The State of Tennessee.--Steam-boats on the Mississippi.--Flat-boats.
We had now passed the western extremity of Kentucky, and had the state
of Tennessee on our left. The eastern banks of the Mississippi, viz. on
the Tennessee side, are throughout lower than the western or Missouri
shores; presenting a series of marshes from which cypress trees and
canebrack seem just emerging, lining them for hundreds of miles to the
southward. Farther eastward, towards the rivers Tennessee and
Cumberland, the soil is overgrown with sugar-maples, sycamore trees,
walnuts, and honey-locusts; the mountains with white and live oak and
hickory. The eastern part of the state resembles North Carolina. The
middle part is by far the best. Cotton and tobacco are staple articles.
Rice is cultivated with success. Hemp is not considered of the same
quality as the Kentuckian, the climate being too warm. The tropical
fruits, such as figs, thrive well; chesnuts are superior to those of the
other states. Melons, peaches, and apples, are abundant. Tennessee is
considered altogether a rich and fertile land. The inhabitants are
liberal, noble hearted, and noted for their good conduct towards
strangers. Several foreigners settled in the state, have attained a high
degree of wealth and prosperity. There is no state in the Union where
slavery has had less pernicious effects upon the character of the
people. The inhabitants are mostly descendants of emigrants from North
Carolina, and their hospitality is without bounds. This state extends,
in an oblong square, from the shores of the Mississippi towards Virginia
and North Carolina, in 35° to 36° 30' north latitude, and 4° 26' to 13°
5' west longitude. It is bounded on the east by Virginia and North
Carolina; on the south by Georgia, Albania, and Mississippi; on the west
by the river Mississippi, and on the north by Kentucky, comprising
altogether 40,000 square miles. East Tennessee partakes more of the
sandy character of North Carolina. West Tennessee of the marshes of the
Mississippi valley. Its principal rivers are the Cumberland and
Tennessee, with the Mississippi on the west, where however, with the
exception of some very small settlements, there are no improvements of
any kind. The canal proposed by Governor Troup, of Georgia, to Governor
Carrott, of Tennessee, which is to bring this state into immediate
connection with the Atlantic, will have a very beneficial effect, these
two rivers being navigable for steam-boats only during three months in
the year, and New Orleans being the only market for Tennessee.
Notwithstanding its straitened commerce, the state is rapidly improving,
and several of its towns, though not large are yet very elegant. The
chief wealth of the state, however, consists in the plantations, and the
farmer and planter live in a style, which at least in point of eating,
cannot be exceeded by the wealthiest nobleman in any country. Among the
towns of the state, Nashville holds the first rank. This town occupies a
commanding situation, on a solid cliff of rocks on the south side of
the Cumberland, 200 feet above the level of the banks. The river is
navigable here during three months in the year for steam-boats of 300
tons burthen. Besides the court-house, three churches, two banks,
including a branch bank of the United States, three printing offices,
and a great number of wholesale and retail merchants, there is the seat
of the district court for the western part of Tennessee. Several
literary institutions, such as Cumberland college, a ladies' school, and
reading-room with a public library, are evident proofs of a liberal
spirit. This spirit is combined with unbounded hospitality. There is a
number of houses, such as those of Governor Carrott, Major General
Jackson, &c., where every respectable stranger is welcome, and may be
sure of meeting with a select company. The surrounding country is
beautiful, cotton plantations lining the banks of the river, and
extending in every direction hither. The wealthier inhabitants generally
retire during the summer months, from the stifling heats prevailing
on the barren rocks upon which Nashville stands. Knoxville in
east Tennessee, with 400 houses and 2,500 inhabitants, is of less
importance; it is the seat of the supreme district court for east
Tennessee, and has a bank, a college, and two churches. The country
about Knoxville is far inferior to that round Nashville. The capital of
Tennessee, Murfreesborough, has 1500 inhabitants, with a state-house, a
bank, two printing-offices, &c. It communicates by water with Nashville,
through Stonecreek. The situation seems not to be very judiciously
chosen for a chief town. This was the state of things four years
ago, when I passed through the place; but doubtless it has since
proportionably increased. Our company being on this occasion of a less
mixed, and a less troublesome character, we sailed down the majestic
father of rivers, with minds well disposed to acknowledge our
obligations to Mr. Fulton, for his happy idea of applying the power of
steam to navigation. The settlers of the Mississippi valley, are in duty
bound to raise a monument to the memory of a man, who has effected in
their mode of conveyance so adventurous, and so successful a change. Not
ten years have elapsed since the inhabitants of the west were used to
toil like beasts of burden, in order to ascend the stream for a
distance of ten or fifteen miles a day; and when in 1802, some boats
belonging to Mr. R., of Nashville, arrived from New Orleans in
eighty-seven days, this passage was considered the _ne plus ultra_ of
quick travelling by water, and was instantly made known throughout the
Union. A passenger now performs the same voyage in five days, sitting
all the while in a comfortable state-room, which in point of fitting-up
vies with the most elegant parlours, writing letters, or reading the
newspapers, and if tired of these occupations, paying visits to the
ladies, if he be permitted to do so; or otherwise pacing the deck, where
his less fortunate fellow passengers are hanging in hammocks--an
indication to many of what may be their future state. There is certainly
not any nation that can boast of a greater disposition for travelling,
than Brother Jonathan; and there is again nobody more at home than he,
whether in a tavern, or on board a vessel; as he is in the habit of
considering a tavern, a vessel, or a steam-boat, as a kind of public
property. Yet on board a vessel, or a steam-boat, he is very tractable.
