IV

"Who can paint

Like Nature? Can imagination boast,

Amid its gay creations, hues like hers?

Or can it mix them with that matchless skill,

And lose them in each other, as appears

In every bud that blooms?"

THOMSON.

"Precipitous, black, jagged rocks,

For ever shattered, and the same forever."

COLERIDGE.

It was near noon of the third day of our passage that we found

ourselves in the vicinity of that singular series of massive rock

formations, stretching along for miles upon the eastern bank of the

stream. The whole vast plain, extending from the Northern Lakes to the

mouth of the Ohio, and from the Alleghany slope to the boundless

prairies of the far West, is said by geologists to be supported by a

bed of horizontal limestone rock, whose deep strata have never been

completely pierced, though penetrated many hundred feet by the augur.

This limestone is hard, stratified, imbedding innumerable shells of

the terebratulæ, encrinites, orthocerites, trilobites, productus, and

other species. Throughout most of its whole extent it supports a

stratum of bituminous coal, various metals, and saline impregnations:

its constant decomposition has fertilized the soil, and its absorbent

and cavernous nature has prevented swamps from accumulating upon the

surface. Such, in general outline, is this vast limerock substratum

{41} of the Western Valley. It generally commences but a few feet

below the vegetable deposite; at other places its range is deeper,

while at intervals it rises from the surface, and frowns in

castellated grandeur over objects beneath. These huge masses of

limestone sometimes exhibit the most picturesque and remarkable forms

along the banks of the western rivers, and are penetrated in many

places by vast caverns. The region we were now approaching was a

locality of these singular formations, and for miles before reaching

it, as has been remarked, a change in scenery upon the eastern bank is

observed. Instead of the rounded wooded summits of the "Ohio hills"

sweeping beautifully away in the distance, huge, ponderous rocks,

heaped up in ragged masses, "Pelion upon Ossa," are beheld rearing

themselves abruptly from the stream, and expanding their Briarean arms

in every direction. Some of these cliffs present a uniform, jointed

surface, as if of masonry, resembling ancient edifices, and reminding

the traveller of the giant ruins of man's creations in another

hemisphere, while others appear just on the point of toppling into the

river. Among this range of crags is said to hang an _iron coffin_,

suspended, like Mohammed's, between heaven and earth. It contains the

remains of a man of singular eccentricity, who, previous to his

decease, gave orders that they should be deposited thus; and the

gloomy object at the close of the year, when the trees are stripped of

their foliage, may be perceived, it is said, high up among the rocks

from the deck of the passing {42} steamer. This story probably owes

its origin to an event of actual occurrence somewhat similar, at a

cliff called by the river-pilots "Hanging Rock."[34] It is situated in

the vicinity of "Blennerhasset's Island."[35] The first of these

singular cliffs, called "Battery Rock," stretches along the river-bank

for half a mile, presenting a uniform and perpendicular façade upward

of eighty feet in height. The appearance is striking, standing, as it

does, distinct from anything of a kindred character for miles above

and for some distance below. Passing several fine farms, which sweep

down to the water's edge, a second range of cliffs are discovered,

similar to those described in altitude and aspect; but near the base,

through the dark cypresses skirting the water, is perceived the ragged

entrance to a large cavernous fissure, penetrating the bluff, and

designated by the name of "Rock-Inn-Cave."[36] It is said to have

received this significant appellation from emigrants, who were

accustomed to tarry with their families for weeks at the place when

detained by stress of weather, stage of the river, or any other

circumstance unfavourable to their progress.

It was near noon of a beautiful day when the necessary orders for

landing were issued to the pilot, and our boat rounded up to the low

sand-beach just below this celebrated cavern. As we strolled along the

shore beneath "the precipitous, black, jagged rocks" overhanging the

winding and broken pathway towards the entrance, we could not but

consider its situation wild and rugged enough to please the rifest

fancy. The entrance, {43} at first view, is exceedingly imposing; its

broad massive forehead beetling over the visiter for some yards before

he finds himself within. The mouth of the cavern looks out upon the

stream rushing along at the base of the cliff, and is delightfully

shaded by a cluster of cypresses, rearing aloft their huge shafts,

almost concealed in the luxuriant ivy-leaves clinging to their bark.

