I asked after another lad, altogether the brightest in our village

school when I was a boy.

'He, too, was graduated with honors, from an Eastern college; but life

whipped him in every battle, straight along, and he died in one of the

Territories, years ago, a defeated man.'

I asked after another of the bright boys.

'He is a success, always has been, always will be, I think.'

I inquired after a young fellow who came to the town to study for one of

the professions when I was a boy.

'He went at something else before he got through--went from medicine to

law, or from law to medicine--then to some other new thing; went away

for a year, came back with a young wife; fell to drinking, then to

gambling behind the door; finally took his wife and two young children

to her father's, and went off to Mexico; went from bad to worse, and

finally died there, without a cent to buy a shroud, and without a friend

to attend the funeral.'

'Pity, for he was the best-natured, and most cheery and hopeful young

fellow that ever was.'

I named another boy.

'Oh, he is all right. Lives here yet; has a wife and children, and is

prospering.'

Same verdict concerning other boys.

I named three school-girls.

'The first two live here, are married and have children; the other is

long ago dead--never married.'

I named, with emotion, one of my early sweethearts.

'She is all right. Been married three times; buried two husbands,

divorced from the third, and I hear she is getting ready to marry an old

fellow out in Colorado somewhere. She's got children scattered around

here and there, most everywheres.'

The answer to several other inquiries was brief and simple--

'Killed in the war.'

I named another boy.

'Well, now, his case is curious! There wasn't a human being in this

town but knew that that boy was a perfect chucklehead; perfect dummy;

just a stupid ass, as you may say. Everybody knew it, and everybody said

it. Well, if that very boy isn't the first lawyer in the State of

Missouri to-day, I'm a Democrat!'

'Is that so?'

'It's actually so. I'm telling you the truth.'

'How do you account for it?'

'Account for it? There ain't any accounting for it, except that if you

send a damned fool to St. Louis, and you don't tell them he's a damned

fool they'll never find it out. There's one thing sure--if I had a

damned fool I should know what to do with him: ship him to St. Louis--

it's the noblest market in the world for that kind of property. Well,

when you come to look at it all around, and chew at it and think it

over, don't it just bang anything you ever heard of?'

'Well, yes, it does seem to. But don't you think maybe it was the

Hannibal people who were mistaken about the boy, and not the St. Louis

people'

'Oh, nonsense! The people here have known him from the very cradle--

they knew him a hundred times better than the St. Louis idiots could

have known him. No, if you have got any damned fools that you want to

realize on, take my advice--send them to St. Louis.'

I mentioned a great number of people whom I had formerly known. Some

were dead, some were gone away, some had prospered, some had come to

naught; but as regarded a dozen or so of the lot, the answer was

comforting:

'Prosperous--live here yet--town littered with their children.'

I asked about Miss ----.

Died in the insane asylum three or four years ago--never was out of it

from the time she went in; and was always suffering, too; never got a

shred of her mind back.'

If he spoke the truth, here was a heavy tragedy, indeed. Thirty-six

years in a madhouse, that some young fools might have some fun! I was a

small boy, at the time; and I saw those giddy young ladies come

tiptoeing into the room where Miss ---- sat reading at midnight by a

lamp. The girl at the head of the file wore a shroud and a doughface,

she crept behind the victim, touched her on the shoulder, and she looked

up and screamed, and then fell into convulsions. She did not recover

from the fright, but went mad. In these days it seems incredible that

people believed in ghosts so short a time ago. But they did.

After asking after such other folk as I could call to mind, I finally

inquired about MYSELF:

'Oh, he succeeded well enough--another case of damned fool. If they'd

sent him to St. Louis, he'd have succeeded sooner.'

It was with much satisfaction that I recognized the wisdom of having

told this candid gentleman, in the beginning, that my name was Smith.

Chapter 54 Past and Present

Being left to myself, up there, I went on picking out old houses in the

distant town, and calling back their former inmates out of the moldy

past. Among them I presently recognized the house of the father of Lem

Hackett (fictitious name). It carried me back more than a generation in

a moment, and landed me in the midst of a time when the happenings of

life were not the natural and logical results of great general laws, but

of special orders, and were freighted with very precise and distinct

purposes--partly punitive in intent, partly admonitory; and usually

local in application.

When I was a small boy, Lem Hackett was drowned--on a Sunday. He fell

out of an empty flat-boat, where he was playing. Being loaded with sin,

he went to the bottom like an anvil. He was the only boy in the village

who slept that night. We others all lay awake, repenting. We had not

needed the information, delivered from the pulpit that evening, that

Lem's was a case of special judgment--we knew that, already. There was

a ferocious thunder-storm, that night, and it raged continuously until

near dawn. The winds blew, the windows rattled, the rain swept along the

roof in pelting sheets, and at the briefest of intervals the inky

blackness of the night vanished, the houses over the way glared out

white and blinding for a quivering instant, then the solid darkness shut

down again and a splitting peal of thunder followed, which seemed to

rend everything in the neighborhood to shreds and splinters. I sat up in

bed quaking and shuddering, waiting for the destruction of the world,

and expecting it. To me there was nothing strange or incongruous in

heaven's making such an uproar about Lem Hackett. Apparently it was the

right and proper thing to do. Not a doubt entered my mind that all the

angels were grouped together, discussing this boy's case and observing

the awful bombardment of our beggarly little village with satisfaction

and approval. There was one thing which disturbed me in the most serious

way; that was the thought that this centering of the celestial interest

on our village could not fail to attract the attention of the observers

to people among us who might otherwise have escaped notice for years. I

felt that I was not only one of those people, but the very one most

likely to be discovered. That discovery could have but one result: I

should be in the fire with Lem before the chill of the river had been

fairly warmed out of him. I knew that this would be only just and fair.

I was increasing the chances against myself all the time, by feeling a

secret bitterness against Lem for having attracted this fatal attention

to me, but I could not help it--this sinful thought persisted in

infesting my breast in spite of me. Every time the lightning glared I

caught my breath, and judged I was gone. In my terror and misery, I

meanly began to suggest other boys, and mention acts of theirs which

were wickeder than mine, and peculiarly needed punishment--and I tried

to pretend to myself that I was simply doing this in a casual way, and

without intent to divert the heavenly attention to them for the purpose

of getting rid of it myself. With deep sagacity I put these mentions

into the form of sorrowing recollections and left-handed sham-

supplications that the sins of those boys might be allowed to pass

unnoticed--'Possibly they may repent.' 'It is true that Jim Smith broke

a window and lied about it--but maybe he did not mean any harm. And

although Tom Holmes says more bad words than any other boy in the

village, he probably intends to repent--though he has never said he

would. And whilst it is a fact that John Jones did fish a little on

Sunday, once, he didn't really catch anything but only just one small

useless mud-cat; and maybe that wouldn't have been so awful if he had

thrown it back--as he says he did, but he didn't. Pity but they would

repent of these dreadful things--and maybe they will yet.'

But while I was shamefully trying to draw attention to these poor chaps

--who were doubtless directing the celestial attention to me at the same

moment, though I never once suspected that--I had heedlessly left my

candle burning. It was not a time to neglect even trifling precautions.

There was no occasion to add anything to the facilities for attracting

notice to me--so I put the light out.

It was a long night to me, and perhaps the most distressful one I ever

spent. I endured agonies of remorse for sins which I knew I had

committed, and for others which I was not certain about, yet was sure

that they had been set down against me in a book by an angel who was

wiser than I and did not trust such important matters to memory. It

struck me, by and by, that I had been making a most foolish and

calamitous mistake, in one respect: doubtless I had not only made my own

destruction sure by directing attention to those other boys, but had

already accomplished theirs!--Doubtless the lightning had stretched them

all dead in their beds by this time! The anguish and the fright which

this thought gave me made my previous sufferings seem trifling by

comparison.

Things had become truly serious. I resolved to turn over a new leaf

instantly; I also resolved to connect myself with the church the next

day, if I survived to see its sun appear. I resolved to cease from sin

in all its forms, and to lead a high and blameless life for ever after.

I would be punctual at church and Sunday-school; visit the sick; carry

baskets of victuals to the poor (simply to fulfil the regulation

conditions, although I knew we had none among us so poor but they would

smash the basket over my head for my pains); I would instruct other boys

in right ways, and take the resulting trouncings meekly; I would subsist

entirely on tracts; I would invade the rum shop and warn the drunkard--

and finally, if I escaped the fate of those who early become too good to

live, I would go for a missionary.

The storm subsided toward daybreak, and I dozed gradually to sleep with

a sense of obligation to Lem Hackett for going to eternal suffering in

that abrupt way, and thus preventing a far more dreadful disaster--my

own loss.

But when I rose refreshed, by and by, and found that those other boys

were still alive, I had a dim sense that perhaps the whole thing was a

false alarm; that the entire turmoil had been on Lem's account and

nobody's else. The world looked so bright and safe that there did not

seem to be any real occasion to turn over a new leaf. I was a little

subdued, during that day, and perhaps the next; after that, my purpose

of reforming slowly dropped out of my mind, and I had a peaceful,

comfortable time again, until the next storm.

That storm came about three weeks later; and it was the most

unaccountable one, to me, that I had ever experienced; for on the

afternoon of that day, 'Dutchy' was drowned. Dutchy belonged to our

Sunday-school. He was a German lad who did not know enough to come in

out of the rain; but he was exasperatingly good, and had a prodigious

memory. One Sunday he made himself the envy of all the youth and the

talk of all the admiring village, by reciting three thousand verses of

Scripture without missing a word; then he went off the very next day and

got drowned.

Circumstances gave to his death a peculiar impressiveness. We were all

bathing in a muddy creek which had a deep hole in it, and in this hole

the coopers had sunk a pile of green hickory hoop poles to soak, some

twelve feet under water. We were diving and 'seeing who could stay under

longest.' We managed to remain down by holding on to the hoop poles.

Dutchy made such a poor success of it that he was hailed with laughter

and derision every time his head appeared above water. At last he seemed

hurt with the taunts, and begged us to stand still on the bank and be

fair with him and give him an honest count--'be friendly and kind just

this once, and not miscount for the sake of having the fun of laughing

at him.' Treacherous winks were exchanged, and all said 'All right,

Dutchy--go ahead, we'll play fair.'

Dutchy plunged in, but the boys, instead of beginning to count, followed

the lead of one of their number and scampered to a range of blackberry

bushes close by and hid behind it. They imagined Dutchy's humiliation,

when he should rise after a superhuman effort and find the place silent

and vacant, nobody there to applaud. They were 'so full of laugh' with

the idea, that they were continually exploding into muffled cackles.

Time swept on, and presently one who was peeping through the briers,

said, with surprise--

'Why, he hasn't come up, yet!'

The laughing stopped.

'Boys, it 's a splendid dive,' said one.

'Never mind that,' said another, 'the joke on him is all the better for

it.'

There was a remark or two more, and then a pause. Talking ceased, and

all began to peer through the vines. Before long, the boys' faces began

to look uneasy, then anxious, then terrified. Still there was no

movement of the placid water. Hearts began to beat fast, and faces to

turn pale. We all glided out, silently, and stood on the bank, our

horrified eyes wandering back and forth from each other's countenances

to the water.

'Somebody must go down and see!'

Yes, that was plain; but nobody wanted that grisly task.

'Draw straws!'

So we did--with hands which shook so, that we hardly knew what we were

about. The lot fell to me, and I went down. The water was so muddy I

could not see anything, but I felt around among the hoop poles, and

presently grasped a limp wrist which gave me no response--and if it had

I should not have known it, I let it go with such a frightened

suddenness.

The boy had been caught among the hoop poles and entangled there,

helplessly. I fled to the surface and told the awful news. Some of us

knew that if the boy were dragged out at once he might possibly be

resuscitated, but we never thought of that. We did not think of

anything; we did not know what to do, so we did nothing--except that the

smaller lads cried, piteously, and we all struggled frantically into our

clothes, putting on anybody's that came handy, and getting them wrong-

side-out and upside-down, as a rule. Then we scurried away and gave the

alarm, but none of us went back to see the end of the tragedy. We had a

more important thing to attend to: we all flew home, and lost not a

moment in getting ready to lead a better life.

The night presently closed down. Then came on that tremendous and

utterly unaccountable storm. I was perfectly dazed; I could not

understand it. It seemed to me that there must be some mistake. The

elements were turned loose, and they rattled and banged and blazed away

in the most blind and frantic manner. All heart and hope went out of

me, and the dismal thought kept floating through my brain, 'If a boy who

knows three thousand verses by heart is not satisfactory, what chance is

there for anybody else?'

Of course I never questioned for a moment that the storm was on Dutchy's

account, or that he or any other inconsequential animal was worthy of

such a majestic demonstration from on high; the lesson of it was the

only thing that troubled me; for it convinced me that if Dutchy, with

all his perfections, was not a delight, it would be vain for me to turn

over a new leaf, for I must infallibly fall hopelessly short of that

boy, no matter how hard I might try. Nevertheless I did turn it over--a

highly educated fear compelled me to do that--but succeeding days of

cheerfulness and sunshine came bothering around, and within a month I

had so drifted backward that again I was as lost and comfortable as

ever.

Breakfast time approached while I mused these musings and called these

ancient happenings back to mind; so I got me back into the present and

went down the hill.

On my way through town to the hotel, I saw the house which was my home

when I was a boy. At present rates, the people who now occupy it are of

no more value than I am; but in my time they would have been worth not

less than five hundred dollars apiece. They are colored folk.

