here, and
a weekly newspaper in French and English. From
its position, this must be a great inland town. At the
head of steam-boat navigation, the last town westward
towards the Spanish frontier, and on the great road to
that country and to Mexico, it has already a profitable
trade with that country. The Spanish come there for
their supplies, as far as from the Rio del Norte. They
pay in bars of silver and mules. I have seen droves
pass of four hundred horses and mules. The relations
of this place with the interior of the state, and of New
Spain, must necessarily be extended, and this must ul-
timately become a place of great trade. Being, as they
phrase it, the "jumping off place," it is necessarily the
resort of desperate, wicked, and strange creatures,
who wish to fly away from poverty, infamy, and
the laws, and those who have one, from conscience.
If I were to enter into any kind of detail of the sin-
gular scenes, that have been witnessed here, under the
different regime's, Spanish, French, and American, in
its different stages of a pastoral, hunting, and com-
mercial existence ; and from the period when its navi-
gation was conducted in canoes, hollowed from trees, to
the stately steam-boat; if I could describe its Indian
poivtvows, its Spanish fandangos, its French balls, and
its American frolics, the different epaulets of the
Spanish, French, and American officers, and the
character, costume, and deportment of the mottled
damsels that attended them, I must be the "great
Unknown " to do it, and I must have ten volumes for
elbow. Pity, that all this interesting matter should
be lost, for want of an historian. I wandered to its

367

ancient grave-yard, and experienced indescribable
emotions, in trying to retrace mouldering monuments,
where the inscriptions were originally coarse, and are
now illegible, where Spanish, French, Americans, In-
dians, Catholics and Protestants lie in mingled confu-
sion.

I passed two weeks here, receiving daily invita-
tions to entertainments by the hospitable citizens of
this place. The luxury of the table is understood and
practised in great perfection. I was charmed with
the singing and playing of two young ladies in this
place, the one Spanish, the other American. While
here, I witnessed a sad spectacle, which left a deep im-
pression, and which I will take leave to relate. A
French surgeon, of the name of Prcvot, who was
said to have received a regular education to his profes-
sion in France, came here at the age, probably, of
thirty-six. He was arrested, treated with gross and
unwarrantable indignity, and brought to this town for
commitment to jail. He was liberated on a writ of
habeas corpu>, and conceived a deep purpose of re-
venge towards the district attorney, who made out the
instrument of his commitment. On a certain evening
he supped with this gentleman, and after supper walked
with him apart, challenged him. as he said, and offered
him his choice of weapons. Mr. Mills refu led to light
him, and, as he avers, added the epithet menteur, win li
lie said, no Frenchman could ever forgive. He <li
his dirk, and plunged it into the bosom of Mr. Mill :.
giving him a wound, of which in a lew minutes he ex-
pired* Prevot walked deliberately away to the brie
that leads over the river, and was there arrested* II'
was tried, and condemned some time in autumn, and bad
been lying in prison under sentence of death until I

368

arrival. Three days before his execution, I called up-
on him in prison, and offered him my services as a min-
ister. He inquired if I were a Catholic priest, inform-
ing me, that if I came, as he phrased it, with any of
the mummery of confession, mass, &c. he wished to
have nothing to say to me. I answered, that I was a
Protestant. He eagerly rejoined, " vous avez raison
done," adding, that he should be glad to see me.
He explained that he had been brought up in the
school of Voltaire and Delambert, and amidst the
storms of the revolution ; " a bad kind of discipline,"
he rejoined, " to make a good christian." He averred,
that he did not repent of his murder, and that un-
der similar circumstances he should repeat the act. I
visited him repeatedly, and still found him in the same
frame of mind. He requested me to attend him to the
gallows. He was executed half a mile from the prison,
in the pine woods. A cart with a coffin was brought
to the prison, and in the midst of a vast concourse, the
poor wretch, after a long confinement in a dark prison,
was brought forth to die. He had a fine countenance,
was pale and emaciated, and was supposed to be still
under the influence of arsenic, by which he had attempt-
ed to poison himself the night before. The view of
a brilliant sun seemed to have a bewildering effect up-
on him. I persuaded him to walk rather than ride.
He took mv arm. and we were a most melancholy
pair, the one as pale and feeble from disease as the
other was from long confinement and the scene before
him. As we ascended the bluffs to the pine woods, he
bowed gracefully, and with true French ease, to all
that he recognised among the assembled multitudes.
Arrived at the summit of the bluff, from which the
pleasant village and a vast extent of delightful scenery

369

were visible, he gave a long and fixed look at the out-
stretched prospect before him. Me then looked up to
the sky and the sun. He waved his head, with a
kind of convulsive shudder, as he seemed to he taking
his final leave of nature. " Ah !*' said lie, '• jc snis las
Ou coeur : mais e'est pour la derniere fois." " I ana op-
pressed at heart, but it is for the last time ! :' When
we arrived at the gallows, he remarked, that it was a
spectacle terrible to poor, feeble human nature. '• Rut
I must finish," said he, and we helped him mount
the cart He then held out his hand and said, et Adieu,
minis- re ! " I requested leave to pray, and prayed, ac-
cording to his wish, in English, which he did not under-
stand. But he seemed to understand the heart-felt
tone of the prayer. When it was finished, he seemed
softened, and begged me to say to the people, that he
asked the mercy of God, and died in charity with all
the world. He then added, with emphatic earnest-
ness, " Adieu, ministre ! je vous remercie." He then
desired the sheriff to proceed, and remonstrated against
longer delay. The moment before tin- cart was driven
from under him, he took out his snuff-box, took in
each nostril a large and deliberate pinch of snuff, v.
returning his snuff-box to his waistcoat pocket, but
recollecting that he would have no further use for it,
he laid it down on the coflin, intimated that lie \
ready, and was launched into eternity.

