XXI

"To him who, in the love of Nature, holds

Communion with her visible forms, she speaks

A various language."

THANATOPSIS.

"The sunny Italy may boast

The beauteous tints that flush her skies,

And lovely round the Grecian coast

May thy blue pillars rise:

I only know how fair they stand

About my own beloved land."

_The Skies._--BRYANT.

To the man of cultivated imagination and delicate taste, the study of

nature never fails to afford a gratification, refined as it is

exquisite. In the pencilled petals of the flower as it bows to the

evening breeze; in the glittering scales of the fish leaping from the

wave; in the splendid plumage of the forest-bird, and in the

music-tinklings of the wreathed and enamelled sea-shell rocked by the

billow, he recognises an eloquence of beauty which he alone can

appreciate. For him, too, the myriad forms of animate creation unite

with inanimate nature in one mighty hymn of glory to their Maker, from

the hum of the sparkling ephemeroid as he blithely dances away his

little life in the beams of a summer sun, and the rustling music of

the prairie-weed swept by the winds, to the roar of the shaggy woods

upon the mountain-side, and the fierce, wild shriek of the

ocean-eagle. To investigate {234} the more minute and delicate of

Nature's workings is indeed a delightful task; and along this fairy

and flowery pathway the cultivated fancy revels with unmingled

gratification; but, as the mind approaches the vaster exhibitions of

might and majesty, the booming of the troubled ocean, the terrible

sublimity of the midnight storm, the cloudy magnificence of the

mountain height, the venerable grandeur of the aged forest, it expands

itself in unison till lost in the immensity of created things.

Reflections like these are constantly suggesting themselves to the

traveller's thoughts amid the grand scenery of the West; but at no

season do they rise more vividly upon the mind than when the

lengthened shadows of evening are stealing over the landscape, and the

summer sun is sinking to his rest. This is the "magic hour" when

"Bright clouds are gathering one by one,

Sweeping in pomp round the dying sun;

With crimson banner and golden pall,

Like a host to their chieftain's funeral."

There is not a more magnificent spectacle in nature than summer sunset

on the Western prairie. I have beheld the orb of day, after careering

his course like a giant through the firmament, go down into the fresh

tumbling billows of ocean; and sunset on the prairies, which recalls

that scene, is alone equalled by it.

Near nightfall one evening I found myself in the middle of one of

these vast extended plains, where the eye roves unconfined over the

scene, for miles unrelieved by a stump, or a tree, or a thicket, and

meets only the deep blue of the horizon on {235} every side, blending

with the billowy foliage of the distant woodland. Descending a

graceful slope, even this object is lost, and a boundless landscape

of blue above and green below is unfolded to the traveller's vision;

again, approaching the summit of the succeeding slope, the forest

rises in clear outline in the margin of the vast panorama. For some

hours the heavens had been so enveloped in huge masses of brassy

clouds, that now, when the shadows deepened over sky and earth, one

was at a loss to determine whether the sun had yet gone down, except

for a broad zone of sapphire girding the whole western firmament. Upon

the superior edge of this deep belt now glistened the luminary,

gradually revealing itself to the eye, and blazing forth at length

"like angels' locks unshorn," flinging a halo of golden effulgence far

athwart the dim evening prairie. A metamorphosis so abrupt, so rapid,

so unlooked for, seemed almost to realize the fables of enchantment.

One moment, and the whole vast landscape lay veiled in shadowy

dimness; the next, and every grass blade, and spray, and floweret, and

nodding wild-weed seemed suffused in a flood of liquid effulgence;

while far along, the uniform ridges of the heaving plain gleamed in

the rich light like waves of a moonlit sea, sweeping away, roll upon

roll, till lost in distance to the eye. Slowly the splendid disk went

down behind the sea of waving verdure, until at length a single point

of intense, bewildering brightness flamed out above the mass of green.

An instant, this too was gone--as

"An angel's wing through an opening cloud,

Is seen and then withdrawn:"--

{236} and then those deep, lurid funeral fires of departing day

streamed, flaring upward even to the zenith, flinging over the vast

concave a robe of unearthly, terrible magnificence! Then, as the fount

of all this splendour sank deeper and deeper beneath the horizon, the

blood-red flames died gently away into the mellow glories of summer

evening skylight, bathing the brow of heaven in a tender roseate,

which hours after cheered the lonely traveller across the waste.