After breakfast, I went out alone again, intending to hunt up some of

the Sunday-schools and see how this generation of pupils might compare

with their progenitors who had sat with me in those places and had

probably taken me as a model--though I do not remember as to that now.

By the public square there had been in my day a shabby little brick

church called the 'Old Ship of Zion,' which I had attended as a Sunday-

school scholar; and I found the locality easily enough, but not the old

church; it was gone, and a trig and rather hilarious new edifice was in

its place. The pupils were better dressed and better looking than were

those of my time; consequently they did not resemble their ancestors;

and consequently there was nothing familiar to me in their faces. Still,

I contemplated them with a deep interest and a yearning wistfulness, and

if I had been a girl I would have cried; for they were the offspring,

and represented, and occupied the places, of boys and girls some of whom

I had loved to love, and some of whom I had loved to hate, but all of

whom were dear to me for the one reason or the other, so many years gone

by--and, Lord, where be they now!

I was mightily stirred, and would have been grateful to be allowed to

remain unmolested and look my fill; but a bald-summited superintendent

who had been a tow-headed Sunday-school mate of mine on that spot in the

early ages, recognized me, and I talked a flutter of wild nonsense to

those children to hide the thoughts which were in me, and which could

not have been spoken without a betrayal of feeling that would have been

recognized as out of character with me.

Making speeches without preparation is no gift of mine; and I was

resolved to shirk any new opportunity, but in the next and larger

Sunday-school I found myself in the rear of the assemblage; so I was

very willing to go on the platform a moment for the sake of getting a

good look at the scholars. On the spur of the moment I could not recall

any of the old idiotic talks which visitors used to insult me with when

I was a pupil there; and I was sorry for this, since it would have given

me time and excuse to dawdle there and take a long and satisfying look

at what I feel at liberty to say was an array of fresh young comeliness

not matchable in another Sunday-school of the same size. As I talked

merely to get a chance to inspect; and as I strung out the random

rubbish solely to prolong the inspection, I judged it but decent to

confess these low motives, and I did so.

If the Model Boy was in either of these Sunday-schools, I did not see

him. The Model Boy of my time--we never had but the one--was perfect:

perfect in manners, perfect in dress, perfect in conduct, perfect in

filial piety, perfect in exterior godliness; but at bottom he was a

prig; and as for the contents of his skull, they could have changed

place with the contents of a pie and nobody would have been the worse

off for it but the pie. This fellow's reproachlessness was a standing

reproach to every lad in the village. He was the admiration of all the

mothers, and the detestation of all their sons. I was told what became

of him, but as it was a disappointment to me, I will not enter into

details. He succeeded in life.

Chapter 55 A Vendetta and Other Things

DURING my three days' stay in the town, I woke up every morning with the

impression that I was a boy--for in my dreams the faces were all young

again, and looked as they had looked in the old times--but I went to bed

a hundred years old, every night--for meantime I had been seeing those

faces as they are now.

Of course I suffered some surprises, along at first, before I had become

adjusted to the changed state of things. I met young ladies who did not

seem to have changed at all; but they turned out to be the daughters of

the young ladies I had in mind--sometimes their grand-daughters. When

you are told that a stranger of fifty is a grandmother, there is nothing

surprising about it; but if, on the contrary, she is a person whom you

knew as a little girl, it seems impossible. You say to yourself, 'How

can a little girl be a grandmother.' It takes some little time to accept

and realize the fact that while you have been growing old, your friends

have not been standing still, in that matter.

I noticed that the greatest changes observable were with the women, not

the men. I saw men whom thirty years had changed but slightly; but

their wives had grown old. These were good women; it is very wearing to

be good.

There was a saddler whom I wished to see; but he was gone. Dead, these

many years, they said. Once or twice a day, the saddler used to go

tearing down the street, putting on his coat as he went; and then

everybody knew a steamboat was coming. Everybody knew, also, that John

Stavely was not expecting anybody by the boat--or any freight, either;

and Stavely must have known that everybody knew this, still it made no

difference to him; he liked to seem to himself to be expecting a hundred

thousand tons of saddles by this boat, and so he went on all his life,

enjoying being faithfully on hand to receive and receipt for those

saddles, in case by any miracle they should come. A malicious Quincy

paper used always to refer to this town, in derision as 'Stavely's

Landing.' Stavely was one of my earliest admirations; I envied him his

rush of imaginary business, and the display he was able to make of it,

before strangers, as he went flying down the street struggling with his

fluttering coat.

But there was a carpenter who was my chiefest hero. He was a mighty

liar, but I did not know that; I believed everything he said. He was a

romantic, sentimental, melodramatic fraud, and his bearing impressed me

with awe. I vividly remember the first time he took me into his

confidence. He was planing a board, and every now and then he would

pause and heave a deep sigh; and occasionally mutter broken sentences--

confused and not intelligible--but out of their midst an ejaculation

sometimes escaped which made me shiver and did me good: one was, 'O

God, it is his blood!' I sat on the tool-chest and humbly and

shudderingly admired him; for I judged he was full of crime. At last he

said in a low voice--

'My little friend, can you keep a secret?'

I eagerly said I could.

'A dark and dreadful one?'

I satisfied him on that point.

'Then I will tell you some passages in my history; for oh, I MUST

relieve my burdened soul, or I shall die!'

He cautioned me once more to be 'as silent as the grave;' then he told

me he was a 'red-handed murderer.' He put down his plane, held his hands

out before him, contemplated them sadly, and said--

'Look--with these hands I have taken the lives of thirty human beings!'

The effect which this had upon me was an inspiration to him, and he

turned himself loose upon his subject with interest and energy. He left

generalizing, and went into details,--began with his first murder;

described it, told what measures he had taken to avert suspicion; then

passed to his second homicide, his third, his fourth, and so on. He had

always done his murders with a bowie-knife, and he made all my hairs

rise by suddenly snatching it out and showing it to me.

At the end of this first seance I went home with six of his fearful

secrets among my freightage, and found them a great help to my dreams,

which had been sluggish for a while back. I sought him again and again,

on my Saturday holidays; in fact I spent the summer with him--all of it

which was valuable to me. His fascinations never diminished, for he

threw something fresh and stirring, in the way of horror, into each

successive murder. He always gave names, dates, places--everything.

This by and by enabled me to note two things: that he had killed his

victims in every quarter of the globe, and that these victims were

always named Lynch. The destruction of the Lynches went serenely on,

Saturday after Saturday, until the original thirty had multiplied to

sixty--and more to be heard from yet; then my curiosity got the better

of my timidity, and I asked how it happened that these justly punished

persons all bore the same name.

My hero said he had never divulged that dark secret to any living being;

but felt that he could trust me, and therefore he would lay bare before

me the story of his sad and blighted life. He had loved one 'too fair

for earth,' and she had reciprocated 'with all the sweet affection of

her pure and noble nature.' But he had a rival, a 'base hireling' named

Archibald Lynch, who said the girl should be his, or he would 'dye his

hands in her heart's best blood.' The carpenter, 'innocent and happy in

love's young dream,' gave no weight to the threat, but led his 'golden-

haired darling to the altar,' and there, the two were made one; there

also, just as the minister's hands were stretched in blessing over their

heads, the fell deed was done--with a knife--and the bride fell a corpse

at her husband's feet. And what did the husband do? He plucked forth

that knife, and kneeling by the body of his lost one, swore to

'consecrate his life to the extermination of all the human scum that

bear the hated name of Lynch.'

That was it. He had been hunting down the Lynches and slaughtering

them, from that day to this--twenty years. He had always used that same

consecrated knife; with it he had murdered his long array of Lynches,

and with it he had left upon the forehead of each victim a peculiar

mark--a cross, deeply incised. Said he--

'The cross of the Mysterious Avenger is known in Europe, in America, in

China, in Siam, in the Tropics, in the Polar Seas, in the deserts of

Asia, in all the earth. Wherever in the uttermost parts of the globe, a

Lynch has penetrated, there has the Mysterious Cross been seen, and

those who have seen it have shuddered and said, "It is his mark, he has

been here." You have heard of the Mysterious Avenger--look upon him, for

before you stands no less a person! But beware--breathe not a word to

any soul. Be silent, and wait. Some morning this town will flock aghast

to view a gory corpse; on its brow will be seen the awful sign, and men

will tremble and whisper, "He has been here--it is the Mysterious

Avenger's mark!" You will come here, but I shall have vanished; you will

see me no more.'

This ass had been reading the 'Jibbenainosay,' no doubt, and had had his

poor romantic head turned by it; but as I had not yet seen the book

then, I took his inventions for truth, and did not suspect that he was a

plagiarist.

However, we had a Lynch living in the town; and the more I reflected

upon his impending doom, the more I could not sleep. It seemed my plain

duty to save him, and a still plainer and more important duty to get

some sleep for myself, so at last I ventured to go to Mr. Lynch and tell

him what was about to happen to him--under strict secrecy. I advised him

to 'fly,' and certainly expected him to do it. But he laughed at me; and

he did not stop there; he led me down to the carpenter's shop, gave the

carpenter a jeering and scornful lecture upon his silly pretensions,

slapped his face, made him get down on his knees and beg--then went off

and left me to contemplate the cheap and pitiful ruin of what, in my

eyes, had so lately been a majestic and incomparable hero. The carpenter

blustered, flourished his knife, and doomed this Lynch in his usual

volcanic style, the size of his fateful words undiminished; but it was

all wasted upon me; he was a hero to me no longer, but only a poor,

foolish, exposed humbug. I was ashamed of him, and ashamed of myself; I

took no further interest in him, and never went to his shop any more.

He was a heavy loss to me, for he was the greatest hero I had ever

known. The fellow must have had some talent; for some of his imaginary

murders were so vividly and dramatically described that I remember all

their details yet.

The people of Hannibal are not more changed than is the town. It is no

longer a village; it is a city, with a mayor, and a council, and water-

works, and probably a debt. It has fifteen thousand people, is a

thriving and energetic place, and is paved like the rest of the west and

south--where a well-paved street and a good sidewalk are things so

seldom seen, that one doubts them when he does see them. The customary

half-dozen railways center in Hannibal now, and there is a new depot

which cost a hundred thousand dollars. In my time the town had no

specialty, and no commercial grandeur; the daily packet usually landed a

passenger and bought a catfish, and took away another passenger and a

hatful of freight; but now a huge commerce in lumber has grown up and a

large miscellaneous commerce is one of the results. A deal of money

changes hands there now.

Bear Creek--so called, perhaps, because it was always so particularly

bare of bears--is hidden out of sight now, under islands and continents

of piled lumber, and nobody but an expert can find it. I used to get

drowned in it every summer regularly, and be drained out, and inflated

and set going again by some chance enemy; but not enough of it is

unoccupied now to drown a person in. It was a famous breeder of chills

and fever in its day. I remember one summer when everybody in town had

this disease at once. Many chimneys were shaken down, and all the

houses were so racked that the town had to be rebuilt. The chasm or

gorge between Lover's Leap and the hill west of it is supposed by

scientists to have been caused by glacial action. This is a mistake.

There is an interesting cave a mile or two below Hannibal, among the

bluffs. I would have liked to revisit it, but had not time. In my time

the person who then owned it turned it into a mausoleum for his

daughter, aged fourteen. The body of this poor child was put into a

copper cylinder filled with alcohol, and this was suspended in one of

the dismal avenues of the cave. The top of the cylinder was removable;

and it was said to be a common thing for the baser order of tourists to

drag the dead face into view and examine it and comment upon it.

Chapter 56 A Question of Law

THE slaughter-house is gone from the mouth of Bear Creek and so is the

small jail (or 'calaboose') which once stood in its neighborhood. A

citizen asked, 'Do you remember when Jimmy Finn, the town drunkard, was

burned to death in the calaboose?'

Observe, now, how history becomes defiled, through lapse of time and the

help of the bad memories of men. Jimmy Finn was not burned in the

calaboose, but died a natural death in a tan vat, of a combination of

delirium tremens and spontaneous combustion. When I say natural death, I

mean it was a natural death for Jimmy Finn to die. The calaboose victim

was not a citizen; he was a poor stranger, a harmless whiskey-sodden

tramp. I know more about his case than anybody else; I knew too much of

it, in that bygone day, to relish speaking of it. That tramp was

wandering about the streets one chilly evening, with a pipe in his

mouth, and begging for a match; he got neither matches nor courtesy; on

the contrary, a troop of bad little boys followed him around and amused

themselves with nagging and annoying him. I assisted; but at last, some

appeal which the wayfarer made for forbearance, accompanying it with a

pathetic reference to his forlorn and friendless condition, touched such

sense of shame and remnant of right feeling as were left in me, and I

went away and got him some matches, and then hied me home and to bed,

heavily weighted as to conscience, and unbuoyant in spirit. An hour or

two afterward, the man was arrested and locked up in the calaboose by

the marshal--large name for a constable, but that was his title. At two

in the morning, the church bells rang for fire, and everybody turned

out, of course--I with the rest. The tramp had used his matches

disastrously: he had set his straw bed on fire, and the oaken sheathing

of the room had caught. When I reached the ground, two hundred men,

women, and children stood massed together, transfixed with horror, and

staring at the grated windows of the jail. Behind the iron bars, and

tugging frantically at them, and screaming for help, stood the tramp; he

seemed like a black object set against a sun, so white and intense was

the light at his back. That marshal could not be found, and he had the

only key. A battering-ram was quickly improvised, and the thunder of its

blows upon the door had so encouraging a sound that the spectators broke

into wild cheering, and believed the merciful battle won. But it was not

so. The timbers were too strong; they did not yield. It was said that

the man's death-grip still held fast to the bars after he was dead; and

that in this position the fires wrapped him about and consumed him. As

to this, I do not know. What was seen after I recognized the face that

was pleading through the bars was seen by others, not by me.