From Natchitoches, in company with Judge Jml-
lard, I made an excursion towards the Spanish fron-
tier. 1 had conceived that from Natchitoches to the
Sabine was a continued and uninhabited forest. Hut
our great country is found to have enlarged herself on
every side. To the garrison, Cantonment .l< ssup, and

thence to the Sabine, there is an excellent road : the
47

370

miles are numbered and marked, and there are houses,
many of them recent, at every short interval, quite to
the Spanish line. It is an undulating country, chiefly
pine, but with many springs, and spring branches, on
which there are bottoms of second rate land. We
passed the Rio Hondo, an inconsiderable stream, be-
tween which and the Sabine used to be the " debate-
able " country between the Spaniards and Americans.
We went out of the great road, '■ camino real," as it
used to be called, to visit the Spanish village of
Adayes. It is a curious collection of great, upright
log houses, plastered with mud, and having an appear-
ance very different from a French village of the same
character. The church was a mean log-building, with
four bells, some of them cracked, and pictures of
saints, that, from their horrible ugliness, might have
been taken for caricatures. The people had a distinct
physiognomy, and as my companion spoke Spanish
with fluency, 1 amused myself with observing the
countenance and gesture of this simple race of igno-
rant Creoles, in the eagerness of conversation. They
do not speak so rapidly as the French, have a kind of
listlessness of manner, and a great deal of guttural
sound in their speech.

It is a curiosity to see them make their bread. It
is made from maize, that has been boiled in weak lie,
which takes off the outer coat. The women have a
couple of stones, the one concave, and the other con-
vex ; the corn is placed in the cavity ; they mash
it, and grind it to an impalpable paste, and work the
paste into cakes in their hand, managing the whole
process and keeping time to a certain tune. One
woman will in this way grind and bake, so as to keep
six men in bread during their meal. These people

371

are poor, and addicted to theft, but otherwise simple
and amiable in their manners, and carry their hospi-
tality to the greatest lengths.

In crossing the Rio Hondo we were lost in the
deep forest. We wandered to the right and to the
left, until my little strength was exhausted, and until
I was obliged to demand assistance in crossing the nu-
merous branches. To make my case worse, it began
to be cloudy and to rain. Weak as 1 was, and no
settlements that we knew of between us and the Gulf,
I began to imagine the condition of an invalid like me
left to perish in the woods. Fortunately my compan-
ion was in perfect health, well mounted, and used to
the woods. After wandering some miles amidst the
branches and cane-brake, we heard the bells of cattle,
and soon came upon a Spanish house, and inquired for
the " candno real," or king's road, that we had left.
Our Spaniard could point in the direction : but although
he had been born and reared to maturity within a leag
of the road, he could give us no measure of the dis-
tance. His most definite terms were, "a little wa\."
and " a great way." A Frenchman tinder the same
circumstances would have told us. that the distance was
'• mi pipe " — one pipe ; for they measure their distant
by the number of pipes that they smoke in traversing it
We were most hospitably welcomed at "Canton-
ment Jessup," a post within twenty-live miles of the
Sabine, and situated the farthest to the southwest of
any in the United Stat< They have very comfoi
abb; quarters, two compao* ol soldiers, and a num-
ber of verv gentlemanly officers, the whole under the
command of Col. Many. The water from the
southern extremity of the esplanade fads into the Sa-
bine, and from the northern, into Red llivcr. It is

372

of course the highest point between the two rivers.
It produced singular sensations, to see all the pomp
and circumstance of military parade, and to hear the
notes of the drum and the fife, breaking the solitude
of the wilderness of the Sabine. By this garrison
passes the great road to the crossing on the Sabine.
Beyond that river the forest country continues thirty
miles. Then commence the vast prairies, or grass
plains, that reach to the Passo del Norte. The road
from the Sabine to Mexico is said to be very good,
passable with carriages, and the worst part of the
distance, in the valley of Mexico, within a short
distance of that city. The passing is already consid-
erable. Many of the young men in our region
have made excursions to that city. It is easy to see
that the improving spirit of the age, even in the
Mexican country, will soon make this a stage and a
mail route.

I intended here to have given you some idea of the
adjoining Spanish province of Texas. You are
aware of the circumstances that forbid the attempt.
I have collected some materials for the purpose. My
object was to have interwoven a narrative of the ill-
fated expedition to that country, in 181 1, in which
many spirited and intelligent young men from the
United States were engaged. The object was, under
a Spanish republican leader, to revolutionize the in-
ternal provinces. By the royal force under Col. Ar-
redondo they were defeated, after they had obtained
many successes. Even the last action the Americans
contested gallantly, and would have gained it, but for
the cowardice and treachery of their Spanish allies.
Many were slain, and the rest endured inconceivable
hardships in arriving at the American frontier.

