POLITICAL NON-EXISTENCE OF WOMEN.
One of the fundamental principles announced in the Declaration of
Independence is, that governments derive their just powers from the
consent of the governed. How can the political condition of women be
reconciled with this?
Governments in the United States have power to tax women who hold
property; to divorce them from their husbands; to fine, imprison, and
execute them for certain offences. Whence do these governments derive
their powers? They are not "just," as they are not derived from the
consent of the women thus governed.
Governments in the United States have power to enslave certain women;
and also to punish other women for inhuman treatment of such slaves.
Neither of these powers are "just;" not being derived from the consent
of the governed.
Governments decree to women in some States half their husbands'
property; in others one-third. In some, a woman, on her marriage, is
made to yield all her property to her husband; in others, to retain a
portion, or the whole, in her own hands. Whence do governments derive
the unjust power of thus disposing of property without the consent of
the governed?
The democratic principle condemns all this as wrong; and requires the
equal political representation of all rational beings. Children, idiots,
and criminals, during the season of sequestration, are the only fair
exceptions.
The case is so plain that I might close it here; but it is interesting
to inquire how so obvious a decision has been so evaded as to leave to
women no political rights whatever. The question has been asked, from
time to time, in more countries than one, how obedience to the laws can
be required of women, when no woman has, either actually or virtually,
given any assent to any law. No plausible answer has, as far as I can
discover, been offered; for the good reason, that no plausible answer
can be devised. The most principled democratic writers on government
have on this subject sunk into fallacies, as disgraceful as any advocate
of despotism has adduced. In fact, they have thus sunk from being, for
the moment, advocates of despotism. Jefferson in America, and James Mill
at home, subside, for the occasion, to the level of the author of the
Emperor of Russia's Catechism for the young Poles.
Jefferson says,[7] "Were our State a pure democracy, in which all the
inhabitants should meet together to transact all their business, there
would yet be excluded from their deliberations,
"1. Infants, until arrived at years of discretion;
"2. Women, who, to prevent depravation of morals, and ambiguity of
issue, could not mix promiscuously in the public meetings of men;
"3. Slaves, from whom the unfortunate state of things with us takes away
the rights of will and of property."
If the slave disqualification, here assigned, were shifted up under the
head of Women, their case would be nearer the truth than as it now
stands. Woman's lack of will and of property, is more like the true
cause of her exclusion from the representation, than that which is
actually set down against her. As if there could be no means of
conducting public affairs but by promiscuous meetings! As if there would
be more danger in promiscuous meetings for political business than in
such meetings for worship, for oratory, for music, for dramatic
entertainments,--for any of the thousand transactions of civilized life!
The plea is not worth another word.
Mill says, with regard to representation, in his Essay on Government,
"One thing is pretty clear; that all those individuals, whose interests
are involved in those of other individuals, may be struck off without
inconvenience.... In this light, women may be regarded, the interest of
almost all of whom is involved, either in that of their fathers or in
that of their husbands."
The true democratic principle is, that no person's interests can be, or
can be ascertained to be, identical with those of any other person. This
allows the exclusion of none but incapables.
The word "almost," in Mr. Mill's second sentence, rescues women from the
exclusion he proposes. As long as there are women who have neither
husbands nor fathers, his proposition remains an absurdity.
The interests of women who have fathers and husbands can never be
identical with theirs, while there is a necessity for laws to protect
women against their husbands and fathers. This statement is not worth
another word.
Some who desire that there should be an equality of property between men
and women, oppose representation, on the ground that political duties
would be incompatible with the other duties which women have to
discharge. The reply to this is, that women are the best judges here.
God has given time and power for the discharge of all duties; and, if he
had not, it would be for women to decide which they would take, and
which they would leave. But their guardians follow the ancient fashion
of deciding what is best for their wards. The Emperor of Russia
discovers when a coat of arms and title do not agree with a subject
prince. The King of France early perceives that the air of Paris does
not agree with a free-thinking foreigner. The English Tories feel the
hardship that it would be to impose the franchise on every artizan, busy
as he is in getting his bread. The Georgian planter perceives the
hardship that freedom would be to his slaves. And the best friends of
half the human race peremptorily decide for them as to their rights,
their duties, their feelings, their powers. In all these cases, the
persons thus cared for feel that the abstract decision rests with
themselves; that, though they may be compelled to submit, they need not
acquiesce.
It is pleaded that half of the human race does acquiesce in the decision
of the other half, as to their rights and duties. And some instances,
not only of submission, but of acquiescence, there are. Forty years ago,
the women of New Jersey went to the poll, and voted, at state elections.
The general term, "inhabitants," stood unqualified;--as it will again,
when the true democratic principle comes to be fully understood. A
motion was made to correct the inadvertence; and it was done, as a
matter of course; without any appeal, as far as I could learn, from the
persons about to be injured. Such acquiescence proves nothing but the
degradation of the injured party. It inspires the same emotions of pity
as the supplication of the freed slave who kneels to his master to
restore him to slavery, that he may have his animal wants supplied,
without being troubled with human rights and duties. Acquiescence like
this is an argument which cuts the wrong way for those who use it.
But this acquiescence is only partial; and, to give any semblance of
strength to the plea, the acquiescence must be complete. I, for one, do
not acquiesce. I declare that whatever obedience I yield to the laws of
the society in which I live is a matter between, not the community and
myself, but my judgment and my will. Any punishment inflicted on me for
the breach of the laws, I should regard as so much gratuitous injury:
for to those laws I have never, actually or virtually, assented. I know
that there are women in England who agree with me in this--I know that
there are women in America who agree with me in this. The plea of
acquiescence is invalidated by us.
It is pleaded that, by enjoying the protection of some laws, women give
their assent to all. This needs but a brief answer. Any protection thus
conferred is, under woman's circumstances, a boon bestowed at the
pleasure of those in whose power she is. A boon of any sort is no
compensation for the privation of something else; nor can the enjoyment
of it bind to the performance of anything to which it bears no relation.
Because I, by favour, may procure the imprisonment of the thief who robs
my house, am I, unrepresented, therefore bound not to smuggle French
ribbons? The obligation not to smuggle has a widely different
derivation.
I cannot enter upon the commonest order of pleas of all;--those which
relate to the virtual influence of woman; her swaying the judgment and
will of man through the heart; and so forth. One might as well try to
dissect the morning mist. I knew a gentleman in America who told me how
much rather he had be a woman than the man he is;--a professional man, a
father, a citizen. He would give up all this for a woman's influence. I
thought he was mated too soon. He should have married a lady, also of my
acquaintance, who would not at all object to being a slave, if ever the
blacks should have the upper hand; "it is so right that the one race
should be subservient to the other!" Or rather,--I thought it a pity
that the one could not be a woman, and the other a slave; so that an
injured individual of each class might be exalted into their places, to
fulfil and enjoy the duties and privileges which they despise, and, in
despising, disgrace.
The truth is, that while there is much said about "the sphere of woman,"
two widely different notions are entertained of what is meant by the
phrase. The narrow, and, to the ruling party, the more convenient notion
is that sphere appointed by men, and bounded by their ideas of
propriety;--a notion from which any and every woman may fairly dissent.
The broad and true conception is of the sphere appointed by God, and
bounded by the powers which he has bestowed. This commands the assent of
man and woman; and only the question of powers remains to be proved.
That woman has power to represent her own interests, no one can deny
till she has been tried. The modes need not be discussed here: they must
vary with circumstances. The fearful and absurd images which are
perpetually called up to perplex the question,--images of women on
wool-sacks in England, and under canopies in America, have nothing to do
with the matter. The principle being once established, the methods will
follow, easily, naturally, and under a remarkable transmutation of the
ludicrous into the sublime. The kings of Europe would have laughed
mightily, two centuries ago, at the idea of a commoner, without robes,
crown, or sceptre, stepping into the throne of a strong nation. Yet who
dared to laugh when Washington's super-royal voice greeted the New World
from the presidential chair, and the old world stood still to catch the
echo?
The principle of the equal rights of both halves of the human race is
all we have to do with here. It is the true democratic principle which
can never be seriously controverted, and only for a short time evaded.
Governments can derive their just powers only from the consent of the
governed.
FOOTNOTE:
[7] Correspondence vol. iv. p. 295.
PART II.
ECONOMY.
"That thou givest them they gather. Thou openest thine hand; they
are filled with good."
_104th Psalm._
The traveller from the Old World to the New is apt to lose himself in
reflection when he should be observing. Speculations come in crowds in
the wilderness. He finds himself philosophizing with every step he
takes, as luxuriously as by his study fireside, or in his rare solitary
walk at home.
In England, everything comes complete and finished under notice. Each
man may be aware of some one process of formation, which it is his
business to conduct; but all else is presented to him in its entireness.