I saw that face, so situated, every night for a long time afterward; and

I believed myself as guilty of the man's death as if I had given him the

matches purposely that he might burn himself up with them. I had not a

doubt that I should be hanged if my connection with this tragedy were

found out. The happenings and the impressions of that time are burnt

into my memory, and the study of them entertains me as much now as they

themselves distressed me then. If anybody spoke of that grisly matter, I

was all ears in a moment, and alert to hear what might be said, for I

was always dreading and expecting to find out that I was suspected; and

so fine and so delicate was the perception of my guilty conscience, that

it often detected suspicion in the most purposeless remarks, and in

looks, gestures, glances of the eye which had no significance, but which

sent me shivering away in a panic of fright, just the same. And how sick

it made me when somebody dropped, howsoever carelessly and barren of

intent, the remark that 'murder will out!' For a boy of ten years, I was

carrying a pretty weighty cargo.

All this time I was blessedly forgetting one thing--the fact that I was

an inveterate talker in my sleep. But one night I awoke and found my

bed-mate--my younger brother--sitting up in bed and contemplating me by

the light of the moon. I said--

'What is the matter?'

'You talk so much I can't sleep.'

I came to a sitting posture in an instant, with my kidneys in my throat

and my hair on end.

'What did I say. Quick--out with it--what did I say?'

'Nothing much.'

'It's a lie--you know everything.'

'Everything about what?'

'You know well enough. About THAT.'

'About WHAT?--I don't know what you are talking about. I think you are

sick or crazy or something. But anyway, you're awake, and I'll get to

sleep while I've got a chance.'

He fell asleep and I lay there in a cold sweat, turning this new terror

over in the whirling chaos which did duty as my mind. The burden of my

thought was, How much did I divulge? How much does he know?--what a

distress is this uncertainty! But by and by I evolved an idea--I would

wake my brother and probe him with a supposititious case. I shook him

up, and said--

'Suppose a man should come to you drunk--'

'This is foolish--I never get drunk.'

'I don't mean you, idiot--I mean the man. Suppose a MAN should come to

you drunk, and borrow a knife, or a tomahawk, or a pistol, and you

forgot to tell him it was loaded, and--'

'How could you load a tomahawk?'

'I don't mean the tomahawk, and I didn't say the tomahawk; I said the

pistol. Now don't you keep breaking in that way, because this is

serious. There's been a man killed.'

'What! in this town?'

'Yes, in this town.'

'Well, go on--I won't say a single word.'

'Well, then, suppose you forgot to tell him to be careful with it,

because it was loaded, and he went off and shot himself with that

pistol--fooling with it, you know, and probably doing it by accident,

being drunk. Well, would it be murder?'

'No--suicide.'

'No, no. I don't mean HIS act, I mean yours: would you be a murderer

for letting him have that pistol?'

After deep thought came this answer--

'Well, I should think I was guilty of something--maybe murder--yes,

probably murder, but I don't quite know.'

This made me very uncomfortable. However, it was not a decisive

verdict. I should have to set out the real case--there seemed to be no

other way. But I would do it cautiously, and keep a watch out for

suspicious effects. I said--

'I was supposing a case, but I am coming to the real one now. Do you

know how the man came to be burned up in the calaboose?'

'No.'

'Haven't you the least idea?'

'Not the least.'

'Wish you may die in your tracks if you have?'

'Yes, wish I may die in my tracks.'

'Well, the way of it was this. The man wanted some matches to light his

pipe. A boy got him some. The man set fire to the calaboose with those

very matches, and burnt himself up.'

'Is that so?'

'Yes, it is. Now, is that boy a murderer, do you think?'

'Let me see. The man was drunk?'

'Yes, he was drunk.'

'Very drunk?'

'Yes.'

'And the boy knew it?'

'Yes, he knew it.'

There was a long pause. Then came this heavy verdict--

'If the man was drunk, and the boy knew it, the boy murdered that man.

This is certain.'

Faint, sickening sensations crept along all the fibers of my body, and I

seemed to know how a person feels who hears his death sentence

pronounced from the bench. I waited to hear what my brother would say

next. I believed I knew what it would be, and I was right. He said--

'I know the boy.'

I had nothing to say; so I said nothing. I simply shuddered. Then he

added--

'Yes, before you got half through telling about the thing, I knew

perfectly well who the boy was; it was Ben Coontz!'

I came out of my collapse as one who rises from the dead. I said, with

admiration--

'Why, how in the world did you ever guess it?'

'You told it in your sleep.'

I said to myself, 'How splendid that is! This is a habit which must be

cultivated.'

My brother rattled innocently on--

'When you were talking in your sleep, you kept mumbling something about

"matches," which I couldn't make anything out of; but just now, when you

began to tell me about the man and the calaboose and the matches, I

remembered that in your sleep you mentioned Ben Coontz two or three

times; so I put this and that together, you see, and right away I knew

it was Ben that burnt that man up.'

I praised his sagacity effusively. Presently he asked--

'Are you going to give him up to the law?'

'No,' I said; 'I believe that this will be a lesson to him. I shall keep

an eye on him, of course, for that is but right; but if he stops where

he is and reforms, it shall never be said that I betrayed him.'

'How good you are!'

'Well, I try to be. It is all a person can do in a world like this.'

And now, my burden being shifted to other shoulders, my terrors soon

faded away.

The day before we left Hannibal, a curious thing fell under my notice--

the surprising spread which longitudinal time undergoes there. I learned

it from one of the most unostentatious of men--the colored coachman of a

friend of mine, who lives three miles from town. He was to call for me

at the Park Hotel at 7.30 P.M., and drive me out. But he missed it

considerably--did not arrive till ten. He excused himself by saying--

'De time is mos' an hour en a half slower in de country en what it is in

de town; you'll be in plenty time, boss. Sometimes we shoves out early

for church, Sunday, en fetches up dah right plum in de middle er de

sermon. Diffunce in de time. A body can't make no calculations 'bout

it.'

I had lost two hours and a half; but I had learned a fact worth four.

Chapter 57 An Archangel

FROM St. Louis northward there are all the enlivening signs of the

presence of active, energetic, intelligent, prosperous, practical

nineteenth-century populations. The people don't dream, they work. The

happy result is manifest all around in the substantial outside aspect of

things, and the suggestions of wholesome life and comfort that

everywhere appear.

Quincy is a notable example--a brisk, handsome, well-ordered city; and

now, as formerly, interested in art, letters, and other high things.

But Marion City is an exception. Marion City has gone backwards in a

most unaccountable way. This metropolis promised so well that the

projectors tacked 'city' to its name in the very beginning, with full

confidence; but it was bad prophecy. When I first saw Marion City,

thirty-five years ago, it contained one street, and nearly or quite six

houses. It contains but one house now, and this one, in a state of ruin,

is getting ready to follow the former five into the river. Doubtless

Marion City was too near to Quincy. It had another disadvantage: it

was situated in a flat mud bottom, below high-water mark, whereas Quincy

stands high up on the slope of a hill.

In the beginning Quincy had the aspect and ways of a model New England

town: and these she has yet: broad, clean streets, trim, neat dwellings

and lawns, fine mansions, stately blocks of commercial buildings. And

there are ample fair-grounds, a well kept park, and many attractive

drives; library, reading-rooms, a couple of colleges, some handsome and

costly churches, and a grand court-house, with grounds which occupy a

square. The population of the city is thirty thousand. There are some

large factories here, and manufacturing, of many sorts, is done on a

great scale.

La Grange and Canton are growing towns, but I missed Alexandria; was

told it was under water, but would come up to blow in the summer.

Keokuk was easily recognizable. I lived there in 1857--an extraordinary

year there in real-estate matters. The 'boom' was something wonderful.

Everybody bought, everybody sold--except widows and preachers; they

always hold on; and when the tide ebbs, they get left. Anything in the

semblance of a town lot, no matter how situated, was salable, and at a

figure which would still have been high if the ground had been sodded

with greenbacks.

The town has a population of fifteen thousand now, and is progressing

with a healthy growth. It was night, and we could not see details, for

which we were sorry, for Keokuk has the reputation of being a beautiful

city. It was a pleasant one to live in long ago, and doubtless has

advanced, not retrograded, in that respect.

A mighty work which was in progress there in my day is finished now.

This is the canal over the Rapids. It is eight miles long, three

hundred feet wide, and is in no place less than six feet deep. Its

masonry is of the majestic kind which the War Department usually deals

in, and will endure like a Roman aqueduct. The work cost four or five

millions.

After an hour or two spent with former friends, we started up the river

again. Keokuk, a long time ago, was an occasional loafing-place of that

erratic genius, Henry Clay Dean. I believe I never saw him but once; but

he was much talked of when I lived there. This is what was said of him--

He began life poor and without education. But he educated himself--on

the curbstones of Keokuk. He would sit down on a curbstone with his

book, careless or unconscious of the clatter of commerce and the tramp

of the passing crowds, and bury himself in his studies by the hour,

never changing his position except to draw in his knees now and then to

let a dray pass unobstructed; and when his book was finished, its

contents, however abstruse, had been burnt into his memory, and were his

permanent possession. In this way he acquired a vast hoard of all sorts

of learning, and had it pigeon-holed in his head where he could put his

intellectual hand on it whenever it was wanted.

His clothes differed in no respect from a 'wharf-rat's,' except that

they were raggeder, more ill-assorted and inharmonious (and therefore

more extravagantly picturesque), and several layers dirtier. Nobody

could infer the master-mind in the top of that edifice from the edifice

itself.

He was an orator--by nature in the first place, and later by the

training of experience and practice. When he was out on a canvass, his

name was a lodestone which drew the farmers to his stump from fifty

miles around. His theme was always politics. He used no notes, for a

volcano does not need notes. In 1862, a son of Keokuk's late

distinguished citizen, Mr. Claggett, gave me this incident concerning

Dean--

The war feeling was running high in Keokuk (in '61), and a great mass

meeting was to be held on a certain day in the new Athenaeum. A

distinguished stranger was to address the house. After the building had

been packed to its utmost capacity with sweltering folk of both sexes,

the stage still remained vacant--the distinguished stranger had failed

to connect. The crowd grew impatient, and by and by indignant and

rebellious. About this time a distressed manager discovered Dean on a

curb-stone, explained the dilemma to him, took his book away from him,

rushed him into the building the back way, and told him to make for the

stage and save his country.

Presently a sudden silence fell upon the grumbling audience, and

everybody's eyes sought a single point--the wide, empty, carpetless

stage. A figure appeared there whose aspect was familiar to hardly a

dozen persons present. It was the scarecrow Dean--in foxy shoes, down at

the heels; socks of odd colors, also 'down;' damaged trousers, relics of

antiquity, and a world too short, exposing some inches of naked ankle;

an unbuttoned vest, also too short, and exposing a zone of soiled and

wrinkled linen between it and the waistband; shirt bosom open; long

black handkerchief, wound round and round the neck like a bandage; bob-

tailed blue coat, reaching down to the small of the back, with sleeves

which left four inches of forearm unprotected; small, stiff-brimmed

soldier-cap hung on a corner of the bump of--whichever bump it was.

This figure moved gravely out upon the stage and, with sedate and

measured step, down to the front, where it paused, and dreamily

inspected the house, saying no word. The silence of surprise held its

own for a moment, then was broken by a just audible ripple of merriment

which swept the sea of faces like the wash of a wave. The figure

remained as before, thoughtfully inspecting. Another wave started--

laughter, this time. It was followed by another, then a third--this

last one boisterous.

And now the stranger stepped back one pace, took off his soldier-cap,

tossed it into the wing, and began to speak, with deliberation, nobody

listening, everybody laughing and whispering. The speaker talked on

unembarrassed, and presently delivered a shot which went home, and

silence and attention resulted. He followed it quick and fast, with

other telling things; warmed to his work and began to pour his words

out, instead of dripping them; grew hotter and hotter, and fell to

discharging lightnings and thunder--and now the house began to break

into applause, to which the speaker gave no heed, but went hammering

straight on; unwound his black bandage and cast it away, still

thundering; presently discarded the bob tailed coat and flung it aside,

firing up higher and higher all the time; finally flung the vest after

the coat; and then for an untimed period stood there, like another

Vesuvius, spouting smoke and flame, lava and ashes, raining pumice-stone

and cinders, shaking the moral earth with intellectual crash upon crash,

explosion upon explosion, while the mad multitude stood upon their feet

in a solid body, answering back with a ceaseless hurricane of cheers,

through a thrashing snowstorm of waving handkerchiefs.

'When Dean came,' said Claggett, 'the people thought he was an escaped

lunatic; but when he went, they thought he was an escaped archangel.'

Burlington, home of the sparkling Burdette, is another hill city; and

also a beautiful one; unquestionably so; a fine and flourishing city,

with a population of twenty-five thousand, and belted with busy

factories of nearly every imaginable description. It was a very sober

city, too--for the moment--for a most sobering bill was pending; a bill

to forbid the manufacture, exportation, importation, purchase, sale,

borrowing, lending, stealing, drinking, smelling, or possession, by

conquest, inheritance, intent, accident, or otherwise, in the State of

Iowa, of each and every deleterious beverage known to the human race,

except water. This measure was approved by all the rational people in

the State; but not by the bench of Judges.

Burlington has the progressive modern city's full equipment of devices

for right and intelligent government; including a paid fire department,

a thing which the great city of New Orleans is without, but still

employs that relic of antiquity, the independent system.

