_The South-West. By a Yankee. New York: Published by Harper and
Brothers._
This work, from the pen of Professor Ingraham, rivals the book of
which we have just been speaking, in degree--although not in
quality--of interest. Mr. Latrobe has proved himself a man of the
world, an able teacher, and a philosopher. Professor Ingraham is an
amusing traveller, full of fun, gossip, and shrewd remark. In all that
relates to the "Mechanics of book-writing," the Englishman is
immeasurably the superior.
Mr. I. in his "Introduction," informs us that his work "grew out of a
private correspondence, which the author, at the solicitation of his
friends, has been led to throw into the present form, modifying in a
great measure the epistolary vein, and excluding, so far as possible,
such portions of the original papers as were of too personal a nature
to be intruded upon the majesty of the public--while he has embodied,
so far as was compatible with the new arrangement, every thing likely
to interest the general reader." The aim of the writer, we are also
told, has been to present the result of his experience and
observations during a residence of several years in that district of
our country which gives the title to the work. It is, indeed, a matter
for wonder that a similar object has never been carried into execution
before. The South-West, embracing an extensive and highly interesting
portion of the United States, is completely _caviare_ to the
multitude. Very little information, upon whose accuracy reliance may
be placed, has been hitherto made public concerning these regions of
Eldorado--and were the volumes of Professor Ingraham absolutely
worthless in every other respect, we should still be inclined to do
them all possible honor for their originality in subject matter. But
the "South-West" is very far from worthless. In spite of a multitude
of faults which the eye of rigid criticism might easily detect--in
spite of some inaccuracies in point of fact, many premature opinions,
and an inveterate habit of writing what neither is, nor should be
English, the Professor has succeeded in making a book, whose abiding
interest, coming home to the bosoms and occupations of men, will cause
any future productions of the same author to be looked for with
anxiety.
The "Yankee," in travelling Southward, has evidently laid aside the
general prejudices of a Yankee--and, viewing the book of Professor
Ingraham, as representing, in its very liberal opinions, those of a
great majority of well educated Northern gentlemen, we are inclined to
believe it will render essential services in the way of smoothing down
a vast deal of jealousy and misconception. The traveller from the
North has evinced no disposition to look with a jaundiced eye upon the
South--to pervert its misfortunes into crimes--or distort its
necessities into sins of volition. He has spoken of slavery as he
found it--and it is almost needless to say that he found it a very
different thing from the paintings he had seen of it in red ochre. He
has discovered, in a word, that while the _physical_ condition of the
slave is _not_ what it has been represented, the slave himself is
utterly incompetent to feel the _moral_ galling of his chain. Indeed,
we cordially agree with a distinguished Northern contemporary and
friend, that the Professor's strict honesty, impartiality, and
unprejudiced common sense, on the trying subject which has so long
agitated our community, is the distinguishing and the most
praiseworthy feature of his book. Yet it has other excellences, and
excellences of a high character. As a specimen of the picturesque, we
extract a passage beginning at page 27, vol. i.
"'Keep away a little, or you'll run that fellow down,' suddenly
shouted the captain to the helmsman; and the next moment the little
fishing vessel shot swiftly under our stern, just barely clearing the
spanker boom, whirling and bouncing about in the wild swirl of the
ship's wake like a 'Masallah boat' in the surf of Madras.
"There were on board of her four persons, including the steersman--a
tall, gaunt old man, whose uncovered gray locks streamed in the wind
as he stooped to his little rudder to luff up across our wake. The
lower extremities of a loose pair of tar-coated duck trowsers, which
he wore, were incased, including the best part of his legs, in a pair
of fisherman's boots, made of leather, which would flatten a rifle
ball. His red flannel shirt left his hairy breast exposed to the icy
winds, and a huge pea-jacket, thrown, Spanish fashion, over his
shoulders, was fastened at the throat by a single button. His
tarpaulin--a little narrow-brimmed hat of the pot-lid tribe, secured
by a ropeyarn--had probably been thrown off in the moment of danger,
and now hung swinging by a lanyard from the lower button-hole of his
jacket.