The entrance is formed into a semi-elliptical arch, springing boldly

to the height of forty feet from a heavy bench of rock on either side,

and eighty feet in width at the base, throwing over the whole a

massive roof of uniform concavity, verging to a point near the centre

of the cave. Here may be seen another opening of some size, through

which trickles a limpid stream, and forming an entrance to a second

chamber, said to be more extensive than that below. The extreme length

of this cavern is given by Schoolcraft[37] as one hundred and sixty

feet, the floor, the roof, and the walls gradually tapering to a

point. The rock is a secondary limestone, abounding with testacea and

petrifactions, a fine specimen of which I struck from the ledge while

the rest of our party were recording their names among the thousand

dates and inscriptions with which the walls are defaced.

Like all other curiosities of Nature, this cavern was, by the Indian

tribes, deemed the residence of a _Manito_[38] or spirit, evil or

propitious, concerning {44} whom many a wild legend yet lives among

their simple-hearted posterity. They never pass this dwelling-place of

the divinity without discharging their guns (an ordinary mark of

respect), or making some other offering propitiatory of his favour.

These tributary acknowledgments, however, are never of much value. The

view of the stream from the left bench at the cave's mouth is most

beautiful. Immediately in front extends a large and densely-wooded

island, known by the name of the Cave, while the soft-gliding waters

flow between, furnishing a scene of natural beauty worthy an Inman's

pencil; and, if I mistake not, an engraving of the spot has been

published, a ferocious-looking personage, pistol in hand, crouched at

the entrance, eagerly watching an ascending boat. This design

originated, doubtless, in the tradition yet extant, that in the latter

part of the last century this cavern was the rendezvous of a notorious

band of freebooters which then infested the region, headed by the

celebrated Mason,[39] plundering the boats ascending from New-Orleans

and murdering their crews. From these circumstances this cave has

become the scene of a poem of much merit, called the "Outlaw," and has

suggested a spirited tale from a popular writer. Many other spots in

the vicinity were notorious, in the early part of the present century,

for the murder and robbery of travellers, whose fate long remained

enveloped in mystery. On the summit of a lofty bluff, not far from the

"Battery Rock," was pointed out to us a solitary house, with a single

chimney rising from its roof. Its {45} white walls may be viewed for

miles before reaching the place on descending the river. It was here

that the family of Sturdevant carried on their extensive operations as

counterfeiters for many years unsuspected; and on this spot, in 1821,

they expiated their crimes with their lives. A few miles below is a

place called "Ford's Ferry,"[40] where murder, robbery, forgery, and

almost every crime in the calendar were for years committed, while not

a suspicion of the truth was awakened. Ford not only escaped

unsuspected, but was esteemed a most exemplary man. Associated with

him were his son and two other individuals, named Simpson and Shouse.

They are all now gone to their account. The old man was mysteriously

shot by some person who was never discovered, but was supposed to have

been Simpson, between whom and himself a misunderstanding had arisen.

If it were so, the murderer was met by fitting retribution, for _he_

fell in a similar manner. Shouse and the son of Ford atoned upon the

gallows their crimes in 1833. Before reaching this spot the traveller

passes a remarkable mass of limestone called "Tower Rock." It is

perpendicular, isolated, and somewhat cylindrical in outline. It is

many feet in altitude, and upon its summit tradition avers to exist

the ruins of an antique tumulus; an altar, mayhap, of the ancient

forest-sons, where

"Garlands, ears of maize, and skins of wolf

And shaggy bear, the offerings of the tribe

Were made to the Great Spirit."

In the vicinity of the cliff called "Tower Rock," and not far from

Hurricane Island, is said to exist a {46} remarkable cavern of

considerable extent. The cave is entered by an orifice nine feet in

width and twelve feet high; a bench of rock is then ascended a few

feet, and an aperture of the size of an ordinary door admits the

visiter into a spacious hall. In the mouth of the cavern, on the

façade of the cliff, at the altitude of twenty-five feet, are engraved

figures resembling a variety of animals, as the bear, the buffalo, and

even the lion and lioness. All this I saw nothing of, and am, of

course, no voucher for its existence; but a writer in the Port Folio,

so long since as 1816, states the fact, and, moreover, adds that the

engraving upon the rock was executed in "a masterly style."[41]