In Burlington, as in all these Upper-River towns, one breathes a

go-ahead atmosphere which tastes good in the nostrils. An opera-house has

lately been built there which is in strong contrast with the shabby dens

which usually do duty as theaters in cities of Burlington's size.

We had not time to go ashore in Muscatine, but had a daylight view of it

from the boat. I lived there awhile, many years ago, but the place,

now, had a rather unfamiliar look; so I suppose it has clear outgrown

the town which I used to know. In fact, I know it has; for I remember it

as a small place--which it isn't now. But I remember it best for a

lunatic who caught me out in the fields, one Sunday, and extracted a

butcher-knife from his boot and proposed to carve me up with it, unless

I acknowledged him to be the only son of the Devil. I tried to

compromise on an acknowledgment that he was the only member of the

family I had met; but that did not satisfy him; he wouldn't have any

half-measures; I must say he was the sole and only son of the Devil--he

whetted his knife on his boot. It did not seem worth while to make

trouble about a little thing like that; so I swung round to his view of

the matter and saved my skin whole. Shortly afterward, he went to visit

his father; and as he has not turned up since, I trust he is there yet.

And I remember Muscatine--still more pleasantly--for its summer sunsets.

I have never seen any, on either side of the ocean, that equaled them.

They used the broad smooth river as a canvas, and painted on it every

imaginable dream of color, from the mottled daintinesses and delicacies

of the opal, all the way up, through cumulative intensities, to blinding

purple and crimson conflagrations which were enchanting to the eye, but

sharply tried it at the same time. All the Upper Mississippi region has

these extraordinary sunsets as a familiar spectacle. It is the true

Sunset Land: I am sure no other country can show so good a right to the

name. The sunrises are also said to be exceedingly fine. I do not know.

Chapter 58 On the Upper River

THE big towns drop in, thick and fast, now: and between stretch

processions of thrifty farms, not desolate solitude. Hour by hour, the

boat plows deeper and deeper into the great and populous North-west; and

with each successive section of it which is revealed, one's surprise and

respect gather emphasis and increase. Such a people, and such

achievements as theirs, compel homage. This is an independent race who

think for themselves, and who are competent to do it, because they are

educated and enlightened; they read, they keep abreast of the best and

newest thought, they fortify every weak place in their land with a

school, a college, a library, and a newspaper; and they live under law.

Solicitude for the future of a race like this is not in order.

This region is new; so new that it may be said to be still in its

babyhood. By what it has accomplished while still teething, one may

forecast what marvels it will do in the strength of its maturity. It is

so new that the foreign tourist has not heard of it yet; and has not

visited it. For sixty years, the foreign tourist has steamed up and down

the river between St. Louis and New Orleans, and then gone home and

written his book, believing he had seen all of the river that was worth

seeing or that had anything to see. In not six of all these books is

there mention of these Upper River towns--for the reason that the five

or six tourists who penetrated this region did it before these towns

were projected. The latest tourist of them all (1878) made the same old

regulation trip--he had not heard that there was anything north of St.

Louis.

Yet there was. There was this amazing region, bristling with great

towns, projected day before yesterday, so to speak, and built next

morning. A score of them number from fifteen hundred to five thousand

people. Then we have Muscatine, ten thousand; Winona, ten thousand;

Moline, ten thousand; Rock Island, twelve thousand; La Crosse, twelve

thousand; Burlington, twenty-five thousand; Dubuque, twenty-five

thousand; Davenport, thirty thousand; St. Paul, fifty-eight thousand,

Minneapolis, sixty thousand and upward.

The foreign tourist has never heard of these; there is no note of them

in his books. They have sprung up in the night, while he slept. So new

is this region, that I, who am comparatively young, am yet older than it

is. When I was born, St. Paul had a population of three persons,

Minneapolis had just a third as many. The then population of Minneapolis

died two years ago; and when he died he had seen himself undergo an

increase, in forty years, of fifty-nine thousand nine hundred and

ninety-nine persons. He had a frog's fertility.

I must explain that the figures set down above, as the population of St.

Paul and Minneapolis, are several months old. These towns are far

larger now. In fact, I have just seen a newspaper estimate which gives

the former seventy-one thousand, and the latter seventy-eight thousand.

This book will not reach the public for six or seven months yet; none of

the figures will be worth much then.

We had a glimpse of Davenport, which is another beautiful city, crowning

a hill--a phrase which applies to all these towns; for they are all

comely, all well built, clean, orderly, pleasant to the eye, and

cheering to the spirit; and they are all situated upon hills. Therefore

we will give that phrase a rest. The Indians have a tradition that

Marquette and Joliet camped where Davenport now stands, in 1673. The

next white man who camped there, did it about a hundred and seventy

years later--in 1834. Davenport has gathered its thirty thousand people

within the past thirty years. She sends more children to her schools

now, than her whole population numbered twenty-three years ago. She has

the usual Upper River quota of factories, newspapers, and institutions

of learning; she has telephones, local telegraphs, an electric alarm,

and an admirable paid fire department, consisting of six hook and ladder

companies, four steam fire engines, and thirty churches. Davenport is

the official residence of two bishops--Episcopal and Catholic.

Opposite Davenport is the flourishing town of Rock Island, which lies at

the foot of the Upper Rapids. A great railroad bridge connects the two

towns--one of the thirteen which fret the Mississippi and the pilots,

between St. Louis and St. Paul.

The charming island of Rock Island, three miles long and half a mile

wide, belongs to the United States, and the Government has turned it

into a wonderful park, enhancing its natural attractions by art, and

threading its fine forests with many miles of drives. Near the center of

the island one catches glimpses, through the trees, of ten vast stone

four-story buildings, each of which covers an acre of ground. These are

the Government workshops; for the Rock Island establishment is a

national armory and arsenal.

We move up the river--always through enchanting scenery, there being no

other kind on the Upper Mississippi--and pass Moline, a center of vast

manufacturing industries; and Clinton and Lyons, great lumber centers;

and presently reach Dubuque, which is situated in a rich mineral region.

The lead mines are very productive, and of wide extent. Dubuque has a

great number of manufacturing establishments; among them a plow factory

which has for customers all Christendom in general. At least so I was

told by an agent of the concern who was on the boat. He said--

'You show me any country under the sun where they really know how to

plow, and if I don't show you our mark on the plow they use, I'll eat

that plow; and I won't ask for any Woostershyre sauce to flavor it up

with, either.'

All this part of the river is rich in Indian history and traditions.

Black Hawk's was once a puissant name hereabouts; as was Keokuk's,

further down. A few miles below Dubuque is the Tete de Mort--Death's-

head rock, or bluff--to the top of which the French drove a band of

Indians, in early times, and cooped them up there, with death for a

certainty, and only the manner of it matter of choice--to starve, or

jump off and kill themselves. Black Hawk adopted the ways of the white

people, toward the end of his life; and when he died he was buried, near

Des Moines, in Christian fashion, modified by Indian custom; that is to

say, clothed in a Christian military uniform, and with a Christian cane

in his hand, but deposited in the grave in a sitting posture. Formerly,

a horse had always been buried with a chief. The substitution of the

cane shows that Black Hawk's haughty nature was really humbled, and he

expected to walk when he got over.

We noticed that above Dubuque the water of the Mississippi was olive-

green--rich and beautiful and semi-transparent, with the sun on it. Of

course the water was nowhere as clear or of as fine a complexion as it

is in some other seasons of the year; for now it was at flood stage, and

therefore dimmed and blurred by the mud manufactured from caving banks.

The majestic bluffs that overlook the river, along through this region,

charm one with the grace and variety of their forms, and the soft beauty

of their adornment. The steep verdant slope, whose base is at the

water's edge is topped by a lofty rampart of broken, turreted rocks,

which are exquisitely rich and mellow in color--mainly dark browns and

dull greens, but splashed with other tints. And then you have the

shining river, winding here and there and yonder, its sweep interrupted

at intervals by clusters of wooded islands threaded by silver channels;

and you have glimpses of distant villages, asleep upon capes; and of

stealthy rafts slipping along in the shade of the forest walls; and of

white steamers vanishing around remote points. And it is all as tranquil

and reposeful as dreamland, and has nothing this-worldly about it--

nothing to hang a fret or a worry upon.

Until the unholy train comes tearing along--which it presently does,

ripping the sacred solitude to rags and tatters with its devil's

warwhoop and the roar and thunder of its rushing wheels--and straightway

you are back in this world, and with one of its frets ready to hand for

your entertainment: for you remember that this is the very road whose

stock always goes down after you buy it, and always goes up again as

soon as you sell it. It makes me shudder to this day, to remember that

I once came near not getting rid of my stock at all. It must be an awful

thing to have a railroad left on your hands.

The locomotive is in sight from the deck of the steamboat almost the

whole way from St. Louis to St. Paul--eight hundred miles. These

railroads have made havoc with the steamboat commerce. The clerk of our

boat was a steamboat clerk before these roads were built. In that day

the influx of population was so great, and the freight business so

heavy, that the boats were not able to keep up with the demands made

upon their carrying capacity; consequently the captains were very

independent and airy--pretty 'biggity,' as Uncle Remus would say. The

clerk nut-shelled the contrast between the former time and the present,

thus--

'Boat used to land--captain on hurricane roof--mighty stiff and

straight--iron ramrod for a spine--kid gloves, plug tile, hair parted

behind--man on shore takes off hat and says--

'"Got twenty-eight tons of wheat, cap'n--be great favor if you can take

them."

'Captain says--

'"'ll take two of them"--and don't even condescend to look at him.

'But nowadays the captain takes off his old slouch, and smiles all the

way around to the back of his ears, and gets off a bow which he hasn't

got any ramrod to interfere with, and says--

'"Glad to see you, Smith, glad to see you--you're looking well--haven't

seen you looking so well for years--what you got for us?"

'"Nuth'n", says Smith; and keeps his hat on, and just turns his back and

goes to talking with somebody else.

'Oh, yes, eight years ago, the captain was on top; but it's Smith's turn

now. Eight years ago a boat used to go up the river with every stateroom

full, and people piled five and six deep on the cabin floor; and a solid

deck-load of immigrants and harvesters down below, into the bargain. To

get a first-class stateroom, you'd got to prove sixteen quarterings of

nobility and four hundred years of descent, or be personally acquainted

with the nigger that blacked the captain's boots. But it's all changed

now; plenty staterooms above, no harvesters below--there's a patent

self-binder now, and they don't have harvesters any more; they've gone

where the woodbine twineth--and they didn't go by steamboat, either;

went by the train.'

Up in this region we met massed acres of lumber rafts coming down--but

not floating leisurely along, in the old-fashioned way, manned with

joyous and reckless crews of fiddling, song-singing, whiskey-drinking,

breakdown-dancing rapscallions; no, the whole thing was shoved swiftly

along by a powerful stern-wheeler, modern fashion, and the small crews

were quiet, orderly men, of a sedate business aspect, with not a

suggestion of romance about them anywhere.

Along here, somewhere, on a black night, we ran some exceedingly narrow

and intricate island-chutes by aid of the electric light. Behind was

solid blackness--a crackless bank of it; ahead, a narrow elbow of water,

curving between dense walls of foliage that almost touched our bows on

both sides; and here every individual leaf, and every individual ripple

stood out in its natural color, and flooded with a glare as of noonday

intensified. The effect was strange, and fine, and very striking.

We passed Prairie du Chien, another of Father Marquette's camping-

places; and after some hours of progress through varied and beautiful

scenery, reached La Crosse. Here is a town of twelve or thirteen

thousand population, with electric lighted streets, and with blocks of

buildings which are stately enough, and also architecturally fine

enough, to command respect in any city. It is a choice town, and we made

satisfactory use of the hour allowed us, in roaming it over, though the

weather was rainier than necessary.

Chapter 59 Legends and Scenery

WE added several passengers to our list, at La Crosse; among others an

old gentleman who had come to this north-western region with the early

settlers, and was familiar with every part of it. Pardonably proud of

it, too. He said--

'You'll find scenery between here and St. Paul that can give the Hudson

points. You'll have the Queen's Bluff--seven hundred feet high, and

just as imposing a spectacle as you can find anywheres; and Trempeleau

Island, which isn't like any other island in America, I believe, for it

is a gigantic mountain, with precipitous sides, and is full of Indian

traditions, and used to be full of rattlesnakes; if you catch the sun

just right there, you will have a picture that will stay with you. And

above Winona you'll have lovely prairies; and then come the Thousand

Islands, too beautiful for anything; green? why you never saw foliage so

green, nor packed so thick; it's like a thousand plush cushions afloat

on a looking-glass--when the water 's still; and then the monstrous

bluffs on both sides of the river--ragged, rugged, dark-complected--just

the frame that's wanted; you always want a strong frame, you know, to

throw up the nice points of a delicate picture and make them stand out.'

The old gentleman also told us a touching Indian legend or two--but not

very powerful ones.

After this excursion into history, he came back to the scenery, and

described it, detail by detail, from the Thousand Islands to St. Paul;

naming its names with such facility, tripping along his theme with such

nimble and confident ease, slamming in a three-ton word, here and there,

with such a complacent air of 't isn't-anything,-I-can-do-it-any-time-I-

want-to, and letting off fine surprises of lurid eloquence at such

judicious intervals, that I presently began to suspect--

But no matter what I began to suspect. Hear him--

'Ten miles above Winona we come to Fountain City, nestling sweetly at

the feet of cliffs that lift their awful fronts, Jovelike, toward the

blue depths of heaven, bathing them in virgin atmospheres that have

known no other contact save that of angels' wings.