:37J

Anions: the most distinguished men in Louisiana, are
some of the men that escaped from this defeat*

To th is I would have added some account of Col.
Austin's settlement under the Spanish auspices, on
the Brassos and the Colorado. my Americans

have emigrated there. \\e saw them marching in
shoals for that country, which had become, like
" Boo1 's lick." of the upper country, a kind of cen-
tral point of union. Land is obtained for one " hit,"
or twelve and an half cents an acre. There is sune
timb .• ■ 1 a id botto n land ; but it is principally prairie.
The country is represented as line for com, cotton,
and the sugar cant-. The soil is fertile and the
climate genial and salubrious. But all these de-
tails must be reserved lor another time, and a firm-
er hand.

I returned to Natchitoches, and found myself una-
ble to descend to Alexandria on horse- back. I sent
down my horse by laud, took a steam-boat, and reach-
ed my family, having experienced very little benefit
from my long excursion. . illness continued, and

as the sultry weather commenced the firs! [arch,

my strength visibly declined. an became too

intense for riding on horse-back, i ad-

mitted that medicine was of no avail. In tin
gions, the last resort in such ca rney, or a

voyage to the North. M\ physician, my frier
my family, united in representing this onl) i

maining expedient for me. To an i ted invalid,

who had been for years sustained by th id-

nous nursing and care, it seemed a formidable i
iment to commit myself to such a •' journey, :.
to separate myself from every friend.

374

You can readily imagine all the struggles of my
mind under these circumstances. You know enough
of mj- habits to be aware how often, in my days of
distress and my nights of watching, I laid my case
before Him, who alone can help ; how often, in the vi-
brations of feeling, different determinations would al-
ternately have the mastery. Sometimes I felt en-
couraged by the numerous records of cases, where in
disease as inveterate as mine, the sufferer had taken
this journey and found relief. In other frames it
seemed the only eligible course to remain, and if it
were so to be, to die in the bosom of my family. To
one point it is here a duty due to gratitude to testify
the unwearied kindness and attentions of my friends.
A carriage, a horse, a servant, all the little delicacies
so necessary to the fastidious appetite of an invalid,
were constantly furnished me by my friends. Kind-
nesses of every sort may be rendered, and the heart
may swell with grateful thoughts, which cannot
clothe themselves in words, and yet disease go steadi-
ly on. So it was with me. I saw that I could not
long survive in that region. I determined to disen-
gage myself from my family, cast myself on the care of
God, and commence a journey of twenty-five hundred
miles for my native land, looking forward as the most
fortunate consummation, that I had a right to hope,
to revisit the scenes and the friends of my first years,
and after so much wandering and toil, to be buried by
the " graves of my father and my mother."

I commenced this journey Monday the fourth day
of April last. It is unnecessary for me to speak of the
forced cheerfulness of my family and my friends, the
presages of people, who talked with confidence in
their words to me, and who instantly used a different

375

language among themselves. Friendship and kind-
ness could do nothing for me that was not done. A
kind neighbour was to accompany me as far as Balti-
more. The morning sun shone brightly. The bell
had struck for calling together the pupils in the sem-
inary. They bade me farewell in the court-yard. My
family accompanied me to the steps. Perhaps the
hardest parting of the whole was with a little fellow
between three and four, with a dark Spanish counte-
nance, but a brilliant eye, that easily kindles witli joy
or is suffused with a tear, according to the passing
emotion. He is our Joseph, born to us after an inter-
val of fourteen years, except the infant which wc
lost on the Mississippi. He was marching in the
court-yard with his military hat and feather, clad in a
new suit, and with a tin sword, given to keep him away
from this painful business of parting. But he had
come, and saw that there was restrained emotion, and
uncommon countenances. He came up to me and
asked, why mama and sister looked so Btrange. I
kissed him, not daring even to turn back, or c.i-t
one " longing, lingering look behind;" and sustain-
ed by my two sons, went on board tin- steam-boat
Natchitoches, bound for Natchez, parted from my
sons, took my birth, heard the parting u'"'i fired "n
the bow, and instantly felt, thai we were descending

the river.

On the way to Natchez we had a violent §OSt and
thunder storm at midnight Our boat vrai Iraky,
crowded with passengers, and • . <lv uncomfort-

able. My fellow pa during thd commotion <>i

the elements, gambled, were some of them rerj drill
and most of them noisy, and it I to me, thai

my hour was come. I irai sustained ' -)"</• and

376

here received great kindness, and was visited by two
of the respectable physicians of that place, who fur-
nished me such medicines, and gave me such counsel,
as my case seemed to require. The clay after my ar-
rival here, I took passage on board the steam-boat
Grecian for Louisville. She was a fine, roomy boat,
and carried, it was said, two hundred and fifty pas-
sengers. But most of them were deck passengers,
and the cabin was not crowded. I found a pleasant
company on board, and every attention that I could
desire. Our boat had high power, and was capable of
making rapid headway against the headlong current.
The trees were in full foliage. We ran for the most
part so as to graze the margin of willows, and were
continually raking the tender branches and flowers on
to our guards. Had I possessed the least elasticity,
or capacity for cheerfulness, this passage under such
pleasant circumstances, and at this delightful season,
would have cheered me. There were some glori-
ous mornings, when we saw the river studded with
ascending and descending boats, heard the bugle note,
the cheerfulness of life on the shore, and inhaled the
odours of the blossoming forest; such mornings as
would almost create a " soul beneath the ribs of
death." But a languid and sinking nature passes, as
I did, through all these circumstances of joy, incapa-
ble of seeing or feeling them. Little of incident oc-
curred on this passage. The noisy and thoughtless
mirth of healthy and happy people, crowded together
in such a place, you will readily conceive would strike
a key, not at all in unison with my feelings. Impa-
tience induced me in the morning to wish for evening,
and in the evening for morning, and when 1 laid my-
self in my solitary birth, it was my custom, after my