"As his little vessel struggled like a drowning man in the yawning
concave made by the ship, he stood with one hand firmly grasping his
low, crooked rudder, and with the other held the main sheet, which
alone he tended. A short pipe protruded from his mouth, at which he
puffed away incessantly; one eye was tightly closed, and the other was
so contracted in a network of wrinkles, that I could just discern the
twinkle of a gray pupil, as he cocked it up at our quarter-deck, and
took in with it the noble size, bearing, and apparel of our fine ship.
"A duplicate of the old helmsman, though less battered by storms and
time, wearing upon his chalky locks a red, woollen, conical cap, was
'easing off' the foresheet as the little boat passed; and a third was
stretching his neck up the companion ladder, to stare at the 'big
ship,' while the little carroty-headed imp, who was just the old
skipper _razeed_, was performing the culinary operations of his little
kitchen under cover of the heavens."
The portions of the book immediately relating to New Orleans--its odd
buildings--its motley assemblage {123} of inhabitants--their manners
and free habitudes, have especially delighted us; and cannot fail, of
delighting, in general, all lovers of the stirring and life-like. A
novelist of talent would find New Orleans the place of all places for
the localities of a romance--and in such case he might derive
important aid from the "South-West" of Professor Ingraham. At page
140, vol. i, we were much interested in the following account of a
fire.
"As I gained the front of this mass of human beings, that activity
which most men possess, who are not modelled after 'fat Jack,' enabled
me to gain an elevation whence I had an unobstructed view of the whole
scene of conflagration. The steamers were lying side by side at the
Levée, and one of them was enveloped in wreaths of flame, bursting
from a thousand cotton bales, which were piled, tier above tier, upon
her decks. The inside boat, though having no cotton on board, was
rapidly consuming, as the huge streams of fire lapped and twined
around her. The night was perfectly calm, but a strong whirlwind had
been created by the action of the heat upon the atmosphere, and now
and then it swept down in its invisible power, with the 'noise of a
rushing mighty wind,' and as the huge serpentine flames darted upward,
the solid cotton bales would be borne round the tremendous vortex like
feathers, and then--hurled away into the air, blazing like giant
meteors--would descend heavily and rapidly into the dark bosom of the
river. The next moment they would rise and float upon the surface,
black unshapely masses of tinder. As tier after tier, bursting with
fire, fell in upon the burning decks, the sweltering flames, for a
moment smothered, preceded by a volcanic discharge of ashes, which
fell in showers upon the gaping spectators, would break from their
confinement, and darting upward with multitudinous large wads of
cotton, shoot them away through the air, filling the sky for a moment
with a host of flaming balls. Some of them were borne a great distance
through the air, and falling lightly upon the surface of the water,
floated, from their buoyancy, a long time unextinguished. The river
became studded with fire, and as far as the eye could reach below the
city, it presented one of the most magnificent, yet awful spectacles,
I had ever beheld or imagined. Literally spangled with flame, those
burning fragments in the distance being diminished to specks of light,
it had the appearance, though far more dazzling and brilliant, of the
starry firmament. There were but two miserable engines to play with
this gambolling monster, which, one moment lifting itself to a great
height in the air, in huge spiral wreaths, like some immense snake, at
the next would contract itself within its glowing furnace, or coil and
dart along the decks like troops of fiery serpents, and with the
roaring noise of a volcano."
Having spoken thus far of the "South-West," in terms of commendation,
we must now be allowed to assert, in plain words, what we have before
only partially hinted, that the Professor is indebted, generally, for
his success, more to the innate interest of his subject matter, than
to his manner of handling it. Numerous instances of bad taste occur
throughout the volumes. The constant straining after wit and vivacity
is a great blemish. Faulty constructions of style force themselves
upon one's attention at every page. Gross blunders in syntax abound.
The Professor does not appear to understand French. This is no sin in
itself--but to quote what one does not understand is a folly. Turks'
Heads _à la Grec_, for example, is ridiculous--see page 34, vol. i.
Bulls too are occasionally met with--which are none the better for
being classical bulls. We cannot bear to hear of Boreas blowing
Zephyrs.