The statesman knows what it is to compose an act of parliament; to
proceed from the first perception of the want of it, through the
gathering together of facts and opinions, the selection from these, the
elaborating, adjusting, moulding, specifying, excluding, consolidating,
till it becomes an entire something, which he throws down for parliament
to find fault with. When it is passed, the rest of society looks upon it
as a whole, as a child does upon a table or a doll, without being aware
of any process of formation. The shoemaker, thus, takes his loaf of
bread, and the clock that ticks behind his door, as if they came down
from the clouds as they are, in return for so much of his wages; and he
analyzes nothing but shoes. The baker and watchmaker receive their shoes
in the same way, and analyze nothing but bread and clocks. Too many
gentlemen and ladies analyze nothing at all. If better taught, and
introduced at an early age into the world of analysis, nothing, in the
whole course of education, is probably so striking to their minds. They
begin a fresh existence from the day when they first obtain a glimpse
into this new region of discovery.
Such an era is the traveller's entrance upon the wilder regions of
America. His old experience is all reversed. He sees nothing of art in
its entireness; but little of nature in her instrumentality. Nature is
there the empress, not the handmaid. Art is her inexperienced page, and
no longer the Prospero to whom she is the Ariel.
It is an absorbing thing to watch the process of world-making:--both the
formation of the natural and the conventional world. I witnessed both in
America; and when I look back upon it now, it seems as if I had been in
another planet. I saw something of the process of creating the natural
globe in the depths of the largest explored cave in the world. In its
depths, in this noiseless workshop, was Nature employed with her blind
and dumb agents, fashioning mysteries which the earthquake of a thousand
years hence may bring to light, to give man a new sense of the shortness
of his life. I saw something of the process of world-making behind the
fall of Niagara, in the thunder cavern, where the rocks that have stood
for ever tremble to their fall amidst the roar of the unexhausted
floods. I stood where soon human foot shall stand no more. Foot-hold
after foot-hold is destined to be thrown down, till, after more ages
than the world has yet known, the last rocky barrier shall be
overpowered, and an ocean shall overspread countries which are but just
entering upon civilized existence. Niagara itself is but one of the
shifting scenes of life, like all of the outward that we hold most
permanent. Niagara itself, like the systems of the sky, is one of the
hands of Nature's clock, moving, though too slowly to be perceived by
the unheeding,--still moving, to mark the lapse of time. Niagara itself
is destined to be as the traditionary monsters of the ancient earth--a
giant existence, to be spoken of to wondering ears in studious hours,
and believed in from the sole evidence of its surviving grandeur and
beauty. While I stood in the wet whirlwind, with the crystal roof above
me, the thundering floor beneath, and the foaming whirlpool and rushing
flood before me, I saw those quiet, studious hours of the future world
when this cataract shall have become a tradition, and the spot on which
I stood shall be the centre of a wide sea, a new region of life. This
was seeing world-making. So it was on the Mississippi, when a sort of
scum on the waters betokened the birth-place of new land. All things
help in this creation. The cliffs of the upper Missouri detach their
soil, and send it thousands of miles down the stream. The river brings
it, and deposits it, in continual increase, till a barrier is raised
against the rushing waters themselves. The air brings seeds, and drops
them where they sprout, and strike downwards, so that their roots bind
the soft soil, and enable it to bear the weight of new accretions. The
infant forest, floating, as it appeared, on the surface of the turbid
and rapid waters, may reveal no beauty to the painter; but to the eye
of one who loves to watch the process of world-making, it is full of
delight. These islands are seen in every stage of growth. The
cotton-wood trees, from being like cresses in a pool, rise breast-high;
then they are like the thickets, to whose shade the alligator may
retreat; then, like groves that bid the sun good-night, while he is
still lighting up the forest; then like the forest itself, with the
wood-cutter's house within its screen, flowers springing about its
stems, and the wild-vine climbing to meet the night breezes on its lofty
canopy. This was seeing world-making. Here was strong instigation to the
exercise of analysis.
One of the most frequent thoughts of a speculator in these wildernesses,
is the rarity of the chance which brings him here to speculate. The
primitive glories of nature have, almost always since the world began,
been dispensed to savages; to men who, dearly as they love the
wilderness, have no power of bringing into contrast with it the mind of
man, as enriched and stimulated by cultivated society. Busy colonists,
pressed by bodily wants, are the next class brought over the threshold
of this temple: and they come for other purposes than to meditate. The
next are those who would make haste to be rich; selfish adventurers, who
drive out the red man, and drive in the black man, and, amidst the
forests and the floods, think only of cotton and of gold. Not to such
alone should the primitive glories of nature be dispensed; glories which
can never be restored. The philosopher should come, before they are
effaced, and find combinations and proportions of life and truth which
are not to be found elsewhere. The painter should come, and find
combinations and proportions of visible beauty which are not to be found
elsewhere. The architect should come, and find suggestions and
irradiations of his art which are not to be found elsewhere. The poet
should come, and witness a supremacy of nature such as he imagines in
the old days when the world's sires came forth at the tidings of the
rainbow in the cloud. The chance which opens to the meditative the
almost untouched regions of nature, is a rare one; and they should not
be left to the vanishing savage, the busy and the sordid.
I watched also the progress of conventional life. I saw it in every
stage of advancement, from the clearing in the woods, where the settler,
carrying merely his axe, makes his very tools, his house, his fireplace,
his bed, his table; carves out his fields, catches from among wild or
strayed animals his farm stock, and creates his own food, warmth, and
winter light,--from primitive life like this, to that of the highest
finish, which excludes all thought of analysis.
The position or prospects of men in a new country may best be made
intelligible by accounts of what the traveller saw and heard while among
them. Pictures serve the purpose better than reports. I will, therefore,
give pictures of some of the many varieties of dwellers that I saw,
amidst their different localities, circumstances, and modes of living.
No one of them is aware how vivid an idea he impresses on the mind of
humanity; nor how distinct a place he fills in her records. No one of
them, probably, is aware how much happier he is than Alexander, in
having before him more worlds to conquer.
My narratives, or pictures, must be but a few selected from among a
multitude. My chapter would extend to a greater length than any old
novel, if I were to give all I possess.
The United States are not only vast in extent: they are inestimably rich
in material wealth. There are fisheries and granite quarries along the
northern coasts; and shipping from the whole commercial world within
their ports. There are tanneries within reach of their oak woods, and
manufactures in the north from the cotton growth of the south. There is
unlimited wealth of corn, sugar-cane and beet, hemp, flax, tobacco, and
rice. There are regions of pasture land. There are varieties of grape
for wine, and mulberries for silk. There is salt. There are mineral
springs. There is marble, gold, lead, iron, and coal. There is a chain
of mountains, dividing the great fertile western valley from the busy
eastern region which lies between the mountains and the Atlantic. These
mountains yield the springs by which the great rivers are to be fed for
ever, to fertilize the great valley, and be the vehicle of its commerce
with the world. Out of the reach of these rivers, in the vast breadth of
the north, lie the great lakes, to be likewise the servants of commerce,
and to afford in their fisheries the means of life and luxury to
thousands. These inland seas temper the climate, summer and winter, and
insure health to the heart of the vast continent. Never was a country
more gifted by nature.
It is blessed also in the variety of its inhabitants. However it may
gratify the pride of a nation to be descended from one stock, it is
ultimately better that it should have been compounded from many nations.
The blending of qualities, physical and intellectual, the absorption of
national prejudices, the increase of mental resources, will be found in
the end highly conducive to the elevation of the national character.
America will find herself largely blessed in this way, however much she
may now complain of the immigration of strangers. She complains of some
for their poverty; but such bring a will to work, and a capacity for
labour. She complains of others for their coming from countries
governed by a despotism; but it is the love of freedom which they cannot
enjoy at home, that brings such. She complains of others that they keep
up their national language, manners, and modes of thinking, while they
use her privileges of citizenship. This may appear ungracious; but it
proceeds from that love of country and home institutions which will make
staunch American patriots of their children's children. It is all well.
The New England States may pride themselves on their population being
homogeneous, while that of other States is mongrel. It is well that
stability should thus have been temporarily provided for in one part of
the Union, which should, for the season, be the acknowledged superior
over the rest: but, this purpose of the arrangement having been
fulfilled, New England may perhaps hereafter admit, what some others see
already, that, if she inherits many of the virtues of the Pilgrims, she
requires fortifying in others; and that a large reinforcement from other
races would help her to throw off the burden of their inherited faults.
There can scarcely be a finer set of elements for the composition of a
nation than the United States now contain. It will take centuries to
fuse them; and by that time, pride of ancestry,--vanity of physical
derivation,--will be at an end. The ancestry of moral qualities will be
the only pedigree preserved: and of these every civilized nation under
heaven possesses an ample, and probably an equal, share. Let the United
States then cherish their industrious Germans and Dutch; their hardy
Irish; their intelligent Scotch; their kindly Africans, as well as the
intellectual Yankee, the insouciant Southerner, and the complacent
Westerner. All are good in their way; and augment the moral value of
their country, as diversities of soil, climate, and productions, do its
material wealth.
Among the most interesting personages in the United States, are the
Solitaries;--solitary families, not individuals. Europeans, who think it
much to lodge in a country cottage for six weeks in the summer, can form
little idea of the life of a solitary family in the wilds. I did not see
the most sequestered, as I never happened to lose my way in the forests
or on the prairies: but I witnessed some modes of life which realized
all I had conceived of the romantic, or of the dismal.