From this spot the river stretches away in a long delightful reach,

studded with beautiful islands, among which "Hurricane Island," a

very large one, is chief.[42] Passing the compact little village of

Golconda with its neat courthouse, and the mouth of the Cumberland

River with its green island, once the rendezvous of Aaron Burr and his

chivalrous band, we next reached the town of Paducah, at the outlet of

the Tennessee.[43] This is a place of importance,[44] though deemed

unhealthy: it is said to have derived its name from a captive Indian

woman, who was here sacrificed by a band of the Pawnees after having

been assured of safety. About eight miles below Paducah are situated

the ruins of Fort Massac, once a French military post of

importance.[45] There is a singular legend respecting this fort still

popular among the inhabitants of the neighbouring region, the outlines

of which {47} are the following: The fortress was erected by the

French while securing possession of the Western Valley, and, soon

after, hostilities arising between them and the natives, the latter

contrived a stratagem, in every respect worthy the craft and subtlety

of the race, to obtain command of this stronghold. Early one morning a

body of Indians, enveloped each in a bearskin, appeared upon the

opposite bank of the Ohio. Supposing them the animal so faithfully

represented, the whole French garrison in a mass sallied incontinently

forth, anticipating rare sport, while the remnant left behind as a

guard gathered themselves upon the glacis as spectators of the scene.

Meanwhile, a large body of Indians, concealed in rear of the fort,

slipped silently from their ambush, and few were there of the French

who escaped to tell the tale of the scene that ensued. They were

_massacred_ almost to a man, and hence the name of _Massac_ to the

post. During the war of the revolution a garrison was stationed upon

the spot for some years, but the structures are now in ruins. A few

miles below is a small place consisting of a few farmhouses, called

Wilkinsonville,[46] on the site where Fort Wilkinson once stood; just

opposite, along the shore, commences the "Grand Chain" of rocks so

famous to the Ohio pilot, extending four miles. The little village of

Caledonia is here laid off among the bluffs. It has a good landing,

and is the proposed site of a marine hospital.

It was sunset when we arrived at the confluence of the rivers. In

course of the afternoon we had been visited by a violent thunder-gust,

accompanied {48} by hail. But sunset came, and the glorious "bow of

the covenant" was hung out upon the dark bosom of the clouds, spanning

woodland and waters with its beautiful hues. And yet, though the hour

was a delightful one, the scene did not present that aspect of

vastness and sublimity which was anticipated from the celebrity of the

streams. For some miles before uniting its waters with the

Mississippi, the Ohio presents a dull and uninteresting appearance. It

is no longer the clear, sparkling stream, with bluffs and woodland

painted on its surface; the volume of its channel is greatly increased

by its union with two of its principal tributaries, and its waters are

turbid; its banks are low, inundated, and clothed with dark groves of

deciduous forest-trees, and the only sounds which issue from their

depths to greet the traveller's ear are the hoarse croakings of frogs,

or the dull monotony of countless choirs of moschetoes. Thus rolls on

the river through the dullest, dreariest, most uninviting region

imaginable, until it sweeps away in a direction nearly southeast, and

meets the venerable Father of the West advancing to its embrace. The

volume of water in each seems nearly the same; the Ohio exceeds a

little in breadth, their currents oppose to each other an equal

resistance, and the resultant of the forces is a vast lake more than

two miles in breadth, where the united waters slumber quietly and

magnificently onward for leagues in a common bed. On the right come

rolling in the turbid floods of the Mississippi; and on looking upon

it for the first time with preconceived ideas of the magnitude of the

mightiest {49} river on the globe, the spectator is always

disappointed. He considers only its breadth when compared with the

Ohio, without adverting to its vast depth. The Ohio sweeps in

majestically from the north, and its clear waters flow on for miles

without an intimate union with its turbid conqueror. The

characteristics of the two streams are distinctly marked at their

junction and long after. The banks of both are low and swampy, totally

unfit for culture or habitation. "Willow Point," which projects itself

into the confluence, presents an elevation of twenty feet; yet, in

unusual inundations, it is completely buried six feet below the

surface, and the agitated waters, rolling together their masses, form

an enormous lake. How strange it seemed, while gazing upon the view I

have attempted to delineate, now fading away beneath the summer

twilight--how very strange was the reflection that these two noble

streams, deriving their sources in the pellucid lakes and the clear

icy fountains of their highland-homes, meandering majestically through

scenes of nature and of art unsurpassed in beauty, and draining, and

irrigating, and fertilizing the loveliest valley on the globe--how

strange, that the confluence of the waters of such streams, in their

onward rolling to the deep, should take place at almost the only stage

in their course devoid entirely of interest to the eye or the fancy;

in the heart of a dreary and extended swamp, waving with the gloomy

boughs of the cypress, and enlivened by not a sound but the croaking

of bullfrogs, and the deep, surly misery note of {50} moschetoes!