The pilgrim wanderer in other climes comes back to tell us of sunnier

skies and softer winds! The blue heavens of Italy have tasked the

inspiration of an hundred bards, and the warm brush of her own

Lorraine has swept the canvass with their gorgeous transcript! But

what pencil has wandered over the grander scenes of the North American

prairie? What bard has struck his lyre to the wild melody of

loveliness of the prairie sunset? Yet who shall tell us that there

exists not a glory in the scene, amid the untrod wastes of the

wilderness West, which even the skies of "sunny Italy" might not blush

anew to acknowledge? No wandering Harold has roamed on a pilgrimage of

poetry over the sublime and romantic scenery of our land, to hymn its

praise in breathing thoughts and glowing words; yet here as there,

"Parting day

Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues

With a new colour as it gasps away:

The last still loveliest, till--'tis gone--and all is gray!"

I cannot tell of the beauties of climes I have never seen; but I have

gazed upon all the varied loveliness of my own fair, native land, from

the rising {237} sun to its setting, and in vain have tasked my fancy

to image a fairer.

A pleasant day's ride directly west from Carlisle, over extensive and

beautiful prairies, intersected by shady woods, with their romantic

creeks, and the traveller finds himself in the quiet village of

Lebanon. Its site is a commanding, mound-like elevation in the skirts

of a forest, swelling gently up from the prairie on the west bank of

Little Silver Creek.[155] This stream, with the larger branch,

received its name from the circumstance that the early French settlers

of the country, in the zeal of their faith and research for the

precious metals, a long while mistook the brilliant specula of

_horneblende_ which flow in its clear waters for silver, and were

unwilling to be undeceived in their extravagant anticipations until

the absence of the material in their purses aroused them from their

error. In the neighbourhood of Rock Spring a shaft for a mine was

sunk.[156] It was early one beautiful morning that I found myself

approaching the village of Lebanon, though many miles distant in the

adjacent plain; appropriately named for its loveliness the

"Looking-glass Prairie." The rosy sunbeams were playing lightly over

the pleasant country-seats and neat farmhouses, with their white

palings, sprinkled along the declivity before me, imbowered in their

young orchards and waving maize-fields; while flocks and herds, {238}

gathered in isolated masses over the intervening meadow, were cropping

the rich herbage. To the right and left, and in the rear, the prairie

stretches away beyond the view. The body of the village is situated

about one mile from these suburbs, and its character and history may

be summed up in the single sentence, _a pleasant little Methodist

country village_. The peculiarities of the sect are here strikingly

manifested to the traveller in all the ordinary concerns and

occupations of life, even in the every-day garb and conversation of

its sober-browed citizens. It presents the spectacle, rare as it is

cheering, of an entire community characterized by its reverence for

religion. Located in its immediate vicinity is a flourishing seminary,

called McKendreean College.[157] It is under the supervision of the

Methodist Episcopal Church, and has at present two instructers, with

about fifty pupils in the preparatory department. It has a commodious

frame building, presenting from its elevated site an imposing view to

the traveller. As is usually the case with these little

out-of-the-world villages, when any object comes up in the midst

around which the feelings and interests of all may cluster, upon this

institution is centred the heart and soul of every man, to say not a

word of all the women and children, in Lebanon; and everything not

connected, either remotely or immediately, with its welfare, is deemed

of very little, if of any importance. "_The Seminary! The Seminary!_"

I defy a traveller to tarry two hours in the village without hearing

rung all the changes upon that topic for his edification. The

surrounding region is fertile, populous, {239} and highly cultivated;

and for an inland, farming village, it is quite as bustling, I

suppose, as should be expected; though, during my visit, its

streets--which, by-the-by, are of very liberal breadth--maintained a

most Sabbath-like aspect.