One rainy October day, I saw a settler at work in the forest, on which
he appeared to have just entered. His clearing looked, in comparison
with the forest behind him, of about the size of a pincushion. He was
standing, up to the knees in water, among the stubborn stumps, and
charred stems of dead trees. He was notching logs with his axe, beside
his small log hut and stye. There was swamp behind, and swamp on each
side;--a pool of mud around each dead tree, which had been wont to drink
the moisture. There was a semblance of a tumble-down fence: no orchard
yet; no grave-yard; no poultry; none of the graces of fixed habitation
had grown up. On looking back to catch a last view of the scene, I saw
two little boys, about three and four years old, leading a horse home
from the forest; one driving the animal behind with an armful of bush,
and the other reaching up on tiptoe to keep his hold of the halter; and
both looking as if they would be drowned in the swamp. If the mother was
watching from the hut, she must have thought this strange dismal play
for her little ones. The hard-working father must be toiling for his
children; for the success of his after life can hardly atone to him for
such a destitution of comfort as I saw him in the midst of. Many such
scenes are passed on every road in the western parts of the States. They
become cheering when the plough is seen, or a few sheep are straggling
on the hill side, seeming lost in space.
One day, at Niagara, I had spent hours at the Falls, till, longing for
the stillness of the forest, I wandered deep into its wild paths,
meeting nothing but the belled heifer, grazing, and the slim, clean
swine which live on the mast and roots they can find for themselves. I
saw some motion in a thicket, a little way from the path, and went to
see what it was. I found a little boy and girl, working away, by turns,
with an axe, at the branches of a huge hickory, which had been lately
felled. "Father" had felled the hickory the day before, and had sent the
children to make faggots from the branches. They were heated and out of
breath. I had heard of the toughness of hickory, and longed to know what
the labour of wood-cutting really was. Here was an irresistible
opportunity for an experiment I made the children sit down on the fallen
tree, and find out the use of my ear-trumpet, while I helped to make
their faggot. When I had hewn through one stout branch, I was quite
sufficiently warmed, and glad to sit down to hear the children's story.
Their father had been a weaver and a preacher in England. He had brought
out his wife and six children. During the week, he worked at his land,
finding some employment or another for all of his children who could
walk alone; and going some distance on Sundays to preach. This last
particular told volumes. The weaver has not lost heart over his hard
field-labour. His spirit must be strong and lively, to enable him to
spend his seventh day thus, after plying the axe for six. The children
did not seem to know whether they liked Manchester or the forest best;
but they looked stout and rosy.
They, however, were within reach of church and habitation; buried, as
they appeared, in the depths of the woods. I saw, in New Hampshire, a
family who had always lived absolutely alone, except when an occasional
traveller came to their door, during the summer months. The old man had
run away with his wife, forty-six years before, and brought her to the
Red Mountain, near the top of which she had lived ever since. It was
well that she married for love, for she saw no one but her husband and
children, for many a long year after she jumped out of her window, in
her father's house, to run away.
Our party, consisting of four, was in the humour to be struck with the
romance of the domestic history of the old man of the mountain, as the
guide is called. We had crossed Lake Winnepisseogee, the day before, and
watched from our piazza, at Centre Harbour, the softening of the evening
light over the broad sheet of water, and the purple islands that rested
upon it. After dark, fires blazed forth from the promontories, and
glimmered in the islands; every flaming bush and burning stem being
distinctly reflected in the grey mirror of the waters. These fires were
signs of civilization approaching the wild districts on which we were
entering. Land on the lake shores has become very valuable; and it is
being fast cleared.
We were to have set off very early on our mountain expedition, next day;
but the morning was misty, and we did not leave Centre Harbour till near
eight;--nearly an hour and a half after breakfast. We were in a wagon,
drawn by the horses on which the two ladies were to ascend the mountain
from the guide's house. The sky was grey, but promising; for its
curtains were rising at the other end of the lake, and disclosing ridge
after ridge of pines on the mountain side. The road became very rough as
we began to ascend; and it was a wonder to me how the wagon could be
lifted up, as it was, from shelf to shelf of limestone. One shelf sloped
a little too much, even for our wagon. Its line of direction was no
longer within the base, as children are taught at school that it should
be. All the party, except myself, rolled out. The driver, sprawling on
his back on a terribly sharp eminence of limestone, tugged manfully at
the reins, and shouted, "Whoi-ee" as cheerfully as if he had been
sitting on a cushion, in his proper place. He was not a man to desert
his duty in an extremity. He was but little hurt, and nobody else at
all.
The wagon was left here, and we ascended a mile, a steep path, among
woods and rocks, to the guide's little farm; plunging into a cloud, just
before we reached the house. It was baking day; and we found the old
dame, with a deaf and dumb daughter,--one of three deaf,--busy among new
bread, pies, and apples. Strings of apples hung against the walls; and
there was every symptom of plenty and contentment within and without
doors. The old dame might have been twin sister to Juliet's nurse. She
was delighted to have an opportunity of using her tongue, and was
profuse in her invitations to us to stay,--to come again,--to be
sociable. The exercise she takes in speaking must be one cause of her
buxom health. Out of a pantomime, I never saw anything so energetic as
her action; the deafness of her children being no doubt the cause of
this. She seemed heartily proud of them; the more, evidently, on account
of their singularity. She told us that the daughter now at home had
never left it. "Her father could not spare her to school; but I could
have spared her." What a life of little incidents magnified must their's
be! As one of my companions observed, the bursting of a shoe, or the
breaking of a plate, must furnish talk for a week. The welcome discovery
was made that we had a mutual acquaintance. A beloved friend of mine had
ascended the mountain some weeks before, and had followed her usual
practice of carrying away all the hearts she found there. The old dame
spoke lovingly of her as "that Liza;" and she talked about her till she
had seen my foot into the stirrup, and given me her blessing up the
mountain.
The path was steep, and the summit bare. There was an opening for a
single moment on our arrival; the mist parted and closed again, having
shown us what a view there was beneath us of green mountains, and blue
ponds, and wooded levels. We were entertained for some time with such
glimpses; more beautiful perhaps than an unrestricted vision. Such
revelations take away one's breath. When all was misty again, we amused
ourselves with gathering blue-berries, which grew profusely under foot.
The old man, too, was ready with any information we desired about
himself; and with abundance of anecdotes of summer travellers, to whom
he had acted as guide.
He was a soldier of the revolution; and at its close, retired hither,
with his bride, among bears and deer. There are no deer left; and he
killed nineteen bears with his own hand: the last, thirty-five years
before. One of them was nearly the death of him. A shot which he
intended to be mortal was not so. The wounded bear chased him; and there
was nothing to be done but to run round and round a tree, loading his
gun, while the bear was at his heels, blowing foam and blood upon him.
He fired over his shoulder, and dispatched his pursuer. He told us, when
the curtain of mist finally drew up, the opinions of learned men whom he
had conducted hither, about this mountain having once been an island in
the midst of a vast lake. He pointed out how it is, even now, nearly
surrounded by waters; Long Pond, Lake Winnepisseogee, and Squam Lake.
The two last are so crowded with islands that the expression of the
water is broken up. The islands lie in dark slips upon the gleamy
surface, dividing it into too many pond-like portions. But the mountain
horizon was altogether beautiful. Some had sharp peaks, some notched;
the sides of some were bare, with traces of tremendous slides: others,
green as the spring, with wandering sun gleams and cloud shadows. I
found myself much mistaken in my fancy that I did not care for
bird's-eye views.
The dame was looking out for us when we descended, anxious to detain us
for more talk, and to make us bearers of a present to "that Liza." She
hung some strings of her drying apples over the arm of a gentleman of
the party, with the utmost faith that he would take care of them all the
way to Boston. He kindly received them; and I can testify that he did
his best to make them reach their destination. It was kindness well
bestowed; for no doubt it was a winter luxury of the good dame's to
fancy our mutual friend enjoying her Red Mountain applesauce. The
sending a present to Boston must be a rare event to dwellers in such a
solitude.
Not many miles from this place, stands a deserted dwelling whose
inhabitants lived in a deeper solitude, and perished all in one night,
far from human aid. No house stands within many miles of it, even now. I
had heard the story before I saw the place; but I had no idea of the
difference between listening to a sad tale, and seeing the spot of which
it is told. In a deep narrow valley among the White Mountains, lived a
family of the name of Willey. Their dwelling was a comfortable
log-house, on a green platform, at the foot of one of the steepest
mountains. There were but few travellers among these mountains in their
day; but those few were kindly welcomed: and the cheerful host and
hostess, and their comely children, were always well spoken of. On a
stormy August night, 1826, a tremendous slide came crashing down the
mountain side, at the rear of the house. If the family had remained in
their chambers, they would have been safe: a rock at the edge of the
green platform, behind the dwelling, parted the slide, so that the
grassy plot remained untouched,--a bright island in the midst, of the
desolation. The family, to the number of nine, were overwhelmed, and all
perished. The bodies of seven were found. The bones of the other two are
doubtless buried under the slide, where rank verdure and young trees are
growing up, as if trying to efface the horrors of the wreck. The scene
must have been dreadful to those who first arrived at the spot, after
the event. The house, safe on its grass plot; its door standing wide;
the beds and clothes of the family showing that they had sprung up from
sleep, and so fled from the only place where they would have been safe;
no one there; a deadly silence brooding over the quiet spot, and chaotic
desolation around;--it is no wonder that the house remains deserted, and
the valley untenanted.