377

better thoughts had communed with Cod, to take a
mental leave of my family and the world, for in the
evening it often seemed to me doubtful if I should sur-
vive until the morning. On the eleventh we passed

the place where our babe lies buried, and ai midnight
of the fourteenth, we arrived at Louisville. The trip
which we had now performed in ten days, lying b\
two nights of those days for fog, used formerly to oc-
cupy twenty-live days of the first steam-boats that
ascended the river. We had come on an avi r
more than an hundred miles a day, against the whole.
"weight of the Mississippi current. I had remarked,
as soon as we began to pass the high lands on the
Ohio, the wonderful change, which ten years had
wrought in that region. The log- houses w< ne,

and replaced by houses of brick. The orchai
which were just planted when I descended the Ohio,
hail become thrifty trees of considerable size, and were
now white with blossoms. Passing steam-boats, thrii -
ing villages, bustle and business had taken place of
the solitude and stillness of the same places at the for-
mer period. Louisville had grown to be a line tOWD.
The ware-houses, the stores, the smell at the landing
even, the ship-yards, all indicated the mercantile char
acter, the great and growing importance of tli'- place.
The Ohio was too low for the Spartan to proc
over the falls. We took carriages, weni round thi
and embarked on board the Pike, a beautiful and
swift steam-boat, bound to Cincinnati. The distance
is one hundred and fifty miles, and we arrived th
against the current of the Ohio in something l< js than
a day.

I was still more struck with the changi at Cincin-
nati, than at Louisville. A number ol steam-boats

378

were building here. I went on board the Belvidere,
a most beautiful boat, which had just been completed.
We are certainly making great strides in luxury.
Nothing could evidence this more strikingly than to
see such a boat, so fitted up, and with so much splen-
dour, and in the ladies' cabin a fine piano, and all this
in the harbour of a town at such a distance from the
sea, and as yet scarcely forty years old. In the morn-
ing after my arrival, I was just able to make my
way to the market, and the abundance, bustle, and
cheerfulness of the spectacle amused me for a mo-
ment. The increase of this place is wonderful. It
is supposed now to number above sixteen-thousand in-
habitants.

I experienced here the .kindest attentions of my rel-
atives and friends, for I have relatives here. Dr. D.,
one of the respectable physicians of this place, visited
me, and gave me medicine and counsel. I staid here
two days, and then embarked on board the Ohio, an
ordinary steam-boat, but the only one that in the
present low stage of the water could mount to Wheel-
ing. The Pike iiad been full of passengers. The
Ohio was crowded to overflowing. In our country at
this time, the community seems to be gathered into
steam-boats and stages. On my passage to Wheeling,
my complaint took a new form, which weakened me
extremely. But through the sustaining goodness of
God, I arrived at that place. Could I have had cheer-
fulness to be capable of reflecting, I should have found
sufficient food for thought, in contemplating at every
step as I advanced, the improvement on the Ohio.
Cesar said, that he found Rome of briek, and left it
of marble. I found the Ohio, ten years before, with
log-houses, and wooden benches. There were now

old

brick houses, ornamented court -yards, trellis- wrought
summer-houses, fruit-gardens, and within, carpets,
side-boards, and solas. Wheeling, when I descended,
was a smoky, mis-shapen village. When 1 returned,
there were lines of massive brick buildings, and in the
hotel where I lodged was an establishment on a footing
with the first class of Atlantic houses of the same
kind. Every thing denoted opulence, and the most
careful attention to convenience and comfort. There
were other establishments, equally large and expen-
sive. I might have foreseen all this, but still it struck
me with somewhat the snme surprize, as a rustic
reared in the country, would feel in being sud-
denly transported to the centre of a city. 1 reposi d
here one day. There were a great number of pas-
sengers in the steam-boat Ohio, who were bound over
the mountains. All the carriages, beside the mail
coaches, were put in requisition. We made u\) a pri-
vate party, and took a carriage to go the first daj
far as Washington. It was my first experiment of un-
capacity for travelling by land.

The great national road from the Ohio to Balti-
more commences hen'. It is one of the noblest mon-
uments of the power an 1 munifici nee of our govern-
ment. To understand and appreciate the grandeur
and the utility of this work, one must have contem-
plated the Allegany ridges and cliffs, from one hun-
dred and fifty to two hundred miles in extent, and must
have crossed these mountains to Pittsburg, as I did.
ten years before. There an- simple, but noble fret'
stone bridges over Wheeling creek, which meanoV
across the direction of the road, a great number ol
times. Ten miles from Wheeling, then is a massive
stone monument to Mr. Clay, considered hi thi

380

projector, and the efficient patron of this road. It is
smooth and well railed, where the sides are precipi-
tous. The angles of ascent are no where sharp.
Every thing appertaining to the road is in that style of
simple and durable grandeur, that begins to be the
characteristic mark of our public works.

At Washington I was so exhausted, as to be una-
ble to proceed. Here I took medicine and applied a
large blister, rather an unpleasant application for a
sick man, jolting up and down mountains in a stage.