Willow Point is the property of a company of individuals, who announce

it their intention to elevate the delta above the power of

inundations, and here to locate a city.[47] There are as yet, however,

but a few storehouses on the spot; and when we consider the

incalculable expense the only plan for rendering it habitable

involves, we can only deem the idea of a city here as the chimera of a

Utopian fancy. For more than twelve miles above the confluence, the

whole alluvion is annually inundated, and forbids all improvement; but

were this site an elevated one, a city might here be founded which

should command the immense commerce of these great rivers, and become

the grand central emporium of the Western Valley.

Upon the first elevated land above the confluence stands the little

town called America. This is the proposed _terminus_ to the grand

central railroad of the Internal Improvement scheme of Illinois,

projected to pass directly through the state,[48] uniting its northern

extremity with the southern. The town is said to have been much

retarded in its advancement by the circumstance of a sand-bar

obstructing the landing. It has been contemplated to cut a basin,

extending from the Ohio to a stream called "Humphrey's Creek," which

passes through the place, and thus secure a harbour. Could this plan

be carried into execution, America would soon become a town of

importance.

_Ohio River._

V

"The groves were God's first temples."

BRYANT.

"Oh! it's hame, and it's hame, it's hame wad I be,

Hame, hame, hame, to my ain countrie."

CUNNINGHAM.

"Those Sabbath bells, those Sabbath bells,

I hear them wake the hour of prime."

LAMB.

"She walks the waters like a thing of life."

BYRON.

It was late before we had passed the confluence of the Ohio with the

dark-rolling tide of the "endless river," and the mellow gorgeousness

of summer sunset had gently yielded to the duskiness of twilight, and

that to the inky pall of night. The moon had not risen, and the

darkness became gradually so dense that doubts were entertained as to

the prudence of attempting to stem the mighty current of the

Mississippi on such a night. These, however, were overruled; and,

sweeping around the low peninsula of Cairo, our steamer met the

torrent and quivered in every limb. A convulsed, motionless struggle

ensued, in which the heavy labouring of the engine, the shrill whistle

of the safety-valve, the quick, querulous crackling of the furnaces,

the tumultuous rushing of the wheels, and the stern roar of the

scape-pipe, gave evidence of the fearful power summoned up to overcome

the flood. At length we began very slowly to ascend the stream. {52}

Our speed was about five miles an hour, and the force of the current

nearly the same, which so impedes advancement that it requires as long

to ascend from the confluence to St. Louis as to descend to the same

point from the Falls, though the distance is less than half. All night

our steamer urged herself slowly onward against the current, and the

morning found us threading a narrow channel amid a cluster of

islands, from whose dense foliage the night-mists were rising and

settling in dim confusion. Near the middle of the stream, above this

collection, lays a very large island, comprising eight or ten thousand

acres. It is called English Island;[49] is heavily timbered; huge

vines of the wild grape are leaping like living things from branch to

branch, and the wild pea flourishes all over the surface of the soil

in most luxuriant profusion. The stream here expands itself to the

breadth of four miles, and abounds with islands.

As the morning advanced the sun burst gloriously forth from the mists;