'And next we glide through silver waters, amid lovely and stupendous

aspects of nature that attune our hearts to adoring admiration, about

twelve miles, and strike Mount Vernon, six hundred feet high, with

romantic ruins of a once first-class hotel perched far among the cloud

shadows that mottle its dizzy heights--sole remnant of once-flourishing

Mount Vernon, town of early days, now desolate and utterly deserted.

'And so we move on. Past Chimney Rock we fly--noble shaft of six

hundred feet; then just before landing at Minnieska our attention is

attracted by a most striking promontory rising over five hundred feet--

the ideal mountain pyramid. Its conic shape--thickly-wooded surface

girding its sides, and its apex like that of a cone, cause the spectator

to wonder at nature's workings. From its dizzy heights superb views of

the forests, streams, bluffs, hills and dales below and beyond for miles

are brought within its focus. What grander river scenery can be

conceived, as we gaze upon this enchanting landscape, from the uppermost

point of these bluffs upon the valleys below? The primeval wildness and

awful loneliness of these sublime creations of nature and nature's God,

excite feelings of unbounded admiration, and the recollection of which

can never be effaced from the memory, as we view them in any direction.

'Next we have the Lion's Head and the Lioness's Head, carved by nature's

hand, to adorn and dominate the beauteous stream; and then anon the

river widens, and a most charming and magnificent view of the valley

before us suddenly bursts upon our vision; rugged hills, clad with

verdant forests from summit to base, level prairie lands, holding in

their lap the beautiful Wabasha, City of the Healing Waters, puissant

foe of Bright's disease, and that grandest conception of nature's works,

incomparable Lake Pepin--these constitute a picture whereon the

tourist's eye may gaze uncounted hours, with rapture unappeased and

unappeasable.

'And so we glide along; in due time encountering those majestic domes,

the mighty Sugar Loaf, and the sublime Maiden's Rock--which latter,

romantic superstition has invested with a voice; and oft-times as the

birch canoe glides near, at twilight, the dusky paddler fancies he hears

the soft sweet music of the long-departed Winona, darling of Indian song

and story.

'Then Frontenac looms upon our vision, delightful resort of jaded summer

tourists; then progressive Red Wing; and Diamond Bluff, impressive and

preponderous in its lone sublimity; then Prescott and the St. Croix; and

anon we see bursting upon us the domes and steeples of St. Paul, giant

young chief of the North, marching with seven-league stride in the van

of progress, banner-bearer of the highest and newest civilization,

carving his beneficent way with the tomahawk of commercial enterprise,

sounding the warwhoop of Christian culture, tearing off the reeking

scalp of sloth and superstition to plant there the steam-plow and the

school-house--ever in his front stretch arid lawlessness, ignorance,

crime, despair; ever in his wake bloom the jail, the gallows, and the

pulpit; and ever--'

'Have you ever traveled with a panorama?'

'I have formerly served in that capacity.'

My suspicion was confirmed.

'Do you still travel with it?'

'No, she is laid up till the fall season opens. I am helping now to

work up the materials for a Tourist's Guide which the St. Louis and St.

Paul Packet Company are going to issue this summer for the benefit of

travelers who go by that line.'

'When you were talking of Maiden's Rock, you spoke of the long-departed

Winona, darling of Indian song and story. Is she the maiden of the

rock?--and are the two connected by legend?'

'Yes, and a very tragic and painful one. Perhaps the most celebrated,

as well as the most pathetic, of all the legends of the Mississippi.'

We asked him to tell it. He dropped out of his conversational vein and

back into his lecture-gait without an effort, and rolled on as follows--

'A little distance above Lake City is a famous point known as Maiden's

Rock, which is not only a picturesque spot, but is full of romantic

interest from the event which gave it its name, Not many years ago this

locality was a favorite resort for the Sioux Indians on account of the

fine fishing and hunting to be had there, and large numbers of them were

always to be found in this locality. Among the families which used to

resort here, was one belonging to the tribe of Wabasha. We-no-na

(first-born) was the name of a maiden who had plighted her troth to a

lover belonging to the same band. But her stern parents had promised

her hand to another, a famous warrior, and insisted on her wedding him.

The day was fixed by her parents, to her great grief. She appeared to

accede to the proposal and accompany them to the rock, for the purpose

of gathering flowers for the feast. On reaching the rock, We-no-na ran

to its summit and standing on its edge upbraided her parents who were

below, for their cruelty, and then singing a death-dirge, threw herself

from the precipice and dashed them in pieces on the rock below.'

'Dashed who in pieces--her parents?'

'Yes.'

'Well, it certainly was a tragic business, as you say. And moreover,

there is a startling kind of dramatic surprise about it which I was not

looking for. It is a distinct improvement upon the threadbare form of

Indian legend. There are fifty Lover's Leaps along the Mississippi from

whose summit disappointed Indian girls have jumped, but this is the only

jump in the lot hat turned out in the right and satisfactory way. What

became of Winona?'

'She was a good deal jarred up and jolted: but she got herself together

and disappeared before the coroner reached the fatal spot; and 'tis said

she sought and married her true love, and wandered with him to some

distant clime, where she lived happy ever after, her gentle spirit

mellowed and chastened by the romantic incident which had so early

deprived her of the sweet guidance of a mother's love and a father's

protecting arm, and thrown her, all unfriended, upon the cold charity of

a censorious world.'

I was glad to hear the lecturer's description of the scenery, for it

assisted my appreciation of what I saw of it, and enabled me to imagine

such of it as we lost by the intrusion of night.

As the lecturer remarked, this whole region is blanketed with Indian

tales and traditions. But I reminded him that people usually merely

mention this fact--doing it in a way to make a body's mouth water--and

judiciously stopped there. Why? Because the impression left, was that

these tales were full of incident and imagination--a pleasant impression

which would be promptly dissipated if the tales were told. I showed him

a lot of this sort of literature which I had been collecting, and he

confessed that it was poor stuff, exceedingly sorry rubbish; and I

ventured to add that the legends which he had himself told us were of

this character, with the single exception of the admirable story of

Winona. He granted these facts, but said that if I would hunt up Mr.

Schoolcraft's book, published near fifty years ago, and now doubtless

out of print, I would find some Indian inventions in it that were very

far from being barren of incident and imagination; that the tales in

Hiawatha were of this sort, and they came from Schoolcraft's book; and

that there were others in the same book which Mr. Longfellow could have

turned into verse with good effect. For instance, there was the legend

of 'The Undying Head.' He could not tell it, for many of the details had

grown dim in his memory; but he would recommend me to find it and

enlarge my respect for the Indian imagination. He said that this tale,

and most of the others in the book, were current among the Indians along

this part of the Mississippi when he first came here; and that the

contributors to Schoolcraft's book had got them directly from Indian

lips, and had written them down with strict exactness, and without

embellishments of their own.

I have found the book. The lecturer was right. There are several

legends in it which confirm what he said. I will offer two of them--

'The Undying Head,' and 'Peboan and Seegwun, an Allegory of the

Seasons.' The latter is used in Hiawatha; but it is worth reading in the

original form, if only that one may see how effective a genuine poem can

be without the helps and graces of poetic measure and rhythm--

PEBOAN AND SEEGWUN.

An old man was sitting alone in his lodge, by the side of a frozen

stream. It was the close of winter, and his fire was almost out, He

appeared very old and very desolate. His locks were white with age, and

he trembled in every joint. Day after day passed in solitude, and he

heard nothing but the sound of the tempest, sweeping before it the new-

fallen snow.

One day, as his fire was just dying, a handsome young man approached and

entered his dwelling. His cheeks were red with the blood of youth, his

eyes sparkled with animation, and a smile played upon his lips. He

walked with a light and quick step. His forehead was bound with a

wreath of sweet grass, in place of a warrior's frontlet, and he carried

a bunch of flowers in his hand.

'Ah, my son,' said the old man, 'I am happy to see you. Come in. Come

and tell me of your adventures, and what strange lands you have been to

see. Let us pass the night together. I will tell you of my prowess and

exploits, and what I can perform. You shall do the same, and we will

amuse ourselves.'

He then drew from his sack a curiously wrought antique pipe, and having

filled it with tobacco, rendered mild by a mixture of certain leaves,

handed it to his guest. When this ceremony was concluded they began to

speak.

'I blow my breath,' said the old man, 'and the stream stands still. The

water becomes stiff and hard as clear stone.'

'I breathe,' said the young man, 'and flowers spring up over the plain.'

'I shake my locks,' retorted the old man, 'and snow covers the land. The

leaves fall from the trees at my command, and my breath blows them away.

The birds get up from the water, and fly to a distant land. The animals

hide themselves from my breath, and the very ground becomes as hard as

flint.'

'I shake my ringlets,' rejoined the young man, 'and warm showers of soft

rain fall upon the earth. The plants lift up their heads out of the

earth, like the eyes of children glistening with delight. My voice

recalls the birds. The warmth of my breath unlocks the streams. Music

fills the groves wherever I walk, and all nature rejoices.'

At length the sun began to rise. A gentle warmth came over the place.

The tongue of the old man became silent. The robin and bluebird began to

sing on the top of the lodge. The stream began to murmur by the door,

and the fragrance of growing herbs and flowers came softly on the vernal

breeze.

Daylight fully revealed to the young man the character of his

entertainer. When he looked upon him, he had the icy visage of

Peboan.{footnote [Winter.]} Streams began to flow from his eyes. As the

sun increased, he grew less and less in stature, and anon had melted

completely away. Nothing remained on the place of his lodge-fire but the

miskodeed,{footnote [The trailing arbutus.]} a small white flower, with

a pink border, which is one of the earliest species of northern plants.

'The Undying Head' is a rather long tale, but it makes up in weird

conceits, fairy-tale prodigies, variety of incident, and energy of

movement, for what it lacks in brevity.{footnote [See appendix D.]}

Chapter 60 Speculations and Conclusions

WE reached St. Paul, at the head of navigation of the Mississippi, and

there our voyage of two thousand miles from New Orleans ended. It is

about a ten-day trip by steamer. It can probably be done quicker by

rail. I judge so because I know that one may go by rail from St. Louis

to Hannibal--a distance of at least a hundred and twenty miles--in seven

hours. This is better than walking; unless one is in a hurry.

The season being far advanced when we were in New Orleans, the roses and

magnolia blossoms were falling; but here in St. Paul it was the snow, In

New Orleans we had caught an occasional withering breath from over a

crater, apparently; here in St. Paul we caught a frequent benumbing one

from over a glacier, apparently.

But I wander from my theme. St. Paul is a wonderful town. It is put

together in solid blocks of honest brick and stone, and has the air of

intending to stay. Its post-office was established thirty-six years

ago; and by and by, when the postmaster received a letter, he carried it

to Washington, horseback, to inquire what was to be done with it. Such

is the legend. Two frame houses were built that year, and several

persons were added to the population. A recent number of the leading St.

Paul paper, the 'Pioneer Press,' gives some statistics which furnish a

vivid contrast to that old state of things, to wit: Population, autumn

of the present year (1882), 71,000; number of letters handled, first

half of the year, 1,209,387; number of houses built during three-

quarters of the year, 989; their cost, $3,186,000. The increase of

letters over the corresponding six months of last year was fifty per

cent. Last year the new buildings added to the city cost above

$4,500,000. St. Paul's strength lies in her commerce--I mean his

commerce. He is a manufacturing city, of course--all the cities of that

region are--but he is peculiarly strong in the matter of commerce. Last

year his jobbing trade amounted to upwards of $52,000,000.

He has a custom-house, and is building a costly capitol to replace the

one recently burned--for he is the capital of the State. He has churches

without end; and not the cheap poor kind, but the kind that the rich

Protestant puts up, the kind that the poor Irish 'hired-girl' delights

to erect. What a passion for building majestic churches the Irish

hired-girl has. It is a fine thing for our architecture but too often we

enjoy her stately fanes without giving her a grateful thought. In fact,

instead of reflecting that 'every brick and every stone in this

beautiful edifice represents an ache or a pain, and a handful of sweat,

and hours of heavy fatigue, contributed by the back and forehead and

bones of poverty,' it is our habit to forget these things entirely, and

merely glorify the mighty temple itself, without vouchsafing one

praiseful thought to its humble builder, whose rich heart and withered

purse it symbolizes.

This is a land of libraries and schools. St. Paul has three public

libraries, and they contain, in the aggregate, some forty thousand

books. He has one hundred and sixteen school-houses, and pays out more

than seventy thousand dollars a year in teachers' salaries.

There is an unusually fine railway station; so large is it, in fact,

that it seemed somewhat overdone, in the matter of size, at first; but

at the end of a few months it was perceived that the mistake was

distinctly the other way. The error is to be corrected.

The town stands on high ground; it is about seven hundred feet above the

sea level. It is so high that a wide view of river and lowland is

offered from its streets.

It is a very wonderful town indeed, and is not finished yet. All the

streets are obstructed with building material, and this is being

compacted into houses as fast as possible, to make room for more--for

other people are anxious to build, as soon as they can get the use of

the streets to pile up their bricks and stuff in.