Washington is a large and pleasant village in Penn-
sylvania, and the seat of a college which promises to be
useful to literature. It would be repetition to say,
that I found great kindness and attention during the
two days that I spent here. Our road led us through
Brownsville, formerly Red-stone. Here the road
crosses the Monongahela, about a quarter of a mile in
width. There is a fine bridge over the river; but
our driver, to avoid the toll, chose to ford it, to the
manifest danger of having carriage and horses carried
down the stream. Here you see again the imperish-
able stone houses, and barns of Pennsylvania. The
tavern at which we stopped was an excellent house,
and in high order. Indeed this town of Brownsville,
by no means one of the most considerable in this re-
gion, would surprise an Atlantic inhabitant, who has
been accustomed to associate with this country the
ideas of rudeness and poverty. The country is in high
cultivation, and the fields and orchards are delightful.
Beyond this place we soon begin to ascend the moun-
tains. We have fine taverns, and good entertainment
all the way over the mountains. We were driven
down the most considerable of them, a distance of
between four and five miles, at a furious rate, and at

331

midnight, and just on the verge of precipices, that it
would be fearful to look down upon at mid-day. I
suffered more than I can describe, from weakness and
exhaustion. We crossed the Potomac, staid a night
at Frederick, and 1 was cheered at lasl with a distant
view of the Atlantic regions. There are few pleas-
anter tracts in the United States, than the charming
and fertile valley of Conecocheague in Maryland.
■ Surveyors and engineers were surveying this rout,
with a view to locating tin1 position of a canal, to
unite the tidewaters of Virginia with the Ohio. I
found Hagarstown a much larger and pleasanter place
than I had anticipated. I arrived safelj at Baltimore,
though extremely exhausted in body and mind. At
Philadelphia I staid some days, experiencing many
kindnesses from the people to whom I was intro-
duced. Here I consulted the benevolent and celebrat-
ed Dr. Physic, the u Magnus Apollo " of the Phila-
delphians. In passing from Baltimore to New York,
a track too beaten for me to hazard any remarks upon,
the only subject that occurs to me worthy of reflection
is the astonishing facilities afforded to travellers
passing rapidly. On this route, as on the I • the
steam-boats, the stages, the hotels, unv crowded*
The community seemed to be all passing on the road.

The same reflection forced itself upon me on my i
sage to Boston by the waj of Provides

Having arrived in Boston and m I some frici
who are very dear to me, and from whom I part-
ed between ten and eleven years b I depat
for tin- West, I could see by th< attempt to tup-
press surprize and exclamation, how time aud d
had changed my countenance. We becoi lu-
ally accustomed to the chair,'' I which such can

382

erate upon us, as not, of ourselves, to be conscious
how great they are. But they are immediately and
painfully obvious to him, who sees the alteration of
ten years fall upon his eye at a single glance. A few
hours brought me to you, my dear friend, and having
accomplished the object of my prayers, having seen
again my earliest and most constant friend, I felt in
that joyful hour of meeting, as though, could I have
had my family with me, miserable as my health was,
I should have been the happiest of the happy. But
at the end of this long pilgrimage, with more than two
thousand miles interposed between me and my family,
your countenance, and that of my other friends, told
me but too plainly, that these halcyon hours were
not expected to be long repeated. There are no con-
stant things here, but disappointments and tears.
Happy for us, that there remaineth a rest for the peo-
ple of God.

Cincinnati, Sept. 1825.

You requested me, at parting, to give you my views
of the changes in the moral and physical aspect of
New England, during the last ten years, as they
struck me in returning to that country. The survey
which I took of it, during the summer, was extensive
though cursory, and probably the view will be the
discoloured one, which resulted from sickly and jaun-
diced vision. It shall at least have the merit of brevi-
ty. I passed from Providence, by the way of Paw-
tucket, to Boston. I inquired respecting the huge

383

buildings which rose around me in the distance. A
stranger, who had heard of the earnestness ;ind as-
perity of your religious investigations, might have
deemed, that you had at last invented a new worship,
and that ihese buildings were the temples. And so in
truth I found it, the worship of the golden shruir,
and that the numberless craftsmen, who wrought for
" Diana of the Ephesians," were mechanicians and
manufacturers.

I remember that in conversing upon this subject,
we thought alike upon the tendency of this system ol
manufactures, which is destined to produce so great a
change in vour country. Hundreds of children of
both sexes are reared together, amidst the incessant
and bewildering clatter and whirl of machinery . Thej
breathe a heated and an unnatural air, an atmosphere, if
I may so say, of cotton. Their minds are unoccupied.
But there is morbid excitement for the passions, that
keeps pace with the activity of the fingers. Yi e;ue told
that the inhabitants of the great manufacturing estab-
lishments abroad are generally depraved. Notwith-
standing all the strict, moral, and henevoleni provis-
ions to counteract this State of things in our country,
we much fear that the same result will take place

here.