Some miles further on, the traveller may witness what comfortable cheer
may be afforded by dwellers in the wilderness. All travellers in the
White Mountains know Ethan A. Crawford's hospitality. He cannot be said
to live in solitude, inasmuch as there is another house in the valley:
but everybody is aware how little sociability there is between two
dwellers in a lonely place. One may enjoy life there; and several may
get on well; but two never: and Ethan Crawford's is a virtual solitude,
except for three months in the year. The fate of the Willeys was
uppermost in our minds when we arrived; and we were little prepared for
such entertainment as we found. After a supper of fine lake trout, a son
of our host played to us on a nameless instrument, made by the joiners
who put the house together, and highly creditable to their ingenuity. It
was something like the harmonica in form, and the bagpipes in tone; but,
well-played as it was by the boy, it was highly agreeable. Then Mr.
Crawford danced an American jig, to the fiddling of a relation of his.
The dancing was somewhat solemn; but its good faith made up for any want
of mirth. He had other resources for the amusement of his guests: a gun
wherewith he was wont to startle the mountain echoes, till, one day, it
burst: (leaving nothing for us to do but to look at the fragments:)
also, a horn, which, blown on a calm day, brings a chorus of sweet
responses from the far hill sides. Retirement in such a valley, and with
such resources as Ethan Crawford's, is attractive enough to the passing
traveller; and, to judge by the countenance of the host, anything but
dispiriting to those who have made trial of it.
No solitude can be more romantic than that at the mouth of the Mammoth
Cave in Kentucky; so called, not because any mammoth-bones have been
found there, but because it is the largest explored cave in the world. I
was told, not only by the guides, but by a gentleman who is learned in
caves, that it can be travelled through, in different directions, to the
extent of sixty miles. We could not think of achieving the entire
underground journey; but we resolved to see all we could; and, for that
purpose, preferred devoting the half of two days to the object, to one
entire day, the weariness of which would probably curtail our rambles.
After a most interesting and exciting journey of nearly two nights and
a day from Nashville, Tennessee, our party, consisting of four, arrived
at Bell's hotel, twelve miles from the cave, at half-past seven, on a
bright May morning. We slept till one o'clock, and then set off in a
stage and four for the cave. My expectations had been so excited, that
every object on the road seemed to paint itself on my very spirit; and I
now feel as if I saw the bright hemp fields, the oak copses, the
gorgeous wild flowers, and clear streams, running over their limestone
beds, that adorned our short journey.
The house at the cave stands on the greenest sward that earth and dews
can produce; and it grows up to the very walls of the dwelling. The
well, with its sweep,--a long pole, with a rope and bucket at one end,
laid across the top of a high post,--this primitive well, on the same
plot of turf, and the carriage in which two travellers--young men--had
just arrived, were the only occupiers of the grass, besides the house.
We lost no time in proceeding to the cave. The other party of travellers
and the guides carried lamps, and grease to trim them with; an ample
supply of both; for the guides know something of the horrors of being
left in darkness in the mazes of a cave. We went down a steep path into
a glen, from which the golden sunlight seemed reflected, as from water;
so bright was the May verdure. The guides carried our cloaks; which
seemed to us very ridiculous; for we were panting with the heat. But,
when we had wound down to the yawning, shadowy cave, with its diamond
drips and clustering creepers about the entrance, a blast of wintry wind
gushed from it, and chilled our very hearts. I found it possible to
stand on one foot, and be in the midst of melting heat; and leaning
forward on the other, to feel half frozen. The humming birds must be
astonished, when they flit across the entrance, to meet winter in the
middle of the glen, and emerge into summer again on the other side.
The entrance of the cave serves as an ice-house to the family of the
guide. They keep their meat there, and go to refresh themselves when
relaxed by the heat. The temperature is delightful, after the first two
or three minutes; and we were glad to leave our cloaks by the way side.
The ladies tied handkerchiefs over their heads, and tucked up their
gowns for the scramble over the loose limestone; looking thereby very
picturesque, and not totally unlike the witches in Macbeth. The gloom,
the echo of the footsteps, the hollow sound of voices, the startling
effect of lights seen unexpectedly in a recess, in a crevice, or high
overhead,--these impressions may be recalled in those who have wandered
in caves, but can never be communicated to those who have not. It is in
vain to describe a cave. Call it a chaos of darkness and rocks, with
wandering and inexplicable sounds and motions, and all is done.
Everything appears alive: the slowly growing stalactites, the water ever
dropping into the plashing pool, the whispering airs,--all seem
conscious. The coolness, vastness, suggestions of architecture, and dim
disclosures, occasion different feelings from any that are known under
the lights of the sky. The air in the neighbourhood of the waterfall was
delicious to breathe; and the pool was so clear that I could not, for
some time, see the water, in a pretty full light. That Rembrandt light
on the drip of water, on the piled rocks, and on our figures,--light
swallowed up before it could reach the unseen canopy under which we
stood, can never be forgotten. Milton's lake of fire might have brought
the roof into view:--nothing less.
The young guides, brothers, were fine dashing youths, as Kentucky youths
are. They told us some horrible tales, and one very marvellous story
about darkness and bewilderment in the labyrinth of the cave. They told
us (before they knew that any of us were English) that "all the lords
and lights of England had been to see the cave, except the king." While
they were about it, they might as well have included his majesty.
Perhaps they have, by this time; good stories being of very rapid
growth. They reported that ladies hold on in the cave better than
gentlemen. One of the party supposed this was because they were lighter;
but the guide believed it was owing to their having more curiosity.
I was amused at their assurances about the number of miles that we had
walked; and thought it as good a story as any they had told us: but, to
my utter amazement, I found, on emerging from the cave, that the stars
were shining resplendently down into the glen, while the summer
lightning was quivering incessantly over the "verdurous wall" which
sprang up to a lofty height on either hand. There seemed to be none of
the coolness of night abroad. A breathless faintness came over us on
quitting the freshness of the cave, and taught us the necessary caution
of resting awhile at the entrance.
Supper was ready when we returned; and then the best room was assigned
to the three ladies, while the gentlemen were to have the loft. We saw
the stars through chinks in our walls; but it was warm May, and we
feared no cold. Shallow tin-pans,--milk-pans, I believe,--were furnished
to satisfy our request for ewer and basin. The windows had blinds of
paper-hanging; a common sort of window-blind at hotels, and in country
places. Before it was light, I was wakened by a strong cold breeze
blowing upon me; and at dawn, I found that the entire lower half of the
window was absent. A deer had leaped through it, a few weeks before; and
there had been no opportunity of mending it. But everything was clean;
everybody was obliging; the hostess was motherly; and the conclusion
that we came to in the morning was that we had all slept well, and were
ready for a second ramble in the cave.
We saw, this day, the Grotto and the Deserted Chamber. Few visitors
attempt the grotto, the entrance to it being in one part only a foot and
a half high. We were obliged, not only to go on hands and knees, but to
crawl lying flat. It is a sensation worth knowing, to feel oneself
imprisoned in the very heart of a mountain, miles from the sun-light,
and with no mode of escape but the imperceptible hole which a child
might block up in five minutes. Never was there a more magnificent
prison or sepulchre. Whether the singularity of our mode of access
magnified to our eyes the beauties we had thereby come into the midst
of, or whether Nature does work most _con amore_ in retired places, this
grotto seemed to us all by far the most beautiful part of the cave. The
dry sandy floor was pleasant to the tread, after the loose limestone;
the pillars were majestic; the freaks of nature most wild and elegant.
The air was so fresh and cool that, if only a Rosicrucian lamp could be
hung in this magnificent chamber, it would be the place of all others in
which to spend the sultry summer's day,--entering when the beauties of
the sunrise had given place to glare, and issuing forth at the rising of
the evening star.