How solemn and beautiful is the thought, that the earliest pioneer of

civilization, the van-leader of civilization, is never the steamboat,

never the railroad, never the newspaper, never the Sabbath-school, never

the missionary--but always whiskey! Such is the case. Look history

over; you will see. The missionary comes after the whiskey--I mean he

arrives after the whiskey has arrived; next comes the poor immigrant,

with ax and hoe and rifle; next, the trader; next, the miscellaneous

rush; next, the gambler, the desperado, the highwayman, and all their

kindred in sin of both sexes; and next, the smart chap who has bought up

an old grant that covers all the land; this brings the lawyer tribe; the

vigilance committee brings the undertaker. All these interests bring the

newspaper; the newspaper starts up politics and a railroad; all hands

turn to and build a church and a jail--and behold, civilization is

established for ever in the land. But whiskey, you see, was the van-

leader in this beneficent work. It always is. It was like a foreigner--

and excusable in a foreigner--to be ignorant of this great truth, and

wander off into astronomy to borrow a symbol. But if he had been

conversant with the facts, he would have said--

Westward the Jug of Empire takes its way.

This great van-leader arrived upon the ground which St. Paul now

occupies, in June 1837. Yes, at that date, Pierre Parrant, a Canadian,

built the first cabin, uncorked his jug, and began to sell whiskey to

the Indians. The result is before us.

All that I have said of the newness, briskness, swift progress, wealth,

intelligence, fine and substantial architecture, and general slash and

go, and energy of St. Paul, will apply to his near neighbor,

Minneapolis--with the addition that the latter is the bigger of the two

cities.

These extraordinary towns were ten miles apart, a few months ago, but

were growing so fast that they may possibly be joined now, and getting

along under a single mayor. At any rate, within five years from now

there will be at least such a substantial ligament of buildings

stretching between them and uniting them that a stranger will not be

able to tell where the one Siamese twin leaves off and the other begins.

Combined, they will then number a population of two hundred and fifty

thousand, if they continue to grow as they are now growing. Thus, this

center of population at the head of Mississippi navigation, will then

begin a rivalry as to numbers, with that center of population at the

foot of it--New Orleans.

Minneapolis is situated at the falls of St. Anthony, which stretch

across the river, fifteen hundred feet, and have a fall of eighty-two

feet--a waterpower which, by art, has been made of inestimable value,

business-wise, though somewhat to the damage of the Falls as a

spectacle, or as a background against which to get your photograph

taken.

Thirty flouring-mills turn out two million barrels of the very choicest

of flour every year; twenty sawmills produce two hundred million feet of

lumber annually; then there are woolen mills, cotton mills, paper and

oil mills; and sash, nail, furniture, barrel, and other factories,

without number, so to speak. The great flouring-mills here and at St.

Paul use the 'new process' and mash the wheat by rolling, instead of

grinding it.

Sixteen railroads meet in Minneapolis, and sixty-five passenger trains

arrive and depart daily. In this place, as in St. Paul, journalism

thrives. Here there are three great dailies, ten weeklies, and three

monthlies.

There is a university, with four hundred students--and, better still,

its good efforts are not confined to enlightening the one sex. There are

sixteen public schools, with buildings which cost $500,000; there are

six thousand pupils and one hundred and twenty-eight teachers. There are

also seventy churches existing, and a lot more projected. The banks

aggregate a capital of $3,000,000, and the wholesale jobbing trade of

the town amounts to $50,000,000 a year.

Near St. Paul and Minneapolis are several points of interest--Fort

Snelling, a fortress occupying a river-bluff a hundred feet high; the

falls of Minnehaha, White-bear Lake, and so forth. The beautiful falls

of Minnehaha are sufficiently celebrated--they do not need a lift from

me, in that direction. The White-bear Lake is less known. It is a

lovely sheet of water, and is being utilized as a summer resort by the

wealth and fashion of the State. It has its club-house, and its hotel,

with the modern improvements and conveniences; its fine summer

residences; and plenty of fishing, hunting, and pleasant drives. There

are a dozen minor summer resorts around about St. Paul and Minneapolis,

but the White-bear Lake is the resort. Connected with White-bear Lake is

a most idiotic Indian legend. I would resist the temptation to print it

here, if I could, but the task is beyond my strength. The guide-book

names the preserver of the legend, and compliments his 'facile pen.'

Without further comment or delay then, let us turn the said facile pen

loose upon the reader--

A LEGEND OF WHITE-BEAR LAKE.

Every spring, for perhaps a century, or as long as there has been a

nation of red men, an island in the middle of White-bear Lake has been

visited by a band of Indians for the purpose of making maple sugar.

Tradition says that many springs ago, while upon this island, a young

warrior loved and wooed the daughter of his chief, and it is said, also,

the maiden loved the warrior. He had again and again been refused her

hand by her parents, the old chief alleging that he was no brave, and

his old consort called him a woman!

The sun had again set upon the 'sugar-bush,' and the bright moon rose

high in the bright blue heavens, when the young warrior took down his

flute and went out alone, once more to sing the story of his love, the

mild breeze gently moved the two gay feathers in his head-dress, and as

he mounted on the trunk of a leaning tree, the damp snow fell from his

feet heavily. As he raised his flute to his lips, his blanket slipped

from his well-formed shoulders, and lay partly on the snow beneath. He

began his weird, wild love-song, but soon felt that he was cold, and as

he reached back for his blanket, some unseen hand laid it gently on his

shoulders; it was the hand of his love, his guardian angel. She took her

place beside him, and for the present they were happy; for the Indian

has a heart to love, and in this pride he is as noble as in his own

freedom, which makes him the child of the forest. As the legend runs, a

large white-bear, thinking, perhaps, that polar snows and dismal winter

weather extended everywhere, took up his journey southward. He at length

approached the northern shore of the lake which now bears his name,

walked down the bank and made his way noiselessly through the deep heavy

snow toward the island. It was the same spring ensuing that the lovers

met. They had left their first retreat, and were now seated among the

branches of a large elm which hung far over the lake. (The same tree is

still standing, and excites universal curiosity and interest.) For fear

of being detected, they talked almost in a whisper, and now, that they

might get back to camp in good time and thereby avoid suspicion, they

were just rising to return, when the maiden uttered a shriek which was

heard at the camp, and bounding toward the young brave, she caught his

blanket, but missed the direction of her foot and fell, bearing the

blanket with her into the great arms of the ferocious monster. Instantly

every man, woman, and child of the band were upon the bank, but all

unarmed. Cries and wailings went up from every mouth. What was to be

done'? In the meantime this white and savage beast held the breathless

maiden in his huge grasp, and fondled with his precious prey as if he

were used to scenes like this. One deafening yell from the lover

warrior is heard above the cries of hundreds of his tribe, and dashing

away to his wigwam he grasps his faithful knife, returns almost at a

single bound to the scene of fear and fright, rushes out along the

leaning tree to the spot where his treasure fell, and springing with the

fury of a mad panther, pounced upon his prey. The animal turned, and

with one stroke of his huge paw brought the lovers heart to heart, but

the next moment the warrior, with one plunge of the blade of his knife,

opened the crimson sluices of death, and the dying bear relaxed his

hold.

That night there was no more sleep for the band or the lovers, and as

the young and the old danced about the carcass of the dead monster, the

gallant warrior was presented with another plume, and ere another moon

had set he had a living treasure added to his heart. Their children for

many years played upon the skin of the white-bear--from which the lake

derives its name--and the maiden and the brave remembered long the

fearful scene and rescue that made them one, for Kis-se-me-pa and Ka-go-

ka could never forget their fearful encounter with the huge monster that

came so near sending them to the happy hunting-ground.

It is a perplexing business. First, she fell down out of the tree--she

and the blanket; and the bear caught her and fondled her--her and the

blanket; then she fell up into the tree again--leaving the blanket;

meantime the lover goes war-whooping home and comes back 'heeled,'

climbs the tree, jumps down on the bear, the girl jumps down after him--

apparently, for she was up the tree--resumes her place in the bear's

arms along with the blanket, the lover rams his knife into the bear, and

saves--whom, the blanket? No--nothing of the sort. You get yourself all

worked up and excited about that blanket, and then all of a sudden, just

when a happy climax seems imminent you are let down flat--nothing saved

but the girl. Whereas, one is not interested in the girl; she is not the

prominent feature of the legend. Nevertheless, there you are left, and

there you must remain; for if you live a thousand years you will never

know who got the blanket. A dead man could get up a better legend than

this one. I don't mean a fresh dead man either; I mean a man that's been

dead weeks and weeks.

We struck the home-trail now, and in a few hours were in that

astonishing Chicago--a city where they are always rubbing the lamp, and

fetching up the genii, and contriving and achieving new impossibilities.

It is hopeless for the occasional visitor to try to keep up with

Chicago--she outgrows his prophecies faster than he can make them. She

is always a novelty; for she is never the Chicago you saw when you

passed through the last time. The Pennsylvania road rushed us to New

York without missing schedule time ten minutes anywhere on the route;

and there ended one of the most enjoyable five-thousand-mile journeys I

have ever had the good fortune to make.

APPENDIX A

(FROM THE NEW ORLEANS TIMES DEMOCRAT OF MARCH 29, 1882.)

VOYAGE OF THE TIMES-DEMOCRAT'S RELIEF BOAT THROUGH THE INUNDATED REGIONS

IT was nine o'clock Thursday morning when the 'Susie' left the

Mississippi and entered Old River, or what is now called the mouth of

the Red. Ascending on the left, a flood was pouring in through and over

the levees on the Chandler plantation, the most northern point in Pointe

Coupee parish. The water completely covered the place, although the

levees had given way but a short time before. The stock had been

gathered in a large flat-boat, where, without food, as we passed, the

animals were huddled together, waiting for a boat to tow them off. On

the right-hand side of the river is Turnbull's Island, and on it is a

large plantation which formerly was pronounced one of the most fertile

in the State. The water has hitherto allowed it to go scot-free in usual

floods, but now broad sheets of water told only where fields were. The

top of the protecting levee could be seen here and there, but nearly all

of it was submerged.

The trees have put on a greener foliage since the water has poured in,

and the woods look bright and fresh, but this pleasant aspect to the eye

is neutralized by the interminable waste of water. We pass mile after

mile, and it is nothing but trees standing up to their branches in

water. A water-turkey now and again rises and flies ahead into the long

avenue of silence. A pirogue sometimes flits from the bushes and

crosses the Red River on its way out to the Mississippi, but the sad-

faced paddlers never turn their heads to look at our boat. The puffing

of the boat is music in this gloom, which affects one most curiously. It

is not the gloom of deep forests or dark caverns, but a peculiar kind of

solemn silence and impressive awe that holds one perforce to its

recognition. We passed two negro families on a raft tied up in the

willows this morning. They were evidently of the well-to-do class, as

they had a supply of meal and three or four hogs with them. Their rafts

were about twenty feet square, and in front of an improvised shelter

earth had been placed, on which they built their fire.

The current running down the Atchafalaya was very swift, the Mississippi

showing a predilection in that direction, which needs only to be seen to

enforce the opinion of that river's desperate endeavors to find a short

way to the Gulf. Small boats, skiffs, pirogues, etc., are in great

demand, and many have been stolen by piratical negroes, who take them

where they will bring the greatest price. From what was told me by Mr.

C. P. Ferguson, a planter near Red River Landing, whose place has just

gone under, there is much suffering in the rear of that place. The

negroes had given up all thoughts of a crevasse there, as the upper

levee had stood so long, and when it did come they were at its mercy.

On Thursday a number were taken out of trees and off of cabin roofs and

brought in, many yet remaining.

One does not appreciate the sight of earth until he has traveled through

a flood. At sea one does not expect or look for it, but here, with

fluttering leaves, shadowy forest aisles, house-tops barely visible, it

is expected. In fact a grave-yard, if the mounds were above water,

would be appreciated. The river here is known only because there is an

opening in the trees, and that is all. It is in width, from Fort Adams

on the left bank of the Mississippi to the bank of Rapides Parish, a

distance of about sixty miles. A large portion of this was under

cultivation, particularly along the Mississippi and back of the Red.

When Red River proper was entered, a strong current was running directly

across it, pursuing the same direction as that of the Mississippi.

After a run of some hours, Black River was reached. Hardly was it

entered before signs of suffering became visible. All the willows along

the banks were stripped of their leaves. One man, whom your

correspondent spoke to, said that he had had one hundred and fifty head

of cattle and one hundred head of hogs. At the first appearance of water

he had started to drive them to the high lands of Avoyelles, thirty-five

miles off, but he lost fifty head of the beef cattle and sixty hogs.

Black River is quite picturesque, even if its shores are under water. A

dense growth of ash, oak, gum, and hickory make the shores almost

impenetrable, and where one can get a view down some avenue in the

trees, only the dim outlines of distant trunks can be barely

distinguished in the gloom.

A few miles up this river, the depth of water on the banks was fully

eight feet, and on all sides could be seen, still holding against the

strong current, the tops of cabins. Here and there one overturned was

surrounded by drift-wood, forming the nucleus of possibly some future

island.

In order to save coal, as it was impossible to get that fuel at any

point to be touched during the expedition, a look-out was kept for a

wood-pile. On rounding a point a pirogue, skilfully paddled by a youth,

shot out, and in its bow was a girl of fifteen, of fair face, beautiful

black eyes, and demure manners. The boy asked for a paper, which was

thrown to him, and the couple pushed their tiny craft out into the swell

of the boat.

Presently a little girl, not certainly over twelve years, paddled out in

the smallest little canoe and handled it with all the deftness of an old

voyageur. The little one looked more like an Indian than a white child,

and laughed when asked if she were afraid. She had been raised in a

pirogue and could go anywhere. She was bound out to pick willow leaves

for the stock, and she pointed to a house near by with water three

inches deep on the floors. At its back door was moored a raft about

thirty feet square, with a sort of fence built upon it, and inside of

this some sixteen cows and twenty hogs were standing. The family did

not complain, except on account of losing their stock, and promptly

brought a supply of wood in a flat.