With Mr. Jefferson, we think highly of the moral
influence of agriculture, of labouring God'l earth, and
breathing His free air as a freehold cultivator. In

"green pastures," heside " cool streams/' and in the

solitude of nature, salutary thoughts and feelings are

naturally inspired. Healthful mental derelopemem
results from that rigorous exerci eof the frame* that
supply of every excitement to wrtuoui thinking,

and that removal from temptation, which arc found in

384

such pursuits. It was in such schools that the past
and passing generation was reared. The men of those
days grew up in turning the glebe. The daughters
of that day had not formed taper fingers, blanched
cheeks and slender forms in walking minuets in the
aisles of cotton factories, and amidst the dizzying whirl
of a thousand wheels. I discerned a new, numerous,
and evidently distinct mass of population, spread over
the face of New England. In all directions, the num-
ber of stage coaches is five times multiplied, and they
are full of young men and women, belonging to these
establishments, passing to and fro. Not only do
we see detached factories, but towns, like Jonah's
gourd, have sprung up in a night. May the ultimate
fruit of all this be better than our fears, and the omen
happy ! Be the tendency of this order of things what
it may in other respects, one obvious good grows out
of it : the ties of the cradle, of the father's house,
and of early life, are not rudely broken off. The sur-
plus population accumulates around the place of their
birth, and the graves of their fathers. The dense-
ness of the population, the consequent improvement
and embellishment, the spirit-stirring bustle and life
are delightful accompaniments.

Of all the cities that I have seen, the greatest
change seems to have taken place, where least has
been said of it, in Boston. It has not, indeed, extend-
ed its area, like New York, nor has it, like Cincin-
nati, sprung up, cle novo. But its lofty houses are
reared in the air. Its churches, and many of its pri-
vate mansions, present the imposing front and the
massive, columns of your beautiful and everlasting
granite. They have an air of solidity and grandeur
which I felt, if I cannot describe. Marble may be im-

385

itated, and has, besides, a semblance of fragility in its
texture. But this article is the right material, with
which to form a beautiful and an "eternal " city. In
Boston, too, there seems a greater concentration of
bustle, business, and life, than in any other city.
There is an air of nobleness in the recent erections
there, which I have not seen elsewhere. Other towns
have outstripped it in extent and population ; but in
wealth, in enterprise, in the grandeur of its mansions
and churehes, it seems to me still to retain its proud
preeminence. In hospitality, in that order of things,
which from the beginning has made it the paradise of
ministers, and more than all in the exercise of those
noble charities, in which, envied as it is at the South,
it is admitted to have no compeer, its ascendency i<
still indisputable. General intelligence and taste have
more than kept pace with its improvement in other
respects. This is not inferred from the number of pa-
pers, and literary productions, which, I suppose, have
quadrupled in ten years, but from the higher order of
thought, reasoning, and style, that pervade those works.
Fine writing may be found in every paper. The
cumbrous inanity, or tin; tiresome insipidity, that used
to fill the papers, has disappeared. That perverse and
wicked, but witty paper, the " Galaxy," furnishes con-
tinual and brilliant samples of shrewdness, sarcasm,
and, when it chooses, of good sense, upon all it-, sub-
jects of discussion. The " Sufferings of the Country
Schoolmaster,'' which we read together in that paper,
we deemed, you remember, at the time of readi
be a work of unrivalled humour in its kind. The re-
gion where the columns of papers can be filled ivith
productions of that order, and this by young men, un

386

known, and " fools to fame," must be wonderfully
prolific in intellecl. Boston, out of question, is the
American Athens.

When I left you, the old brass knocker still rung
for admission to the greater part of the best houses.
The door-bell was considered an aristocratic and En-
glish innovation. What would have been thought in
that day, of sea-captains, mechanics, and the middling
classes of society, leaving cards, instead of making a
call ? Many of the observances that seem now per-
manently interwoven with the forms of society, are
undoubtedly improvements. There is more ease,
more grace, more comfort, and a nobler air in the
drawing-room, and at the table. And as ah the peo-
ple, that can afford to travel, are on the road, the ca-
nal, and the steam-boat, and in the fashionable resorts;
as we have carried the desire of travelling to a pas-
sion and a fever, it happens that models of grace -nd
propriety are soon copied, and that these copies are
again multiplied a thousand fold in every direction.
You look in vain in these crowded resorts, for rude-
ness, affectation, and ignorance. Every body seems
to have caught the forms of society. Impertinent,
quarrelsome, and noisy men, drunkards and ruffians,
that used to form such a considerable portion ot the
mass in public meetings, seem to be an extinct gen-
eration. On all the great roads and places of public
meeting; the aspect of every thing is politeness and
peace.

Nothing struck me more, than the obvious march of
this order of things in the country. You will hardly
meet with a farmer's daughter, who cannot keep up a
sustained conversation, in good set phrase, upon any

387

given subject. We know a town, almost in sight ot
the smoke of Boston, which in the days of our boy-
hood was one of the " dark corners." They relate,
that, when we were children, a coach passed through
a b j- place in this town. A daughter asked her moth-
er the name of the fine carriage thai was passing.
The old lady, who had previously made the same in-
quiry, and had not lightly caught the word, told her
daughter that the thing, which was passing, was a
church. In that same town, where at that time a
coach was so rare an object, as to be mistaken for a
church, light is now let in ii| on the dark places, by
turnpikes, a number of daily mail-coaches, and the
continual passing of private carriages. All the equip-
ments of fine ladies and beaux have found their way
there. It may be only a fancy in me : lint 1 looked
in vain for the plump form, the round, ruddy, pretty,
but unthinking Saxon face of the farmers' daughters
of other da\s. These faces are now perpetuated only
on the old clocks ; and in lieu of them we have in-
sect forms, long and pale visages, covered with ca-
lash bonnets, a race apparently an importation from
Italy.