On our way to the Deserted Chamber, we cut off half a mile by a descent
through a crevice, and a re-ascent by another. We were presently
startled by the apparition of two yellow stars, at what appeared an
immeasurable distance. In this cave, I was reminded, after a total
forgetfulness of many years, of the night-mare visitations of my
childhood; especially of the sense of infinite distance, which used to
terrify me indescribably. Here, too, the senses and the reason were
baulked. Those two yellow stars might have been worlds, many millions of
miles off in space, or,--what they were,--two shabby lamps, fifty yards
off. A new visitor had arrived; and the old man of the solitary house
had brought him down, in hopes of meeting our larger party. One of the
gentlemen presently slipped on the loose stones, and fell into a hole,
with his back against a sharp rock; and he seemed at first unable to
rise. This was the only misadventure we had; and it did not prove a
serious one. He was somewhat shaken and bruised, and rendered unwilling
to go with the rest to the Bottomless Pit: but there was no eventual
injury. He and I staid in the Deserted Chamber, while our companions
disappeared, one by one, through a crevice, on their way to the pit. The
dead silence, and the glimmer of our single lamp, were very striking;
and we were more disposed to look round upon the low-roofed apartment,
piled with stones as far as the eye could reach, than to talk. I tried
to swallow a piece of bread or cake, very like a shoe-sole, and
speculated upon these piles of stones;--by whose hand they were reared,
and how long ago. There is much cane--doubtless, once used for
fuel--scattered about the deeper recesses of the cave; and these stones
were evidently heaped up by human hands: and those not Indian. It is
supposed that this cave was made use of by that mysterious race which
existed before the Indians, and of which so many curious traces remain
in the middle States of the West; a race more civilized, to judge by the
works of their hands, than the Indians have ever been; but of which no
tradition remains.
Our party returned safe, and refreshed by a draught of water, better
worth having than my luncheon of bread. When we left the cave, our
guides insisted upon it that we had walked, this morning, ten or eleven
miles. I pronounced it four. Others of the party said seven; and the
point remains unsettled. We all agreed that it was twice as much as we
could have accomplished in the heat above ground; and perhaps the most
remarkable walk we had ever taken in our lives. Our hostess was with us
the whole time; and it was amusing to see in her the effect of custom.
She trod the mazes of this cave just as people do the walks of their own
garden.
The gush of sun-light pouring in at the mouth of the cave, green and
soft, as we emerged from the darkness, was exquisitely beautiful. So was
the foliage of the trees, after the rigid forms which had been printing
themselves upon our eye-sight for so many hours. As we sat at the
entrance, to accustom ourselves to the warm outward air, I saw, growing
high in the steep woods, the richest of kalmias, in full bloom. One of
the gentlemen ran to bring me some; and when it came, it was truly a
feast to the eye. How apt are we to look upon all things as made for us!
How many seasons has this kalmia bloomed?
We were truly sorry to bid farewell to our motherly hostess, and her
"smart" sons. Theirs is a singular mode of life; and it left nearly as
vivid an impression on our minds as their mighty neighbour, the cave. If
any of us should ever happen to be banished, and to have a home to seek,
I fancy we should look out for a plot of green sward, among flowering
kalmias, near the mouth of an enormous cave, with humming birds flitting
about it by day, and fire-flies and summer lightning by night.
In strong contrast in my mind with such a scene as this, stands a gay
encampment in the wilderness, at which I soon after arrived. The
watering places among the Virginia mountains are as new and striking a
spectacle as the United States can afford. The journeyings of those who
visit them are a perpetual succession of contrasts. I may as well give
the whole journey from Cincinnati to the eastern base of the
Alleghanies.
We left Cincinnati at noon on the 25th of June: as sultry a summer's day
as ever occurs on the Ohio. The glare was reflected from the water with
a blinding and scorching heat; and feather fans were whisking all day in
the ladies' cabin of our steam-boat. Hot as it was, I could not remain
in the shady cabin. The shores of the Ohio are so beautiful, that I
could not bear to lose a single glimpse between the hills. It is
holiday-travelling to have such a succession of pictures as I saw there
made to pass noiselessly before one's eyes. There were the children
running among the gigantic trees on the bank, to see the boat pass; the
girl with her milk-pail, half way up the hill; the horseman on the
ridge, or the wagoner with his ox-team pausing on the slope. Then there
was the flitting blue jay under the cool shadow of the banks; the
butterflies crossing the river in zig-zag flight; the terrapins (small
turtle) floundering in the water, with their pert little heads above the
surface; and the glancing fire-flies every night.
On the afternoon of this day, we were met by the storm which swept over
the whole country, and which will be remembered as having caused the
death of the son of Chief-Justice Marshall, at Baltimore, on his way to
his dying father. I watched, from the deck, the approach of the storm.
First, the sky, above the white clouds, was of a dark grey, which might
have been mistaken for the deep blue of twilight. Then a mass of black
clouds came hurrying up below the white. Then a flash escaped from out
of the upper grey, darting perpendicularly into the forest; and then
another, exploding like the four rays of a star. I saw the squall
coming in a dark line, straight across the river. Our boat was hurried
under the bank to await it. The burst was furious: a roaring gust, and a
flood of rain, which poured in under our cabin door, close shut as it
was. All was nearly as dark as night for a while, and all silent but the
elements. Then the day seemed to dawn again; but loud peals of thunder
lasted long, and the lightning was all abroad in the air. Faint flashes
now wandered by; and now a brilliant white zig-zag quivered across the
sky. One splendid violet-coloured shaft shot straight down into the
forest; and I saw a tall tree first blaze and then smoulder at the
touch. A noble horse floated by, dead and swollen. When we drew out into
the middle of the river, it was as if spring had come in at the heels of
the dog-days; all was so cool and calm.
The company on board were of the lowest class we ever happened to meet
with in our travels. They were obliging enough; as everybody is
throughout the country, as far as my experience goes; but otherwise they
were no fair specimens of American manners. One woman excited my
curiosity from the beginning; but I entertained a much more agreeable
feeling towards her when we parted, after several days' travelling in
company. Her first deed was to ask where we were going; and her next, to
take my book out of my lap, and examine it. Much of the rest of her time
was occupied in dressing her hair, which was, notwithstanding, almost as
rough as a negro's. She wore in her head a silver comb, another set with
brilliants, and a third, an enormous tortoiseshell, so stuck in, on one
side, as to remind the observer, irresistibly, of a unicorn. She pulled
down her hair in company, and put it up again, many times in a day,
whenever, as it seemed to me, she could not think of anything else to
be doing. Her young companion, meantime, sat rubbing her teeth with
dragon-root. The other cabin company seemed much of the same class. I
was dressing in my state room between four and five the next morning,
when an old lady, who was presently going ashore, burst in, and snatched
the one tumbler glass from my hand. She was probably as much amazed at
my having carried it out of sight as I was at her mode of recovering it.
I loved the early morning on the great rivers, and therefore rose at
dawn. I loved the first grey gleams that came from between the hills,
and the bright figures of people in white, (the men all in linen jackets
in hot weather,) on the banks. I loved to watch the river craft; the
fussy steamer making rapid way; the fairy canoe shooting silently
across; the flat-boat, with its wreath of blue smoke, stealing down in
the shadow of the banks, her navigators helping her along in the current
by catching at the branches as they passed: and the perilous looking
raft, with half-a-dozen people on it, under their canopy of green
boughs, their shapeless floor bending and walloping in the middle of the
stream. I loved the trees, looking as if they stood self-poised, their
roots were washed so bare. I loved the dwellings that stood behind their
screen, those on the eastern bank seeming fast asleep; those on the
western shore gay with the flickering shadows cast on them by the breezy
sunrise through the trees.
On passing Catletsburgh we bade adieu to glorious Kentucky. At that
point, our eyes rested on three sovereign States at one glance, Ohio,
Kentucky, and Virginia. We landed at Guyandot, and proceeded by stage
the next morning to Charleston, on the Kanawha river. The road, all the
way to the Springs, is marvellously good for so wild a part of the
country. The bridges over the streams are, some of them, prettily
finished; and the accommodations by the road side are above the average.
The scenery is beautiful the whole way. We were leaving the great
Western Valley; and the road offered a succession of ascents and levels.
There were many rivulets and small waterfalls; the brier-rose was in
full bloom along the ground; the road ran half way up the wooded hills,
so that there were basins of foliage underneath, the whole apparently
woven into so compact a mass by the wild vine, that it seemed as if one
might walk across the valley on the tree tops. The next day's dawn broke
over the salt works and coal pits, or rather caverns of coal, on the
hill sides. The corn was less tall and rich, the trees were less lofty,
and it was apparent that we were mounting to a higher region. It
occurred to me, in a careless kind of way, that we were now not very far
from the Hawk's Nest. Some ladies in the Guyandot Hotel had said to me,
"Be sure you see the Hawk's Nest." "What is that?" "A place that
travellers can see if they choose; the driver always stops a few minutes
to let them see the Hawk's Nest." I had never heard of it before, and I
never heard of it again. The world is fairly awakened to Niagara; but it
is still drowsy about two scenes which moved me--the one more than
Niagara, the other nearly as much; the platform at Pine Orchard House,
on the top of the Catshills, and the Hawk's Nest.