From this point to the Mississippi River, fifteen miles, there is not a

spot of earth above water, and to the westward for thirty-five miles

there is nothing but the river's flood. Black River had risen during

Thursday, the 23rd, 1{three-quarters} inches, and was going up at night

still. As we progress up the river habitations become more frequent, but

are yet still miles apart. Nearly all of them are deserted, and the

out-houses floated off. To add to the gloom, almost every living thing

seems to have departed, and not a whistle of a bird nor the bark of the

squirrel can be heard in this solitude. Sometimes a morose gar will

throw his tail aloft and disappear in the river, but beyond this

everything is quiet--the quiet of dissolution. Down the river floats now

a neatly whitewashed hen-house, then a cluster of neatly split fence-

rails, or a door and a bloated carcass, solemnly guarded by a pair of

buzzards, the only bird to be seen, which feast on the carcass as it

bears them along. A picture-frame in which there was a cheap lithograph

of a soldier on horseback, as it floated on told of some hearth invaded

by the water and despoiled of this ornament.

At dark, as it was not prudent to run, a place alongside the woods was

hunted and to a tall gum-tree the boat was made fast for the night.

A pretty quarter of the moon threw a pleasant light over forest and

river, making a picture that would be a delightful piece of landscape

study, could an artist only hold it down to his canvas. The motion of

the engines had ceased, the puffing of the escaping steam was stilled,

and the enveloping silence closed upon us, and such silence it was!

Usually in a forest at night one can hear the piping of frogs, the hum

of insects, or the dropping of limbs; but here nature was dumb. The dark

recesses, those aisles into this cathedral, gave forth no sound, and

even the ripplings of the current die away.

At daylight Friday morning all hands were up, and up the Black we

started. The morning was a beautiful one, and the river, which is

remarkably straight, put on its loveliest garb. The blossoms of the haw

perfumed the air deliciously, and a few birds whistled blithely along

the banks. The trees were larger, and the forest seemed of older growth

than below. More fields were passed than nearer the mouth, but the same

scene presented itself--smoke-houses drifting out in the pastures, negro

quarters anchored in confusion against some oak, and the modest

residence just showing its eaves above water. The sun came up in a

glory of carmine, and the trees were brilliant in their varied shades of

green. Not a foot of soil is to be seen anywhere, and the water is

apparently growing deeper and deeper, for it reaches up to the branches

of the largest trees. All along, the bordering willows have been denuded

of leaves, showing how long the people have been at work gathering this

fodder for their animals. An old man in a pirogue was asked how the

willow leaves agreed with his cattle. He stopped in his work, and with

an ominous shake of his head replied: 'Well, sir, it 's enough to keep

warmth in their bodies and that's all we expect, but it's hard on the

hogs, particularly the small ones. They is dropping off powerful fast.

But what can you do? It 's all we've got.'

At thirty miles above the mouth of Black River the water extends from

Natchez on the Mississippi across to the pine hills of Louisiana, a

distance of seventy-three miles, and there is hardly a spot that is not

ten feet under it. The tendency of the current up the Black is toward

the west. In fact, so much is this the case, the waters of Red River

have been driven down from toward the Calcasieu country, and the waters

of the Black enter the Red some fifteen miles above the mouth of the

former, a thing never before seen by even the oldest steamboatmen. The

water now in sight of us is entirely from the Mississippi.

Up to Trinity, or rather Troy, which is but a short distance below, the

people have nearly all moved out, those remaining having enough for

their present personal needs. Their cattle, though, are suffering and

dying off quite fast, as the confinement on rafts and the food they get

breeds disease.

After a short stop we started, and soon came to a section where there

were many open fields and cabins thickly scattered about. Here were seen

more pictures of distress. On the inside of the houses the inmates had

built on boxes a scaffold on which they placed the furniture. The bed-

posts were sawed off on top, as the ceiling was not more than four feet

from the improvised floor. The buildings looked very insecure, and

threatened every moment to float off. Near the houses were cattle

standing breast high in the water, perfectly impassive. They did not

move in their places, but stood patiently waiting for help to come. The

sight was a distressing one, and the poor creatures will be sure to die

unless speedily rescued. Cattle differ from horses in this peculiar

quality. A horse, after finding no relief comes, will swim off in

search of food, whereas a beef will stand in its tracks until with

exhaustion it drops in the water and drowns.

At half-past twelve o'clock a hail was given from a flat-boat inside the

line of the bank. Rounding to we ran alongside, and General York

stepped aboard. He was just then engaged in getting off stock, and

welcomed the 'Times-Democrat' boat heartily, as he said there was much

need for her. He said that the distress was not exaggerated in the

least. People were in a condition it was difficult even for one to

imagine. The water was so high there was great danger of their houses

being swept away. It had already risen so high that it was approaching

the eaves, and when it reaches this point there is always imminent risk

of their being swept away. If this occurs, there will be great loss of

life. The General spoke of the gallant work of many of the people in

their attempts to save their stock, but thought that fully twenty-five

per cent. had perished. Already twenty-five hundred people had received

rations from Troy, on Black River, and he had towed out a great many

cattle, but a very great quantity remained and were in dire need. The

water was now eighteen inches higher than in 1874, and there was no land

between Vidalia and the hills of Catahoula.

At two o'clock the 'Susie' reached Troy, sixty-five miles above the

mouth of Black River. Here on the left comes in Little River; just

beyond that the Ouachita, and on the right the Tensas. These three

rivers form the Black River. Troy, or a portion of it, is situated on

and around three large Indian mounds, circular in shape, which rise

above the present water about twelve feet. They are about one hundred

and fifty feet in diameter, and are about two hundred yards apart. The

houses are all built between these mounds, and hence are all flooded to

a depth of eighteen inches on their floors.

These elevations, built by the aborigines, hundreds of years ago, are

the only points of refuge for miles. When we arrived we found them

crowded with stock, all of which was thin and hardly able to stand up.

They were mixed together, sheep, hogs, horses, mules, and cattle. One of

these mounds has been used for many years as the grave-yard, and to-day

we saw attenuated cows lying against the marble tomb-stones, chewing

their cud in contentment, after a meal of corn furnished by General

York. Here, as below, the remarkable skill of the women and girls in

the management of the smaller pirogues was noticed. Children were

paddling about in these most ticklish crafts with all the nonchalance of

adepts.

General York has put into operation a perfect system in regard to

furnishing relief. He makes a personal inspection of the place where it

is asked, sees what is necessary to be done, and then, having two boats

chartered, with flats, sends them promptly to the place, when the cattle

are loaded and towed to the pine hills and uplands of Catahoula. He has

made Troy his headquarters, and to this point boats come for their

supply of feed for cattle. On the opposite side of Little River, which

branches to the left out of Black, and between it and the Ouachita, is

situated the town of Trinity, which is hourly threatened with

destruction. It is much lower than Troy, and the water is eight and nine

feet deep in the houses. A strong current sweeps through it, and it is

remarkable that all of its houses have not gone before. The residents of

both Troy and Trinity have been cared for, yet some of their stock have

to be furnished with food.

As soon as the 'Susie' reached Troy, she was turned over to General

York, and placed at his disposition to carry out the work of relief more

rapidly. Nearly all her supplies were landed on one of the mounds to

lighten her, and she was headed down stream to relieve those below. At

Tom Hooper's place, a few miles from Troy, a large flat, with about

fifty head of stock on board, was taken in tow. The animals were fed,

and soon regained some strength. To-day we go on Little River, where the

suffering is greatest.

DOWN BLACK RIVER

Saturday Evening, March 25.

We started down Black River quite early, under the direction of General

York, to bring out what stock could be reached. Going down river a flat

in tow was left in a central locality, and from there men poled her back

in the rear of plantations, picking up the animals wherever found. In

the loft of a gin-house there were seventeen head found, and after a

gangway was built they were led down into the flat without difficulty.

Taking a skiff with the General, your reporter was pulled up to a little

house of two rooms, in which the water was standing two feet on the

floors. In one of the large rooms were huddled the horses and cows of

the place, while in the other the Widow Taylor and her son were seated

on a scaffold raised on the floor. One or two dug-outs were drifting

about in the roam ready to be put in service at any time. When the flat

was brought up, the side of the house was cut away as the only means of

getting the animals out, and the cattle were driven on board the boat.

General York, in this as in every case, inquired if the family desired

to leave, informing them that Major Burke, of 'The Times-Democrat,' has

sent the 'Susie' up for that purpose. Mrs. Taylor said she thanked

Major Burke, but she would try and hold out. The remarkable tenacity of

the people here to their homes is beyond all comprehension. Just below,

at a point sixteen miles from Troy, information was received that the

house of Mr. Tom Ellis was in danger, and his family were all in it. We

steamed there immediately, and a sad picture was presented. Looking out

of the half of the window left above water, was Mrs. Ellis, who is in

feeble health, whilst at the door were her seven children, the oldest

not fourteen years. One side of the house was given up to the work

animals, some twelve head, besides hogs. In the next room the family

lived, the water coming within two inches of the bed-rail. The stove was

below water, and the cooking was done on a fire on top of it. The house

threatened to give way at any moment: one end of it was sinking, and, in

fact, the building looked a mere shell. As the boat rounded to, Mr.

Ellis came out in a dug-out, and General York told him that he had come

to his relief; that 'The Times-Democrat' boat was at his service, and

would remove his family at once to the hills, and on Monday a flat would

take out his stock, as, until that time, they would be busy.

Notwithstanding the deplorable situation himself and family were in, Mr.

Ellis did not want to leave. He said he thought he would wait until

Monday, and take the risk of his house falling. The children around the

door looked perfectly contented, seeming to care little for the danger

they were in. These are but two instances of the many. After weeks of

privation and suffering, people still cling to their houses and leave

only when there is not room between the water and the ceiling to build a

scaffold on which to stand. It seemed to be incomprehensible, yet the

love for the old place was stronger than that for safety.

After leaving the Ellis place, the next spot touched at was the Oswald

place. Here the flat was towed alongside the gin-house where there were

fifteen head standing in water; and yet, as they stood on scaffolds,

their heads were above the top of the entrance. It was found impossible

to get them out without cutting away a portion of the front; and so axes

were brought into requisition and a gap made. After much labor the

horses and mules were securely placed on the flat.

At each place we stop there are always three, four, or more dug-outs

arriving, bringing information of stock in other places in need.

Notwithstanding the fact that a great many had driven a part of their

stock to the hills some time ago, there yet remains a large quantity,

which General York, who is working with indomitable energy, will get

landed in the pine hills by Tuesday.

All along Black River the 'Susie' has been visited by scores of

planters, whose tales are the repetition of those already heard of

suffering and loss. An old planter, who has lived on the river since

1844, said there never was such a rise, and he was satisfied more than

one quarter of the stock has been lost. Luckily the people cared first

for their work stock, and when they could find it horses and mules were

housed in a place of safety. The rise which still continues, and was two

inches last night, compels them to get them out to the hills; hence it

is that the work of General York is of such a great value. From daylight

to late at night he is going this way and that, cheering by his kindly

words and directing with calm judgment what is to be done. One

unpleasant story, of a certain merchant in New Orleans, is told all

along the river. It appears for some years past the planters have been

dealing with this individual, and many of them had balances in his

hands. When the overflow came they wrote for coffee, for meal, and, in

fact, for such little necessities as were required. No response to these

letters came, and others were written, and yet these old customers, with

plantations under water, were refused even what was necessary to sustain

life. It is needless to say he is not popular now on Back River.

The hills spoken of as the place of refuge for the people and stock on

Black River are in Catahoula parish, twenty-four miles from Black River.

After filling the flat with cattle we took on board the family of T. S.

Hooper, seven in number, who could not longer remain in their dwelling,

and we are now taking them up Little River to the hills.

THE FLOOD STILL RISING

Troy: March 27, 1882, noon.

The flood here is rising about three and a half inches every twenty-four

hours, and rains have set in which will increase this. General York

feels now that our efforts ought to be directed towards saving life, as

the increase of the water has jeopardized many houses. We intend to go

up the Tensas in a few minutes, and then we will return and go down

Black River to take off families. There is a lack of steam

transportation here to meet the emergency. The General has three boats

chartered, with flats in tow, but the demand for these to tow out stock

is greater than they can meet with promptness. All are working night

and day, and the 'Susie' hardly stops for more than an hour anywhere.

The rise has placed Trinity in a dangerous plight, and momentarily it is

expected that some of the houses will float off. Troy is a little

higher, yet all are in the water. Reports have come in that a woman and

child have been washed away below here, and two cabins floated off.

Their occupants are the same who refused to come off day before

yesterday. One would not believe the utter passiveness of the people.

As yet no news has been received of the steamer 'Delia,' which is

supposed to be the one sunk in yesterday's storm on Lake Catahoula. She

is due here now, but has not arrived. Even the mail here is most

uncertain, and this I send by skiff to Natchez to get it to you. It is

impossible to get accurate data as to past crops, etc., as those who

know much about the matter have gone, and those who remain are not well

versed in the production of this section.

General York desires me to say that the amount of rations formerly sent

should be duplicated and sent at once. It is impossible to make any

estimate, for the people are fleeing to the hills, so rapid is the rise.

The residents here are in a state of commotion that can only be

appreciated when seen, and complete demoralization has set in,

If rations are drawn for any particular section hereabouts, they would

not be certain to be distributed, so everything should be sent to Troy

as a center, and the General will have it properly disposed of. He has

sent for one hundred tents, and, if all go to the hills who are in

motion now, two hundred will be required.