and as I gazed with tranquillized delight upon the beautiful scenery

it unrolled, I remembered that it was the morning of the Sabbath--the

peaceful Sabbath. It is a sweet thing to pass the hours of holy time

amid the eloquent teachings of inanimate nature. It is pleasant to

yield up for a season the sober workings of reason to the warm

gushings of the heart, and to suffer the homage of the soul to go up

before the Author of its being unfettered by the chill formalities,

the bustling parade, the soulless dissembling of the unbending

courtesies of ordinary life. Amid the {53} crowded assemblage, there

is but little of that humbleness of spirit and that simple-hearted

fervour of worship which it is in man to feel when communing within

the shadowy solitudes of Nature with his God. There are moments, too,

when the soul of man is called back from the heartlessness of life,

and pours forth its emotions, gush upon gush, in all the hallowed

luxuriance of its nature; when, from the fevered turmoil of daily

existence, it retires to well up its sympathies alone beneath the

covert of a lulled and peaceful bosom; and surely such a season is the

calm, waveless hour of Sabbath sacredness. And it is a blessed

appointment that, in a world whose quietude too often is disturbed by

the untamed heavings of unholy feeling, there should yet be moments

when the agitated events of the past are forgotten, when the

apprehensions of the future are unthought of, and the generous

emotions of the heart are no more repressed. Such moments are the

crystal fount of the _oasis_, girt, indeed, by the sands and

barrenness of the desert; yet laughing forth in tinkling melody amid

its sprinkled evergreens, in all the sparkling freshness of mimic

life, to bathe the languid lip of the weary one. Such moments are the

mellow radiance of the departing sun when the trials of the day are

over; and tenderly and softly do their influences descend upon the

heart. Like the pure splendour of the star of even, how calmly does

the sacred Sabbath-time beam out from the dark, unquiet firmament of

life! 'Tis the blessed rainbow of promise and of consolation amid the

rough storms of our pilgrimage, {54} and its holy influences elicit

all the untold richness of the heart. It is a season soft as the

memorial of buried affection, mild as the melody of departed years,

pure as the prayer of feebleness from the lip of childhood, beautiful

as yon floating islet sleeping in sunset radiance on the blue evening

wave. "Gone, gone for ever!" Another Sabbath is over, and from its

gathering shades it is good to cast back a glance of reflection.

A company of emigrants, in course of the morning, were landed from our

boat at a desolate-looking spot upon the Missouri shore; men, women,

and little ones, with slaves, household stuff, pots, kettles, dogs,

implements of husbandry, and all the paraphernalia of the backwood's

farm heaped up promiscuously in a heterogeneous mass among the

undergrowth beneath the lofty trees. A similar party from the State of

Vermont were, during our passage, landed near the mouth of the Wabash,

one of whom was a pretty, delicate female, with an infant boy in her

arms. They had been _deck-passengers_, and we had seen none of them

before; yet their situation could not but excite interest in their

welfare. Poor woman! thought I, as our boat left them gazing anxiously

after us from the inhospitable bank, little do you dream of the trials

and the privations to which your destiny conducts, and the hours of

bitter retrospection which are to come over your spirit like a blight,

as, from these cheerless solitudes, you cast back many a lingering

thought to your dear, distant home in New-England; whose very

mountain-crags and fierce storms {55} of winter, harsh and unwelcome

though they might seem to the stranger, were yet pleasant to you:

"My native land! my native land!

Though bare and bleak thou be,

And scant and cold thy summer smile,

Thou'rt all the world to me."

A few years, and all this will have passed away. A new home and new

ties will have sprung up in the wilderness to soothe the remembrance

of the old. This broad valley will swarm with population; the warm

breath of man will be felt upon the cheek, and his tread will be heard

at the side; the glare of civilization and the confused hum of

business will have violated these solitudes and broken in upon their

gloom, and here empire shall have planted her throne; and then,

perchance, that playful boy upon the bosom may rise to wield the

destinies of his fellows. But many a year of toil and privation must

first have passed away; and who shall record their annals? A thousand

circumstances, all unlooked for, will seize upon the feelings of the

emigrant; the harshness of strangers, the cold regard of recent

acquaintance, the absence of relatives and of friends long cherished,

the distance which separates him from his native home, and the dreary

time which must elapse between all communications of the pen. And then

the sweet chime of the Sabbath-bell of New-England, pealing out in

"angels' music"[50] on the clear mountain-air, to usher in the hours

of holy time, and to summon the soul of man to communion with its

Maker; will this be heard amid the forest solitude? and all that quiet

{56} intermingling of heart with heart which divests grief of half its

bitterness by taking from it all its loneliness? And the hour of

sickness, and of death, and of gushing tears, as they come to all, may

not be absent here; and where are the soothing consolations of

religious solemnity, and the sympathies of kindred souls, and the

unobtrusive condolence of those who alone may enter the inner temple

of the breast, where the stranger intermeddleth not? Yes, it must

be--notwithstanding the golden anticipations indulged by every humble

emigrant to this El Dorado of promise--it must be that there will

arise in his bosom, when he finds himself for the first time amid

these vast forest solitudes, attended only by his wife and children, a

feeling of unutterable loneliness and desertion. Until this moment he

has been sustained by the buoyancy of anticipated success, the

excitement of change, the enlivening influences of new and beautiful

scenes; and the effect of strange faces and strange customs has been

to divert the attention, while the farewell pressure of affection yet

has warmly lingered. All this is over now, and his spirit, left to its

own resources, sinks within him. The sacred spot of his nativity is

far, far away towards the morning sun; and there is the village church

and the village graveyard, hallowed by many a holy remembrance; there,

too, are the playmates and the scenes of his boyhood-days; the

trysting-place of youthful love and of youthful friendship, spots

around which are twined full many a tendril of his heart; and he has

turned from them all _for ever_. Henceforth he is a wanderer, and a

distant soil must {57} claim his ashes. He who, with such

reflections, yearns not for the home of his fathers, is an alien, and

no true son of New-England.