The route from Lebanon to Belleville is, in fine weather, very

excellent. Deep woods on either side of the hard, smooth, winding

pathway, throw their boughs over the head, sometimes lengthening away

into an arched vista miles in extent. It was a sultry afternoon when

I was leisurely travelling along this road; and the shadowy coolness

of the atmosphere, the perfume of wild flowers and aromatic herbs

beneath the underbrush, and the profusion of summer fruit along the

roadside, was indescribably delightful. Near sunset, a graceful bend

of the road around a clump of trees placed before me the pretty little

village of Belleville; its neat enclosures and white cottages peeping

through the shrubbery, now gilded by the mellow rays of sunset in

every leaf and spray.[158] Whether it was owing to this agreeable

coincidence, or to the agreeable visit I here enjoyed, that I

conceived such an attachment for the place, I cannot say; but sure it

is, I fell in love with the little town at _first_ sight; and, what is

more marvellous, was not, according to all precedent, cured at second,

when on the following morning I sallied forth to reconnoitre its

beauties "at mine own good leisure." Now it is to be presumed that,

agreeable to the taste of six travellers in a dozen, I have passed

through many a village in Illinois quite as attractive as this same

Belleville: but to convince me of the fact would be no {240} easy

task. "Man is the sport of circumstance," says the fatalist; and

however this may be in the moral world, if any one feels disposed to

doubt upon the matter in the item before us, let him disembark from a

canal-boat at Pittsburgh on a rainy, misty, miserable morning; and

then, unable to secure for his houseless head a shelter from the

pitiless peltings, let him hurry away through the filthy streets,

deluged with inky water, to a crowded Ohio steamer; and if

"_circumstances_" do not force him to dislike Pittsburgh ever after,

then his human nature is vastly more forbearing than my own. Change

the picture. Let him enter the quiet little Illinois village at the

gentle hour of sunset; let him meet warm hospitality, and look upon

fair forms and bright faces, and if he fail to be pleased with that

place, why, "he's not the man I took him for."

The public buildings of Belleville are a handsome courthouse of brick,

a wretched old jail of the same material, a public hall belonging to a

library company, and a small framed Methodist house of worship. It is

situated in the centre of "Turkey-hill Settlement," one of the oldest

and most flourishing in the state, and has a fine timber tract and

several beautiful country-seats in its vicinity.

Leaving Belleville with some reluctance, and not a few "longing,

lingering looks behind," my route continued westward over a broken

region of alternating forest and prairie, sparsely sprinkled with

trees, and yet more sparsely with inhabitants. At length, having

descended a precipitous hill, the rounded summit of which, as well as

the adjoining heights, commanded an immense expanse of level {241}

landscape, stretching off from the base, I stood once more upon the

fertile soil of the "_American Bottom_." The sharp, heavy-roofed

French cottages, with low verandahs running around; the ungainly

outhouses and enclosures; the curiously-fashioned vehicles and

instruments of husbandry in the barnyards and before the doors; the

foreign garb and dialect of the people; and, above all, the amazing

fertility of the soil, over whose exhaustless depths the maize has

rustled half a century, constitute the most striking characteristics

of this interesting tract, in the section over which I was passing.

This settlement, extending from the foot of the bluffs for several

miles over the Bottom, was formed about forty years ago by a colony

from Cahokia, and known by the name of "_Little French Village_;" it

now comprises about twenty houses and a grogshop. In these bluffs

lies an exhaustless bed of bituminous coal: vast quantities have been

transported to St. Louis, and for this purpose principally is the

railway to the river designed. This vein of coal is said to have been

discovered by the rivulet of a spring issuing from the base of the

bluffs. The stratum is about six feet in thickness, increasing in size

as it penetrates the hill horizontally. Though somewhat rotten and

slaty, it is in some particulars not inferior to the coal of the

Alleghanies; and the vein is thought to extend from the mouth of the

Kaskaskia to that of the Illinois. About three miles below the present

shaft, a continuation of the bed was discovered by fire communicated

from the root of a tree; the bank of coal burnt for upward of a {242}

twelvemonth, and the conflagration was then smothered only by the

falling in of the superincumbent soil. St. Clair county, which

embraces a large portion of the American Bottom, is the oldest

settlement in the state. In 1795 the county was formed by the

Legislature of the Northwestern Territory, and then included all

settlements in Illinois east of the Mississippi.

I had just cleverly cleared the outskirts of the little antediluvian

village beneath the bluffs, when a dark, watery-looking cloud came

tumbling up out of the west; the thunder roared across the Bottom and

was reverberated from the cliffs, and in a few moments down came the

big rain-drops dancing in torrents from the clouds, and pattering up

like mist along the plain. Verily, groaned forth the wo-begone

traveller, this is the home of clouds and the realm of thunder! Never

did hapless mortals sustain completer drenchings than did the

traveller and his steed, notwithstanding upon the first onset they had

plunged themselves into the sheltering depths of the wood. A half

hour's gallop over the slippery bottom, and the stern roar of a

steamer's 'scape-pipe informed me that I was not far from the "great

waters." A few yards through the belt of forest, and the city of San

Louis, with towers and roofs, stood before me.

_St. Louis._