APPENDIX B

THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER COMMISSION

THE condition of this rich valley of the Lower Mississippi, immediately

after and since the war, constituted one of the disastrous effects of

war most to be deplored. Fictitious property in slaves was not only

righteously destroyed, but very much of the work which had depended upon

the slave labor was also destroyed or greatly impaired, especially the

levee system.

It might have been expected by those who have not investigated the

subject, that such important improvements as the construction and

maintenance of the levees would have been assumed at once by the several

States. But what can the State do where the people are under subjection

to rates of interest ranging from 18 to 30 per cent., and are also under

the necessity of pledging their crops in advance even of planting, at

these rates, for the privilege of purchasing all of their supplies at

100 per cent. profit?

It has needed but little attention to make it perfectly obvious that the

control of the Mississippi River, if undertaken at all, must be

undertaken by the national government, and cannot be compassed by

States. The river must be treated as a unit; its control cannot be

compassed under a divided or separate system of administration.

Neither are the States especially interested competent to combine among

themselves for the necessary operations. The work must begin far up the

river; at least as far as Cairo, if not beyond; and must be conducted

upon a consistent general plan throughout the course of the river.

It does not need technical or scientific knowledge to comprehend the

elements of the case if one will give a little time and attention to the

subject, and when a Mississippi River commission has been constituted,

as the existing commission is, of thoroughly able men of different walks

in life, may it not be suggested that their verdict in the case should

be accepted as conclusive, so far as any a priori theory of construction

or control can be considered conclusive?

It should be remembered that upon this board are General Gilmore,

General Comstock, and General Suter, of the United States Engineers;

Professor Henry Mitchell (the most competent authority on the question

of hydrography), of the United States Coast Survey; B. B. Harrod, the

State Engineer of Louisiana; Jas. B. Eads, whose success with the

jetties at New Orleans is a warrant of his competency, and Judge Taylor,

of Indiana.

It would be presumption on the part of any single man, however skilled,

to contest the judgment of such a board as this.

The method of improvement proposed by the commission is at once in

accord with the results of engineering experience and with observations

of nature where meeting our wants. As in nature the growth of trees and

their proneness where undermined to fall across the slope and support

the bank secures at some points a fair depth of channel and some degree

of permanence, so in the project of the engineer the use of timber and

brush and the encouragement of forest growth are the main features. It

is proposed to reduce the width where excessive by brushwood dykes, at

first low, but raised higher and higher as the mud of the river settles

under their shelter, and finally slope them back at the angle upon which

willows will grow freely. In this work there are many details connected

with the forms of these shelter dykes, their arrangements so as to

present a series of settling basins, etc., a description of which would

only complicate the conception. Through the larger part of the river

works of contraction will not be required, but nearly all the banks on

the concave side of the beds must be held against the wear of the

stream, and much of the opposite banks defended at critical points. The

works having in view this conservative object may be generally

designated works of revetment; and these also will be largely of

brushwood, woven in continuous carpets, or twined into wire-netting.

This veneering process has been successfully employed on the Missouri

River; and in some cases they have so covered themselves with sediments,

and have become so overgrown with willows, that they may be regarded as

permanent. In securing these mats rubble-stone is to be used in small

quantities, and in some instances the dressed slope between high and low

river will have to be more or less paved with stone.

Any one who has been on the Rhine will have observed operations not

unlike those to which we have just referred; and, indeed, most of the

rivers of Europe flowing among their own alluvia have required similar

treatment in the interest of navigation and agriculture.

The levee is the crowning work of bank revetment, although not

necessarily in immediate connection. It may be set back a short

distance from the revetted bank; but it is, in effect, the requisite

parapet. The flood river and the low river cannot be brought into

register, and compelled to unite in the excavation of a single permanent

channel, without a complete control of all the stages; and even the

abnormal rise must be provided against, because this would endanger the

levee, and once in force behind the works of revetment would tear them

also away.

Under the general principle that the local slope of a river is the

result and measure of the resistance of its bed, it is evident that a

narrow and deep stream should have less slope, because it has less

frictional surface in proportion to capacity; i.e., less perimeter in

proportion to area of cross section. The ultimate effect of levees and

revetments confining the floods and bringing all the stages of the river

into register is to deepen the channel and let down the slope. The first

effect of the levees is to raise the surface; but this, by inducing

greater velocity of flow, inevitably causes an enlargement of section,

and if this enlargement is prevented from being made at the expense of

the banks, the bottom must give way and the form of the waterway be so

improved as to admit this flow with less rise. The actual experience

with levees upon the Mississippi River, with no attempt to hold the

banks, has been favorable, and no one can doubt, upon the evidence

furnished in the reports of the commission, that if the earliest levees

had been accompanied by revetment of banks, and made complete, we should

have to-day a river navigable at low water, and an adjacent country safe

from inundation.

Of course it would be illogical to conclude that the constrained river

can ever lower its flood slope so as to make levees unnecessary, but it

is believed that, by this lateral constraint, the river as a conduit may

be so improved in form that even those rare floods which result from the

coincident rising of many tributaries will find vent without destroying

levees of ordinary height. That the actual capacity of a channel through

alluvium depends upon its service during floods has been often shown,

but this capacity does not include anomalous, but recurrent, floods.

It is hardly worth while to consider the projects for relieving the

Mississippi River floods by creating new outlets, since these

sensational propositions have commended themselves only to unthinking

minds, and have no support among engineers. Were the river bed cast-

iron, a resort to openings for surplus waters might be a necessity; but

as the bottom is yielding, and the best form of outlet is a single deep

channel, as realizing the least ratio of perimeter to area of cross

section, there could not well be a more unphilosophical method of

treatment than the multiplication of avenues of escape.

In the foregoing statement the attempt has been made to condense in as

limited a space as the importance of the subject would permit, the

general elements of the problem, and the general features of the

proposed method of improvement which has been adopted by the Mississippi

River Commission.

The writer cannot help feeling that it is somewhat presumptuous on his

part to attempt to present the facts relating to an enterprise which

calls for the highest scientific skill; but it is a matter which

interests every citizen of the United States, and is one of the methods

of reconstruction which ought to be approved. It is a war claim which

implies no private gain, and no compensation except for one of the cases

of destruction incident to war, which may well be repaired by the people

of the whole country.

EDWARD ATKINSON.

Boston: April 14, 1882.

APPENDIX C

RECEPTION OF CAPTAIN BASIL HALL'S BOOK IN THE UNITED STATES

HAVING now arrived nearly at the end of our travels, I am induced, ere I

conclude, again to mention what I consider as one of the most remarkable

traits in the national character of the Americans; namely, their

exquisite sensitiveness and soreness respecting everything said or

written concerning them. Of this, perhaps, the most remarkable example I

can give is the effect produced on nearly every class of readers by the

appearance of Captain Basil Hall's 'Travels in North America.' In fact,

it was a sort of moral earthquake, and the vibration it occasioned

through the nerves of the republic, from one corner of the Union to the

other, was by no means over when I left the country in July 1831, a

couple of years after the shock.

I was in Cincinnati when these volumes came out, but it was not till

July 1830, that I procured a copy of them. One bookseller to whom I

applied told me that he had had a few copies before he understood the

nature of the work, but that, after becoming acquainted with it, nothing

should induce him to sell another. Other persons of his profession

must, however, have been less scrupulous; for the book was read in city,

town, village, and hamlet, steamboat, and stage-coach, and a sort of

war-whoop was sent forth perfectly unprecedented in my recollection upon

any occasion whatever.

An ardent desire for approbation, and a delicate sensitiveness under

censure, have always, I believe, been considered as amiable traits of

character; but the condition into which the appearance of Captain Hall's

work threw the republic shows plainly that these feelings, if carried to

excess, produce a weakness which amounts to imbecility.

It was perfectly astonishing to hear men who, on other subjects, were of

some judgment, utter their opinions upon this. I never heard of any

instance in which the commonsense generally found in national criticism

was so overthrown by passion. I do not speak of the want of justice, and

of fair and liberal interpretation: these, perhaps, were hardly to be

expected. Other nations have been called thin-skinned, but the citizens

of the Union have, apparently, no skins at all; they wince if a breeze

blows over them, unless it be tempered with adulation. It was not,

therefore, very surprising that the acute and forcible observations of a

traveler they knew would be listened to should be received testily. The

extraordinary features of the business were, first, the excess of the

rage into which they lashed themselves; and, secondly, the puerility of

the inventions by which they attempted to account for the severity with

which they fancied they had been treated.

Not content with declaring that the volumes contained no word of truth,

from beginning to end (which is an assertion I heard made very nearly as

often as they were mentioned), the whole country set to work to discover

the causes why Captain Hall had visited the United States, and why he

had published his book.

I have heard it said with as much precision and gravity as if the

statement had been conveyed by an official report, that Captain Hall had

been sent out by the British Government expressly for the purpose of

checking the growing admiration of England for the Government of the

United States,--that it was by a commission from the treasury he had

come, and that it was only in obedience to orders that he had found

anything to object to.

I do not give this as the gossip of a coterie; I am persuaded that it is

the belief of a very considerable portion of the country. So deep is the

conviction of this singular people that they cannot be seen without

being admired, that they will not admit the possibility that any one

should honestly and sincerely find aught to disapprove in them or their

country.

The American Reviews are, many of them, I believe, well known in

England; I need not, therefore, quote them here, but I sometimes

wondered that they, none of them, ever thought of translating Obadiah's

curse into classic American; if they had done so, on placing (he, Basil

Hall) between brackets, instead of (he, Obadiah) it would have saved

them a world of trouble.

I can hardly describe the curiosity with which I sat down at length to

peruse these tremendous volumes; still less can I do justice to my

surprise at their contents. To say that I found not one exaggerated

statement throughout the work is by no means saying enough. It is

impossible for any one who knows the country not to see that Captain

Hall earnestly sought out things to admire and commend. When he praises,

it is with evident pleasure; and when he finds fault, it is with evident

reluctance and restraint, excepting where motives purely patriotic urge

him to state roundly what it is for the benefit of his country should be

known.

In fact, Captain Hall saw the country to the greatest possible

advantage. Furnished, of course, with letters of introduction to the

most distinguished individuals, and with the still more influential

recommendation of his own reputation, he was received in full drawing-

room style and state from one end of the Union to the other. He saw the

country in full dress, and had little or no opportunity of judging of it

unhouselled, unanointed, unannealed, with all its imperfections on its

head, as I and my family too often had.

Captain Hall had certainly excellent opportunities of making himself

acquainted with the form of the government and the laws; and of

receiving, moreover, the best oral commentary upon them, in conversation

with the most distinguished citizens. Of these opportunities he made

excellent use; nothing important met his eye which did not receive that

sort of analytical attention which an experienced and philosophical

traveler alone can give. This has made his volumes highly interesting

and valuable; but I am deeply persuaded, that were a man of equal

penetration to visit the United States with no other means of becoming

acquainted with the national character than the ordinary working-day

intercourse of life, he would conceive an infinitely lower idea of the

moral atmosphere of the country than Captain Hall appears to have done;

and the internal conviction on my mind is strong, that if Captain Hall

had not placed a firm restraint on himself, he must have given

expression to far deeper indignation than any he has uttered against

many points in the American character, with which he shows from other

circumstances that he was well acquainted. His rule appears to have been

to state just so much of the truth as would leave on the mind of his

readers a correct impression, at the least cost of pain to the sensitive

folks he was writing about. He states his own opinions and feelings, and

leaves it to be inferred that he has good grounds for adopting them; but

he spares the Americans the bitterness which a detail of the

circumstances would have produced.

If any one chooses to say that some wicked antipathy to twelve millions

of strangers is the origin of my opinion, I must bear it; and were the

question one of mere idle speculation, I certainly would not court the

abuse I must meet for stating it. But it is not so.

. . . . . . .

The candor which he expresses, and evidently feels, they mistake for

irony, or totally distrust; his unwillingness to give pain to persons

from whom he has received kindness, they scornfully reject as

affectation, and although they must know right well, in their own secret

hearts, how infinitely more they lay at his mercy than he has chosen to

betray; they pretend, even to themselves, that he has exaggerated the

bad points of their character and institutions; whereas, the truth is,

that he has let them off with a degree of tenderness which may be quite

suitable for him to exercise, however little merited; while, at the same

time, he has most industriously magnified their merits, whenever he

could possibly find anything favorable.

APPENDIX D

THE UNDYING HEAD

IN a remote part of the North lived a man and his sister, who had never

seen a human being. Seldom, if ever, had the man any cause to go from

home; for, as his wants demanded food, he had only to go a little

distance from the lodge, and there, in some particular spot, place his

arrows, with their barbs in the ground. Telling his sister where they

had been placed, every morning she would go in search, and never fail of

finding each stuck through the heart of a deer. She had then only to

drag them into the lodge and prepare their food. Thus she lived till she

attained womanhood, when one day her brother, whose name was Iamo, said

to her: 'Sister, the time is at hand when you will be ill. Listen to

my advice. If you do not, it will probably be the cause of my death.

Take the implements with which we kindle our fires. Go some distance

from our lodge and build a separate fire. When you are in want of food,

I will tell you where to find it. You must cook for yourself, and I will

for myself. When you are ill, do not attempt to come near the lodge, or

bring any of the utensils you use. Be sure always to fasten to your

belt the implements you need, for you do not know when the time will

come. As for myself, I must do the best I can.' His sister promised to

obey him in all he had said.