The last of the Kanawha River, as we bade adieu to it on the 28th of
June, was smooth and sweet, with its islets of rocks, and the pretty
bridge by which we crossed the Gauley, and entered upon the ascent above
New River. The Gauley and the New River join to make the Kanawha. The
ascent of the mountains above New River is trying to weak nerves. The
horses have to stop, here and there, to rest; and it appears that if
they were to back three steps, it would be death. The road, however, is
really broad, though it appears a mere ledge when the eye catches the
depth below, where the brown river is rushing and brawling in its rocky
bed. A passenger dropped his cap in the steepest part, and the driver
made no difficulty about stopping to let him recover it. What a depth it
was! like the dreamy visions of one's childhood of what winged
messengers may first learn of man's dwelling-place, when they light on a
mountain-top; like Satan's glimpses from the Mount of Soliloquy; like
any unusual or forbidden peep from above into the retirements of nature,
or the arrangements of man. On our left rose the blasted rocks which had
been compelled to yield us a passage; but their aspect was already
softened by the trails of crimson and green creepers which were
spreading over their front. The unmeasured pent-house of wild vine was
still below us on the right, with rich rhododendron blossoms bursting
through, and rock-plants shooting up from every ledge and crevice at the
edge of the precipice. After a long while, (I have nothing to say of
time or distance, for I thought of neither,) a turn in the road shut out
the whole from our sight. I leaned out of the stage, further and
further, to catch, as I supposed, a last glimpse of the tremendous
valley; and when I drew in again, it was with a feeling of deep grief
that such a scene was to be beheld by me no more. I saw a house, a
comfortable homestead, in this wild place, with its pasture and
corn-fields about it; and I longed to get out, and ask the people to let
me live with them.
In a few minutes the stage stopped. "If any of the passengers wish to go
to the Hawk's Nest ..." shouted the driver. He gave us ten minutes, and
pointed with his whip to a beaten path in the wood to the right. It
seems to me now that I was unaccountably cool and careless about it. I
was absorbed by what I had seen, or I might have known, from the
direction we were taking, that we were coming out above the river again.
We had not many yards to go. We issued suddenly from the covert of the
wood, upon a small platform of rock;--a Devil's Pulpit it would be
called, if its present name were not so much better;--a platform of
rock, springing from the mountain side, without any visible support, and
looking sheer down upon an angle of the roaring river, between eleven
and twelve hundred feet below. Nothing whatever intervenes. Spread out
beneath, shooting up around, are blue mountain peaks, extending in
boundless expanse. No one, I believe, could look down over the edge of
this airy shelf, but for the stunted pines which are fast rooted in it.
With each arm clasping a pine-stem, I looked over, and saw more, I
cannot but think, than the world has in reserve to show me.
It is said that this place was discovered by Chief Justice Marshall,
when, as a young man, he was surveying among the mountains. But how many
Indians knew it before? How did it strike the mysterious race who gave
place to the Indians? Perhaps one of these may have stood there to see
the summer storm careering below; to feel that his foothold was too
lofty to be shaken by the thunderpeals that burst beneath; to trace the
quiverings of the lightnings afar, while the heaven was clear above his
own head. Perhaps this was the stand chosen by the last Indian, from
which to cast his lingering glance upon the glorious regions from which
the white intruders were driving his race. If so, here he must have
pined and died, or hence he must have cast himself down. I cannot
conceive that from this spot any man could turn away, to go into exile.
But it cannot be that Marshall was more than the earliest of Saxon race
who discovered this place. Nature's thrones are not left to be first
mounted by men who can be made Chief Justices. We know not what races of
wild monarchs may have had them first.
We travelled the rest of the day through an Alpine region, still full of
beauty. The road is so new that the stopping places seemed to have no
names. The accommodations were wonderfully good. At eleven we reached a
place where we were allowed, not only to sup, but to lie down for two
hours; a similar mercy to that afforded us the night before. Those who
are impatient of fatigue should not attempt this method of reaching the
Virginia Springs, though they are much to be pitied if they adopt any
other. Our first re-entrance upon the world was at Lewisburg, at noon,
on the 29th. It appears to be a neat village. The militia were parading:
very respectable men, I do not doubt, but not much like soldiers. In a
quarter of an hour we were off for the White Sulphur Springs, nine miles
(of dusty road) from Lewisburg, and arrived there at half-past two, just
as the company were dispersing about the walks, after dinner.
Nothing could be more striking than the contrast between our stage-coach
society and that which was thronging the green area into which we were
driven. We were heated, wearied, shabby, and all of one dust colour,
from head to foot, and, I doubt not, looking very sheepish under the
general stare. Every body else was gay and spruce, and at full leisure
to criticise us. Gentlemen in the piazza in glossy coats and polished
pumps; ladies in pink, blue, and white, standing on green grass, shading
their delicate faces and gay head-dresses under parasols; never was
there a more astonishing contrast than all this presented with what we
had been seeing of late. The friends who were expecting us, however,
were not ashamed of us, and came bounding over the green to welcome us,
and carry us within reach of refreshment.
It was doubtful whether "a cabin" could be spared to us. We were
fortunate in being so favoured as to be put in possession of one in the
course of the afternoon. Several carriages full of visitors arrived
within a few days, each with its load of trunks, its tin pail dangling
behind (wherewith to water the horses in the wilderness) and its crowd
of expecting and anxious faces at the windows, and were turned back to
seek a resting-place elsewhere. That we were accommodated at all, I
believe to this day to be owing to some secret self-denying ordinance on
the part of our friends.
On one side of the green, are the large rooms, in which the company at
the Springs dine, play cards, and dance. Also, the bar-room, and stage,
post, and superintendent's offices. The cabins are disposed round the
other sides, and dropped down, in convenient situations behind. These
cabins consist of one, two, or more rooms, each containing a bed, a
table, a looking-glass, and two or three chairs. All company is received
in a room with a bed in it: there is no help for it. The better cabins
have a piazza in front; and all have a back door opening upon the hill
side; so that the attendants, and their domestic business, are kept out
of sight.
The sulphur fountain is in the middle of the southern end of the green;
and near it is the sulphur bathing-house. The fountain rises in the
midst of a small temple, which is surmounted by a statue of Hygeia,
presented to the establishment by a grateful visitor from New Orleans.
The water, pure and transparent, and far more agreeable to the eye than
to the taste, forms a pool in its octagon-shaped cistern; and hither
the visitors lounge, three times a day, to drink their two or three
half-pint tumblers of nauseousness.
I heard many complaints, from new-comers, of the drowsiness caused by
drinking the water. Some lay down to sleep more than once in the day;
and others apologised for their dulness in society; but this is only a
temporary effect, if one may judge by the activity visible on the green
from morning till night. One of the greatest amusements was to listen to
the variety of theories afloat about the properties and modes of
application of the waters.
These springs had been visited only about fifteen years. No
philosophising on cases appears to have been instituted: no recording,
classifying, inferring, and stating. The patients come from distances of
a thousand miles in every direction, with a great variety of complaints;
they grow better or do not; they go away, and nobody is the wiser for
their experience. It would be difficult to trace them, and to make a
record of anything more than their experience while on the spot. The
application of these waters will probably continue for a long time to be
purely empirical. All that is really known to the patients themselves
is, that they are first sleepy, then ravenous; that they must then leave
the White Sulphur Spring, and go to the Warm Springs, to be bathed; then
to the Sweet Springs, to be braced; and then home, to send all their
ailing friends into Virginia next year.
Upwards of two hundred visitors were accommodated when I was in the
White Sulphur Valley; and cabins were being built in all directions. The
valley, a deep basin among the mountains; presents such beauties to the
eye, as perhaps few watering-places in the world can boast. There has
been no time yet to lay them open, for the benefit of the invalids; but
there are plans for the formation of walks and drives through the woods,
and along the mountain sides. At present, all is wild, beyond the
precincts of the establishment; and, for the pleasure of the healthy,
for those who can mount, and ramble, and scramble, it seems a pity that
it should not remain so. The mocking-bird makes the woods ring with its
delicious song; and no hand has bridged the rapid streams. If you want
to cross them, you must throw in your own stepping-stones. If you desire
to be alone, you have only to proceed from the gate of the establishment
to the first turn in the road, force your way into the thicket, and look
abroad from your retreat upon as sweet and untouched a scene of mountain
and valley as the eye of the red man loves to rest upon. The gentlemen
who are not invalids go out shooting in the wilderness. A friend of mine
returned from such an expedition, the day after my arrival. He brought
home a deer; had been overtaken by a storm in the mountains, and had,
with his companions, made a house and a fire. Such amusements would
diversify the occupations of Bath and Cheltenham very agreeably.
The morning after our arrival, we were too weary to be roused by the
notice bell, which rings an hour before every meal; and we were ready
only just in time for the last bell. Breakfast is carried to the cabins,
if required; but every person who is able prefers breakfasting in
company. On rainy mornings, it is a curious sight to see the company
scudding across the green to the public-room, under umbrellas, and in
cloaks and india-rubber shoes. Very unlike the slow pace, under a
parasol, in a July sun.
There was less meat on the table at breakfast and tea than I was
accustomed to see. The bread and tea were good. For the other eatables
there is little to be said. It is a table spread in the wilderness; and
a provision of tender meat and juicy vegetables for two or three
hundred people is not to be had for the wishing. The dietary is sure to
be improved, from year to year; the most that is to be expected at
present is, that there should be enough for everybody. The sum paid for
board per week is eight dollars; and other charges may make the expenses
mount up to twelve. Pitchers of water and of milk may be seen, at every
meal, all down the tables; little or no wine.