Soon after my return, I made a pilgrimage to the
town, of which, for fourteen year- of the morning
and prime of my life, I was the minister. I dare not
trust my fellings in details of a journey, which, in
every point of view, must have bi I D to m li a tra\< 1-
ler so full of harrowing interest. There I began my
active career. There I had preached, Visited the
sick, and followed tin dead to their last home, .'ind
for so many years p< i formed in peace and privacy
the interesting functions of a minister. Most of the

388

young generation I had christened. I could easily
swell this letter with incidents, but T forbear. One
thing only I may be permitted to record, and that
for the honour of human nature. All that ought to
have been remembered by my former people in my
favour, was remembered. All that in those days of
inexperience, of untamed youth and temperament,
related to me, which I could have wished forgotten,
seemed to have been completely consigned to oblivi-
on. In my feebleness, in the traces of disease, and
suffering, and travel, and sultry and sickly climate,
worn so visibly into my countenance, they saw re-
turned to them one, who had long been, in their hum-
ble annals, a personage of history, and who was
now greeted as one who had come back from the
grave. One burst of affectionate remembrance was
manifested by the whole people. I felt painfully,
that in wandering from that rustic, but feeling peo-
ple, I had wandered from home. This excitement,
so many recollections, alternately delightful and pain-
ful, stories of the living, the suffering, and the dead,
the necessity of conversing with so. many, soon re-
newed my indisposition, and I was compelled to has-
ten away. The remembrance of this visit, and of
the associations called up by it, are registered too
deeply in my memory, ever to be forgotton.

In this interior region I discovered much alteration
and change for the better ; improved farms, in-
creased cultivation, new and good houses, and one
change, which to me was an omen of any thing, rath-
er than good. In most of the villages there were
spires of two churches, where there used to be but
one, and where but one was needed. I returned to

Salem by East Chelmsford. This place struck mc
with more surprise, than any I had yet seen. 1 used
often to travel that way, and there were but one or
two houses, barren pine woods, vocal only with the
scream of blue-jays. Now an extended town opened
upon my view. I had, for many miles back, heard
the explosions of the labourers hlasting their rocks,
like the repeated discharges of artillery. An hun-
dred buildings, we were told, were going up. There
was one fine church of stone, others of wood, and the
huge factories were ranged, block beyond block.
Newspapers were printed here. Articles of all sorts
for sale, were puffed in the usual style. The clank
of forging machinery rung in my ears, and there w< re
the noise, confusion, and clatter, of an incipient Ba-
bel. The mansion of the superintendent seemed in
princely style. I have yet seen no town, whose
recent growth can compare with this. Pawtucket
and Waltham are very great recent establishments.
So, I am told, is Dover, in New Hampshire. But
they all fall far behind this place, in every point of
view.

There is not a doubt in mv mind, that this new i\c-
velopement of the resources of the country, together
with the increased facilities of travelling, the aug-
mented calls for expenditure, and temptati I it,
the greater value of money in procuring what \
but luxury at first) but which has now become
sary, have furnished new excitements ti»
You can perceive- in New England, that t!
the people are doubly sharpened in all tl.
money-getting. Have we not to fear, that this rage
for travelling, this manufacturing and m<

390

impulse, and the new modes of reasoning and acting,
will overturn your puritan institutions ? New En-
gland founded her empire of industry and opinion,
not in natural, but moral resources, in her ancient
habits, and her ancient strictness, her schools, her
economy and industry, her stable and perennial hab-
its of worship. Should these be changed, as I much
fear this new order of things is changing them, it will
then be written upon the tablet of her forsaken tem-
ples, (i the glory is departed."

One commencing improvement in the country is
worthy of all praise. You are beginning to build,
not only churches, and factories, and mansions, but
common houses, and cottages, of your granite, which
you possess in profusion. It is wonderful, that a
people, in intellect so much in advance of the Ger-
mans of the middle states, anu in view of their no-
ble stone houses and barns, should have continued,
age after age, to have thought of building nothing
more permanent, than houses of shingles, clap boards,
and paint, when the very circumstance of the incum-
brance of the rocks on the surface, called for some
place, where they might be disposed of out of the
way. Had this been an universal custom a hundred
years ago, millions of dollars of permanent property
would be now on your soil, to be transmitted to the
generations to come. I am a true son of New En-
gland. 1 shall love her to the last, and I shall ear-
nestly wish, that she may retain all her am ient in-
stitutions, that are not absolutely out of relation with
the spirit of the age ; that every particle of sweat,
and every blow of labour there, may count for pos-
terity, and that her granite dwellings may be sym-

391

bols of the perpetuity of those good old ways, in
which we were reared, and which have made that
sterile and chilly region, the envy and the glory of
all lands.