The great difference of fare between a cabin and a deck passage, from
Louisville to New Orleans, being for the former forty dollars, and for
the latter eight dollars, contributes to establish a distinction in this
assemblage of people, placing those who are found too light in the upper
house, and the more weighty in the lower. The first have to find
themselves, the others are provided with every thing in a manner which
shows that private institutions for the benefit of the public, are
certainly more patronised here than in most other countries. If the
pecuniary resources of the citizen of the United States do not reach a
very low ebb, he will certainly choose the cabin, his pride forbidding
him to mix with the rabble, though the expence may fall too heavy upon
him. That economical refinement which the French evince on these
occasions, is not to be seen in America. When I proceeded four months
ago from Havre to Rouen, in the Duchess of Angouleme steam-boat, among
the 100 passengers who were on board, more than fifty well-looking
people were seen unpacking their bundles, and regaling themselves with
their contents--bread, chicken, cutlets, wine, &c., &c., a frugality
which will hardly be found to contribute to the improvement of a spirit
of enterprise. The Americans would be ashamed of this kind of parsimony,
which must ever impede all public undertakings. Owing to this cause, the
American steam-boats are in point of elegance superior to those of other
nations; and none but the English are able to compete with them. The
furniture, carpets, beds, &c., are throughout elegant, and in good
condition. Some of the new steam-boats are provided with small rooms,
each containing two births, which passengers may use for their
accommodation in shaving, dressing, &c. The general regulations are
suspended above the side board in a gilt frame, and are as binding as a
law. They prohibit speaking to the pilot during the passage--visiting
the ladies' state-room, without their consent--lying down upon the bed
with shoes or boots on--smoking cigars in the state-room--and playing at
cards after ten o'clock. The first transgression is punished with a
fine; if repeated, the transgressor is sent ashore. The fare is
excellent, and the breakfasts, dinners, and suppers, are provided with
such a multiplicity of dishes, and even dainties, as would satisfy the
most refined appetite. The beverage consists of rum, gin, brandy,
claret, to be taken at pleasure during meals; but out of that time they
are to be paid for. Distressing accidents will of course occasionally
occur; the last of this kind was of a truly heart-rending nature: it
happened four years ago, above Walnut-hills, in the steam-boat
Tennessee. The night was tempestuous, the rain fell in torrents, and the
captain, instead of landing and waiting until the weather cleared up,
lost his senses, and ran on a sawyer[C]. The steam-boat was not sixty
feet distant from the bank, which could not be distinguished, and she
went down in a few seconds, together with 110 passengers, save a few who
by accident reached the shore. Since that time, although steam-boats
have sunk, no such loss of lives has occurred. This, however, is not to
be compared with the hardships, the toils, the loss of health and life,
to which the navigators of flat and keel-boats were formerly, and are
still exposed, when going down the Mississippi. Nothing more uncouth
than these flat-boats was ever sent forth from the hands of a carpenter.
They are built of rude timber and planks, sixty feet in length, and
twenty-five feet in breadth, and so unmanageable, that only the strong
arm of a backwoodsman can keep them from running upon planters[D],
sawyers, wooden-islands, and all the Scyllas and Charybdes, that are to
be met with on the voyage. We found numbers of them along the Ohio,
detained by low water; and from St. Louis down to New Orleans, sometimes
fifteen, twenty, and thirty together. Their uncouth appearance, the
boisterous and fierce manners of their crews, the immense distance they
have already proceeded, make them truly objects of interest. One of
these flat-boats is from the Upper Ohio, laden with pine-boards, planks,
rye, whisky, flour; close to it, another from the falls of the Ohio,
with corn in the ear and bulk, apples, peaches; a third, with hemp,
tobacco, and cotton. In the fourth you may find horses regularly stabled
together; in the next, cattle from the mouth of the Missouri; a sixth
will have hogs, poultry, turkeys; and in a seventh you see peeping out
of the holes, the woolly heads of slaves transported from Virginia and
Kentucky, to the human flesh mart at New Orleans. They have come
thousands of miles, and still have to proceed a thousand more, before
they arrive at their place of destination.
[C] Sawyers are bodies of trees fixed in the river, which yield to the
pressure of the current, disappearing and appearing by turns above
water, like the rotatory motion of the saw-mill, from which they have
derived their name. They sometimes point up the stream, sometimes in the
contrary direction. A steam-boat running on a sawyer, cannot escape
destruction.
[D] Planters are large bodies of trees, firmly fixed by their roots to
the bottom of the river, in a perpendicular manner, and rising no more
than a foot above the surface at low water. They are so firmly rooted,
as to be unmoved by the shock of steam-boats running upon them.