The establishment is under the management of the proprietor, who has
been offered 500,000 dollars for it, that it may be conducted by a
company of share-holders, who would introduce the necessary
improvements. When I was there, the proprietor was still holding off
from this bargain, the company not being willing to continue to him the
superintendence of the concern. I hope that arrangements, satisfactory
to all parties, may have been made by this time. The average gross
receipts of a season were reported to be 50,000 dollars. It was added
that these might easily be doubled, if all were done that might be.
Rheumatism and liver complaints seemed the most common grievances. Two
little girls, perhaps four and five years old, sat opposite to me, who
were sufferers from rheumatism. But the visitors who came for pleasure
seemed to outnumber considerably those who came for health.
After breakfast, we sauntered about the green, and visited various new
acquaintances in their piazzas. Then we went home for our bonnets, and
rambled through the woods, till we were sent back by the rain, and took
shelter beside the fountain. The effect was strange of seeing there a
family of emigrants, parents and nine children, who were walking from
North Carolina into Illinois. There must have been twins among these
children, so many of them looked just alike. The contrast between this
group of way-worn travellers, stopping out of curiosity to taste the
waters, and the gay company among whom they very properly held up their
independent heads, was striking to a stranger.
We dined at two; and afterwards found that a fire would be comfortable,
though it was the last day of June. As many friends as our room would
hold came home with us, and sat on the bed, table, and the few chairs we
could muster, while one made the wood fire, and another bought
ice-creams, which a country lad brought to the door. These ice-creams
seemed to be thin custard, with a sprinkling of snow in it; but the boy
declared that they were ice-creams when he left home. When we had
finished our dessert, washed and returned the glasses, and joked and
talked till the new-comers of our party grew ashamed of their
drowsiness, we crossed the green to diversify the afternoon amusements
of certain of our friends. Some were romping with their dogs; some
reading books brought by themselves; (for there is no library yet;) some
playing at chess or backgammon; all deploring the rain.
After tea, we stormed the great scales, and our whole party were
individually weighed. It must be an interesting occupation to the
valetudinarians of the place to watch their own and each others' weight,
from day to day, or from week to week. For my part, I found my weight
just what it always has been, the few times in my life that I have
remembered to ascertain it. Such unenviable persons can never make a
pursuit of the scales, as others can whose gravity is more
discriminating.--From the scales, we adjourned to the ball-room, where I
met friends and acquaintances from Mobile and New Orleans; saw
new-comers from the Carolinas and Georgia; was introduced to personages
of note from Boston; recognized some whom I had known at Philadelphia;
and sat between two gentlemen who had fought a duel. There was music,
dancing, and refreshments; laughing and flirting here; grave
conversation there;--all the common characteristics of a ball, with the
added circumstances that almost every State in the Union was here
represented; and that we were gathered together in the heart of the
mountains.
One more visit remained to be paid this day. We had promised to look in
upon some friends who were not at the ball, in order to try the charms
and virtues of egg-nogg, which had been lauded to us by an eminent
statesman, who has had opportunity, during his diplomatic missions, to
learn what there is best in this world. The egg-nogg having been duly
enjoyed, we at length went home, to write letters as long as we could
hold up our heads, after so extremely busy a day:--a day which may be
considered a fair specimen of life at the White Sulphur Springs.
One of the personages whom I referred to as low company, at the
beginning of my story, declared himself in the stage-coach to be a
gambler, about to visit the Springs for professional purposes. He said
to another man, who looked fit company for him, that he played higher at
faro than any man in the country but one. These two men slept while we
were mounting to the Hawk's Nest. People who pursue their profession by
night, as such people do, must sleep in the day, happen what may. They
were rather self-important during the journey; it was a comfort to see
how poor a figure they cut at the Springs. They seemed to sink into the
deepest insignificance that could be desired. Such persons are the pests
of society in the south and west; and they are apt to boast that their
profession is highly profitable in the eastern cities. I fear this is no
empty vaunt.
We left the White Sulphur Springs, a party of six, in "an extra
exclusive return stage," and with two saddle horses. Nothing could be
more promising. The stage was perfectly new, having been used only to
bring General C---- and his lady from Philadelphia to the Springs. We
had a shrewd and agreeable Yankee driver, for the whole way. The weather
was as fine as July weather ought to be; and as cool as is its wont near
the tops of mountains: the very weather for the saddle, or for having
the stage open on all sides; or for walking. The alternations were
frequently tried. Roses and mountain laurels adorned our road; the
breezy woods cast their shadows over us; and we remembered what waters
were springing beneath us;--that we were passing over the sources of the
mighty rivers of the West, which we had lately navigated with deep awe
and delight. The few dwellings we passed were almost all houses of
entertainment; but nothing could be more quiet than their air, nestling
as they did in the most enviable situations, and resembling more the
lodges in the avenues of the parks of English gentry than the hotels of
the high road.
We reached the Sweet Springs, twelve miles, I believe, from the White
Sulphur, at half-past two. We were as hungry as mountain travellers
should be, and dinner was over. However, we were soon set down to hot
stewed venison, beet, hominy, ham, and fruit pies; and, thus reinforced,
we issued forth to examine the place. The spring at the bathhouse looked
so tempting, that I resolved to bathe at sun-down, which, in this
valley, would be at five o'clock. The establishment here is inferior to
the one we had left. The green was not paled in; the cabins were more
shabby; the dining-room smaller. We had it almost to ourselves. The
season had not begun, few having been yet sufficiently sulphured and
bathed elsewhere to come here to be braced. The water is a little warm;
it has a slight briskness; and bubbles up prettily in its well under the
piazza. The luxury is to have nothing to do with its disagreeable taste,
but to bathe in it, as it gushes, tepid, from its spout. It would be
worth while, if there were nothing but trouble in crossing the mountains
to get to it. The Sweet Springs lie in one of the highest valleys of the
Alleghanies, and one of the fairest. Five times that afternoon did I
climb the steep breezy slope behind our cabin, bringing first one of our
party, then another, to look abroad; and then returning to enjoy the
sun-set alone. The crowds of blue peaks, the bright clearings, the
clumps of forest trees, lilac in the sunset with the shepherds lying in
their shadow, and the sheep grazing on the sunny slopes, the cluster of
cabins below, with their thin smokes rising straight into the golden
air,--the whole looked as if the near heavens had opened to let down a
gush of their inner light upon this high region. Never shall I forget
those tufty purple hills. Cold twilight came on; and we sat round a
blazing wood fire, telling ghost and murder stories till we could have
declared it was a Christmas night.
At supper, I observed a hale, brisk, intellectual-looking gentleman who
satisfied himself with a basin of liquid; as he did at breakfast the
next morning; and as he may be seen to do at every meal he takes. He
told us his story. Twenty years before, he nearly closed his oesophagus
by taking too powerful an emetic. For twenty years, he has had no
illness; he rises at dawn all the year round, and has never been known
to be low-spirited for two minutes. We all began to think of living upon
liquids; but I have not heard of any of the party having proceeded
beyond the suggestion.
We rose at five, the next morning, having thirty mountain miles to go
during the day, with the same horses. It must not be supposed that this
mountain travelling is scrambling among craggy peaks, piercing through
dark defiles, and so forth. The roads wind so gently among the slopes,
that a sleeping or blind traveller would not discover that the carriage
was not, for the greater part of the time, proceeding on level ground.
Woody slopes at hand, and a crowd of blue summits afar, are the most
characteristic features of the scenery. A white speck of a house, on its
tiny green clearing, comes into sight, high up among the hills, from a
turn in the road, and the traveller says to himself, "What a perch to
live on!" In two hours, he stops at that very house to dine, not being
aware how he has got up to it, and looking round with wonder on the snug
comforts of the homestead.
Our thirty miles of this day were delicious. Having breakfasted, we bade
adieu, at half-past six, to the Sweet Springs, steaming in the bitter
cold morning air, and followed a gentleman of our party who had
proceeded on foot to the top of the first ridge. There we found him,
sitting under a tree, having succeeded in warming himself by the walk.
Up the second ridge, the whole party walked, I having started off, ahead
of the rest. It was warm, and I stopped, here and there, to rest and
gather wild flowers. The rhododendrons and kalmias grew in profusion;
and there were plenty of roses, the fine orange columbine of the hills,
vetches, and a few splendid scarlet lilies. The peeps down into abysses
of foliage were glorious; and, yet more, the cloudlike expanse of
mountain tops, growing bluer and fainter till they faded quite away. A
steep road on an opposite mountain was the only sign of humanity being
near. On the summit, however, there was a small farm. In it lived an
elderly woman, who had never been further from the spot than eight
miles. If she was born to travel no further than eight miles, no better
dwelling place could have been assigned her; for hence she sees more at
a glance, any sunset, than some, with all means of locomotion, have ever
beheld.