You will not have forgotten the delightful trip
which we made together to Saratoga springs. You
cannot hut remember the delightful evening, when
the steam-boat that carried us, rounded Point Ju-
dith. Together we remarked the wonderful vari-
ety of character, costume, manners, and conversation,
which are witnessed in those vessels. There were
crowded together fine ladies, beaux, the simple, the
affected, the strutting, all watching their several
opportunities for display. There was the terrible
French Colonel, with his prodigious mustachios, and
his fierce and malignant sneer. There, too, was the
good old lady from the West, my sister traveller, so
earnestly wishing an introduction to the French Colo-
nel. She was describing New England, its men,
manners, land and water, its nature and art, for the
amusement of the southern and western people, and
was inquiring of us. if the water, on which we were
wafted, between Providence and Newport, was sail
or fresh. Together we explored and gazed upon the
American Tyre, New York. We threw ourselves in-
to the ascending current of life, that was setting
from the city towards the springs. Our 0W0 Steam-
boat was crowded. All that we p ed, ending
or returning, were equally so. We could compare
the moving multitudes to nothing, but the Bight and
departure of clouds of gregarious birds. Yon had
heard the assertion, that amidst all this mass, the 10
dividuals, distinctly contemplated, showed in thi

JU2

countenance, manner, and air, a distinct impress of
their nation, climate, pursuits, and even the general
workings of the mind, and the passions. We had an
opportunity to bring this assertion in many instances
to the test of experiment. We never mistook the
German for the Frenchman, the inhabitant of the
South for him of the North, the morose for the so-
cial, nor the stupid for the intelligent. In every case
of trial, we found on inquiry, and in conversation,
our anticipations upon these subjects fully verified.
Not one in a thousand but what carries about him the
sign, the index, of what is for disposal within.

Even at the distance of time and place, in which
I am writing, I recur with delight to the remem-
brance of the enthusiasm, with which you surveyed
the grand and varied elevations on North River, its
sublime scenery, the rich cultivation, and the embow-
ered mansions in the distance, the beautiful nature
that surrounded us, and the mildness of the delight-
ful season, and the overhanging sky. Such pleasures,
so enjoyed with a friend, are twice enjoyed in the re-
membrance. At Albany, we enjoyed the " rus in op-
pido," of the seats of Kane and Rensselaer, the soli-
tude, the pine forest, the repose, and range for the
lovers of covered walks and wild woods, in the midst
of a town, as much for the time being, perhaps, as
the owners themselves. On the canal we saw for
ourselves, the achievements of labour and art, of which
we had heard so much. This grand work naturally
excites a feeling of sublimity, when we compare it
with the infancy of our country, with the fresh re-
gion, through which it stretches its long line, but a
short time since a wilderness, and on the banks of

393

which towns and villages start up, as if by enchant-
ment. We were carried together over the wide, rap-
id, and precipitous Mohawk, sailing far above the
rush of its waters in their rocky bed. We sailed
along this river in the air. Other boats were cross-
ing our path, and we could mutually look down upon
the foam of the ancient river, rolling along its waters
under the river upon which we were moving. When
we saw the canal crossing the Mohawk, we admitted
that nothing seems impossible to the union of intel-
lectual and physical power.

You have not forgotton. I dare say, the neat and
light boat, in which we moved so leisurely upon the
canal. We saw a table spread, but no visible means
of preparing dinner. You remember the anxiety and
impatience of some of our hungry ones. But all
in good time, we moored for a moment beside the
good ship, " Betsy Cook," quietly stationed in a notch
in the canal. She opened her window, and in three
minutes gave us ample supplies. We thanked her.
went on, and dined to the content of all.

The town at Saratoga springs is one of a hundred
of the growth of but a few past years. There are
now a continued street, and spacious buildings, where.
at the time I was last there, the wind played in the
tops of the pines. This seems to be the great centre
of American fashionable travel. Here, I apprehend.
is to be seen the fairest sample of the better class
through the United States. Here we see them as
they are. At home, they are graduated to their cir-
cle. Self-restraint and the forms of society keep
the workings of nature in the sanctuary from being
visible in the countenance and the manner. II-
50

394

the circle is new. The old restraints are thrown
away, and in the necessity of a new modification
and adjustment of the passions and feelings, the in-
ward nature peeps out, and is caught in the fact.
Here you see what is going on in the microcosm.
What bustle, and display, and expense, and frivolity !
How evident it is, that man is of some account to him-
self, if to no other person ! Here there is brought, full
in your view, the great change, which the American
character has recently undergone. A lover of the
country cannot but regret to see, that we are making
such rapid strides in extravagance and luxury. But
the downward progress at least seems a pleasant one.
Every one in chase of pleasure seems ashamed to ac-
knowledge, that he cannot run her down. All affect
to be happy. Here you may meet with delightful as-
sociates from every region of the Union. A painful
appendage to most of these transient but pleasant in-
timacies is the reflection, that you meet, are pleased
with each other, part with regret, and can expect to
meet no more on the earth.

And such, my dear friend, in fact, are all human ties.
Feeble as I was, and without the expectation of ever
regaining my health, I bless God, that I had enough of
comfort to enjoy the extensive excursion, which we
took together. Our country is no longer the wooden
one, which it was in our early days. It is great al-
ready, and may it be happy. What will it be in half
a century to come ? For myself, I shall not forget
the last pleasant summer — pleasant even under all my
endurances. I have two ways to look for enjoyment,
forward to a better country, in hope, and backward in
treasured and pleasant remembrances ; and there is not
a brighter spot in my past existence, than the past sum-

395

mer. The mellow satisfactions of people, who re-
flect, as well as feel, which have been sobered by vi-
cissitude, time and care, are more pleasant in the re-
collection, than the evanescent gayeties of youth. In
the hope that you, also, will look back, not without
some satisfaction, upon your wanderings with your in-
valid friend, and the kindness and care, which you
exerted in his behalf, I wish you an affectionate fare-
well.

THE END,

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