It was yet early in the morning of our first day upon the Mississippi

that we found ourselves beneath the stately bluff upon which stands

the old village of Cape Girardeau.[51] Its site is a bold bank of the

stream, gently sloping to the water's edge, upon a substratum of

limerock. A settlement was commenced on this spot in the latter part

of the last century. Its founders were of French and German

extraction, though its structures do not betray their origin. The

great earthquakes of 1811, which vibrated through the whole length of

the Western Valley, agitated the site of this village severely; many

brick houses were shattered, chimneys thrown down, and other damage

effected, traces of the repairs of which are yet to be viewed. The

place received a shock far more severe, however, in the removal of the

seat of justice to another town in the county: but the landing is an

excellent one; iron ore and other minerals are its staples of trade,

and it is again beginning to assume a commercial character. The most

remarkable objects which struck our attention in passing this place

were several of those peculiarly novel mills put in motion by a spiral

water-wheel, acted on by the current of the river. These screw-wheels

float upon the surface parallel to the shore, rising or falling with

the water, and are connected with the gearing in the millhouse upon

the bank by a long shaft. The action of the current upon {58} the

spiral thread of the wheel within its external casing keeps it in

constant motion, which is communicated by the shaft to the machinery

of the mills. The contrivance betrays much ingenuity, and for purposes

where a _motive_ of inconsiderable power is required, may be useful;

but for driving heavy millstones or a saw, the utility is more than

problematical.

In the vicinity of Cape Girardeau commences what is termed the

"Tyowapity Bottom," a celebrated section of country extending along

the Missouri side of the stream some thirty miles, and abounding with

a peculiar species of potter's clay, unctuous in its nature,

exceedingly pure and white, and plastic under the wheel.[52] This

stratum of clay is said to vary from one foot to ten in depth, resting

upon sandstone, and covered by limestone abounding in petrifactions. A

manufactory is in operation at Cape Girardeau, in which this substance

is the material employed. Near the northern extremity of this bottom

the waters of the Muddy River enter the Mississippi from Illinois.[53]

This stream was discovered by the early French voyageurs, and from

them received the name of _Rivière au Vase_, or _Vaseux_. It is

distinguished for the salines upon its banks, for its exhaustless beds

of bituminous coal, for the fertility of the soil, and for a

singularly-formed eminence among the bluffs of the Mississippi, a few

miles from its mouth. Its name is "_Fountain Bluff_," derived from the

circumstance that from its base gush out a number of limpid

springs.[54] It is said to measure eight miles {59} in circumference,

and to have an altitude of several hundred feet. Its western declivity

looks down upon the river, and its northern side is a precipitous

crag, while that upon the south slopes away to a fertile plain,

sprinkled with farms.

A few miles above the Big Muddy stands out from the Missouri shore a

huge perpendicular column of limestone, of cylindrical formation,

about one hundred feet in circumference at the base, and in height one

hundred and fifty feet, called the "Grand Tower."[55] Upon its summit

rests a thin stratum of vegetable mould, supporting a shaggy crown of

rifted cedars, rocking in every blast that sweeps the stream, whose

turbid current boils, and chafes, and rages at the obstruction below.

This is the first of that celebrated range of heights upon the

Mississippi usually pointed out to the tourist, springing in isolated

masses from the river's brink upon either side, and presenting to the

eye a succession of objects singularly grotesque. There are said to

exist, at this point upon the Mississippi, indications of a huge

parapet of limestone having once extended across the stream, which

must have formed a tremendous cataract, and effectually inundated all

the alluvion above. At low stages of the water ragged shelves, which

render the navigation dangerous, are still to be seen. Among the other

cliffs along this precipitous range which have received names from the

boatmen are the "Devil's Oven," "Teatable," "Backbone," &c., which,

with the "Devil's Anvil," "Devil's Island," &c., indicate pretty

plainly the divinity most religiously propitiated {60} in these

dangerous passes.[56] The "Oven" consists of an enormous promontory

of rock, about one hundred feet from the surface of the river, with a

hemispherical orifice scooped out of its face, probably by the action,

in ages past, of the whirling waters now hurrying on below. It is

situated upon the left bank of the stream, about one mile above the

"Tower," and is visible from the river. In front rests a huge fragment

of the same rock, and in the interval stands a dwelling and a garden

spot. The "Teatable" is situated at some distance below, and the other

spots named are yet lower upon the stream. This whole region bears

palpable evidence of having been subjected, ages since, to powerful

volcanic and diluvial action; and neither the Neptunian or Vulcanian

theory can advance a superior claim.

For a long time after entering the dangerous defile in the vicinity of

the _Grand Tower_, through which the current rushes like a racehorse,

our steamer writhed and groaned against the torrent, hardly advancing

a foot. At length, as if by a single tremendous effort, which caused

her to quiver and vibrate to her centre, an onward impetus was gained,

the boat shot forward, the rapids were overcome, and then, by chance,

commenced one of those perilous feats of rivalry, formerly, more than

at present, frequent upon the Western waters, A RACE. Directly before

us, a steamer of a large class, deeply laden, was roaring and

struggling against the torrent under her highest pressure. During our

passage we had several times passed and repassed each other, as either

boat was delayed {61} at the various woodyards along the route; but

now, as the evening came on, and we found ourselves gaining upon our

antagonist, the excitement of emulation flushed every cheek. The

passengers and crew hung clustering, in breathless interest, upon the

galleries and the boiler deck, wherever a post for advantageous view

presented; while the hissing valves, the quick, heavy stroke of the

piston, the sharp clatter of the _eccentric_, and the cool

determination of the pale engineer, as he glided like a spectre among

the fearful elements of destruction, gave evidence that the challenge

was accepted. But there was one humble individual, above all others,

whose whole soul seemed concentrated in the contest, as from time to

time, in the intervals of toil, his begrimed and working features were

caught, glaring through the lurid light of the furnaces he was

feeding. This was no less a personage than the doughty fireman of our

steamer; a long, lanky individual, with a cute cast of the eye, a

knowing tweak of the nose, and an interminable longitude of phiz. His

checkered shirt was drenched with perspiration; a huge pair of

breeches, begirdling his loins by means of a leathern belt, covered

his nether extremities, and two sinewy arms of "whipcord and bone"

held in suspension a spadelike brace of hands. During our passage,

more than once did I avail myself of an opportunity of studying the

grotesque, good-humoured visage of this _unique_ individual; and it

required no effort of fancy to imagine I viewed before me some

lingering remnant of that "horse and alligator race," now, like {62}

the poor Indian, fast fading from the West before the march of

steamboats and civilization, _videlicet_, "the Mississippi boatman."

And, on the occasion of which I speak, methought I could catch no

slight resemblance in my interesting fireman, as he flourished his

ponderous limbs, to that faithful portraiture of his majesty of the

Styx in Tooke's Pantheon! though, as touching this latter, I must

confess me of much dubiety in boyhood days, with the worthy

"gravedigger" Young, having entertained shrewd suspicions whether the

"tyrant ever sat."

But in my zeal for the honest Charon I am forgetting the exciting

subject of the race. During my digression, the ambitious steamers have

been puffing, and sweating, and glowing in laudable effort, to say

nothing of stifled sobs said to have issued from their labouring

bosoms, until at length a grim smile of satisfaction lighting up the

rugged features of the worthy Charon, gave evidence that not in vain

he had wielded his mace or heaved his wood. A dense mist soon after

came on, and the exhausted steamers were hauled up at midnight beneath

the venerable trees upon the banks of the stream. On the first

breakings of dawn all was again in motion. But, alas! alas! in spite

of all the strivings of our valorous steamer, it soon became but too

evident that her mighty rival must prevail, as with distended jaws,

like to some huge fish, she came rushing up in our wake, as if our

annihilation were sure. But our apprehensions proved groundless; like

a civil, well-behaved rival, she speeded on, hurling forth a triple

bob-major of {63} curses at us as she passed, doubtless by way of

salvo, and disappeared behind a point. When to this circumstance is

added that a long-winded racer of a mail-boat soon after swept past us

in her onward course, and left us far in the rear, I shall be believed

when it is stated that the steamer on which we were embarked was

distinguished for anything but speed; a circumstance by none regretted

_less_ than by myself.

_Mississippi River._