It was a strange feeling, the beginning to descend. It was strange to
cross, soon after, the path of the tornado. I had seen something of its
ravages before, on the banks of the Cumberland river: the stoutest
forest-trees wrenched and twisted, like red-hot iron in the vice of the
blacksmith; and snapped off, all at the same height; so that the forest
looked like a gigantic scorched stubble-field. Here, a similar
desolation was seen in immediate contrast with the rich fertility of the
little valley beneath. The hurricane had seared a path for itself up the
mountain side, passing over the lowly roofs in the depths. We arrived to
dinner at a house on Barber Creek, where we entreated to be fed without
delay, on anything whatsoever that was eatable; as time was precious,
this day. Yet were we kept waiting two hours and a half. I found much to
do by the creek side watching the minnows making their way up against
the current; watching two girls who had set up their washing
establishment in pretty style under a tree beside the water; their wood
fire, black cauldron, and stand of tubs; while the bushes stood round
about to be used as drying horses. I also actually saw a hog voluntarily
walk three times through the clear water; and the delay of the dinner
afforded time for speculation whether the race was not improving. When
the dinner was on the table, no one of us could tell what it consisted
of. The dish from which I ate was, according to some, mutton; to others,
pork: my own idea is that it was dog. Whatever it was, it was at last
done with, and paid for, and I was in my saddle, listening to the creek
as it rattled under the grey rocks. Having crossed one mountain top on
foot, in the morning, I was about to pass another on my horse this
afternoon. There is no describing what it is to be pacing upwards, on
the extreme edge of the steep road, with one's feet hanging over the
green abyss; the shadowy mountains retreating, advancing, interlacing,
opening, to disclose a low far-off bit of meadow, with a diminutive
dwelling, quiet as a lonely star. What blessed work road-making must be
in such places! It was with no little pleasure that, after fourteen
miles from Barber Creek, I saw a fine house on an eminence; and then the
town of Fincastle, spread out below us, on some rising grounds.
The scenes of the day left me little disposed for sociability in the
evening. We were kept waiting long for supper, by the arrival of a party
of New Yorkers; to avoid an introduction to whom, some of us pretended
to read, and some to be asleep, while others did our duty, talk. The
night closed in worthily. From the balcony of my chamber, I saw how
modestly the young moon eyed with me the region which will be spread
before her for ever, but which I was looking back upon for the last
time.
Here I must break off; and, instead of adding another description of the
Natural Bridge to the hundred which exist, bring into contrast with life
at the Virginia Springs, life in a New England farm-house.
Nothing can he quieter or more refreshing, after a winter's visiting at
Boston or New York, than such an abode in a country village as I made
trial of last May. The weeks slipped away only too fast. Dr. and Mrs.
F., their little boy, six years old, and myself, were fortunate enough
to prevail with a farmer's widow at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, to take
us into her house. The house was conspicuous from almost every part of
the sweet valley into which it looked; the valley of the Housatonic. It
was at the top of a steep hill; a sort of air palace. From our parlour
windows we could see all that went on in the village; and I often found
it difficult to take off my attention from this kind of spying. It was
tempting to trace the horseman's progress along the road, which wound
among the meadows, and over the bridge. It was tempting to watch the
neighbours going in and out, and the children playing in the courts, or
under the tall elms; all the people looking as small and busy as ants
upon a hillock. On week-days there was the ox-team in the field; and on
Sundays the gathering at the church-door. The larger of the two churches
stood in the middle of a green, with stalls behind it for the horses and
vehicles which brought the churchgoers from a distance. It was a pretty
sight to see them converging from every point in the valley, so that the
scene was all alive; and then disappear for the space of an hour and a
half, as if an earthquake had swallowed up all life; and then pour out
from the church door, and, after grouping on the green for a few
minutes, betake themselves homewards. Monument Mountain reared itself
opposite to us, with its thick woods, and here and there a grey crag
protruding. Other mountains closed in the valley, one of which treated
us for some nights with the spectacle of a spreading fire in its woods.
From the bases of these hills, up to our very door-step, there was one
bright carpet of green. Everything, houses, trees, churches, were
planted down into this green, so that there was no interruption but the
one road, and the blue mazy Housatonic. The softness of the scene, early
in a May morning, or when the sun was withdrawing, could not be
surpassed by anything seen under a Greek or Italian sky. Sometimes I
could scarcely believe it real: it looked air-painted, cloud-moulded.
It was as a favour that the widow Jones[8] took us in. She does not let
lodgings. She opened her house to us, and made us a part of her family.
Two of her daughters were at home, and a married son lived at hand. We
had a parlour, with three windows, commanding different views of the
valley: two good-sized chambers, conveniently furnished, and a large
closet between; our board with the family, and every convenience that
could be provided: and all for two dollars per week each, and half price
for the child. She was advised to ask more, but she refused, as she did
not wish to be "grasping." It was a merry afternoon when we followed the
wagon up the hill to our new abode, and unpacked, and settled ourselves
for our long-expected month of May. Never was unpacking a pleasanter
task.
The blossomy cherry-tree beside my chamber window was the first object I
saw in the morning when I threw up the sash; and beneath it was a broad
fallow, over which the blue jay flitted. By this window there was an
easy chair and a light table, a most luxurious arrangement for reading.
We breakfasted at half-past seven on excellent bread, potatoes, hung
beef, eggs, and strong tea. We admitted no visitors during the forenoon,
as our theory was that we were very busy people. Writing and reading did
occupy much of our time, but it was surprising how much was left for the
exercise of our tongues. Then there were visits to be made to the
post-office, and the crockery store, and the cobbler; and Charley found
occasion to burst in, a dozen times a-day, with a bunch of violets, or
news of the horse or cow, or of the ride he had had, or of the oxen in
the field.
We all dined together at two. One of the daughters absented herself at
breakfast, that she might arrange our rooms; but both were present at
dinner, dressed, and ready for their afternoon's occupation of working
and reading. One was fond of flowers, and had learned a great deal about
them. She was skilful in drying them, and could direct us to the places
in the woods and meadows where they grew. Some members of the family,
more literary than the rest, were gone westward; but there was a taste
for books among them all. I often saw a volume on the table of the
widow's parlour, with her spectacles in it. She told me, one day, of her
satisfaction in her children, that they were given to good pursuits, and
all received church members. All young people in these villages are more
or less instructed. Schooling is considered a necessary of life. I
happened to be looking over an old almanack one day, when I found, among
the directions relating to the preparations for winter on a farm, the
following: "Secure your cellars from frost. Fasten loose clap-boards and
shingles. Secure a good school-master." It seemed doubtful, at the first
glance, whether some new farming utensil had not been thus whimsically
named; as the brass plate which hooks upon the fender, or upper bar of
the grate, is called "the footman;" but the context clearly showed that
a man with learning in his head was the article required to be provided
before the winter. The only respect, as far as I know, in which we made
our kind hostess uneasy, was in our neglect of Charley's book-studies.
Charley's little head was full of knowledge of other kinds; but the
widow's children had all known more of the produce of the press at his
age than he; and she had a few anxious thoughts about him.
In the afternoon we rambled abroad, if the weather was fine; if rainy,
we lighted our wood fire, and pursued our employments of the morning,
not uncheered by a parting gleam from the west; a bar of bright yellow
sky above the hill tops, or a gush of golden light burnishing the dewy
valley at the last. Our walks were along the hill road to the lake, on
the way to Lenox, or through the farmyard and wood to a tumbling brook
in a small ravine. We tried all manner of experiments with moss, stones,
and twigs, among its sunny and shadowy reaches, and tiny falls. We
hunted up marsh flowers, wood anemones, and violets, and unfolded the
delicate ferns, still closely buttoned up, and waiting for the full
power of the summer sun. It was some trouble to me, in America, that I
could not get opportunity to walk so much as I think necessary to
health. It is not the custom there: partly owing to the climate, the
extreme heat of summer, and cold of winter; and partly to the absence of
convenient and pretty walks in and about the cities; a want which, I
trust, will be supplied in time. In Stockbridge much pedestrian exercise
may be and is accomplished; and I took the opportunity of indulging in
it, much to the surprise of some persons, who were not aware how English
ladies can walk. One very warm afternoon, we were going on a visit to
Lenox, five miles off. My friends went in a wagon; I preferred walking.
The widow's son watched me along the road, and then remarked, "You will
see no more of her till you get to Lenox. I would not walk off at that
rate, if they gave me Lenox when I got there."
In the evenings, we made a descent upon the village, or the village came
up to us. In the latter case, our hostess was always ready with a simple
and graceful welcome, and her best endeavours to provide seats for our
many friends. If we staid below till after nine, the family had gone to
rest on our return. We had only to lift the latch, light our candles,
and make our way to the milk-pans, if we were thirsty. For twenty-five
years, the widow has lived on the top of her hill, with only a latch to
her door. She sleeps undefended, for she has no enemies; and in her
village there are no thieves.
One night, when we were visiting some friends in the valley, it was
brought home to us what it is to live in a place where there are no
hackney coaches, or other travelling shelter. When we should have been
going home, it was a tremendous spring-storm; wind, thunder and
lightning, and rain in floods. We waited long; but it seemed to have no
intention of abating. When at length we did set out, we were a
remarkable looking troop; a gentlemanly young lawyer in a pea jacket;
the other gentlemen in the roughest coats that could be found; the
ladies leaving bonnets and caps behind, with handkerchiefs over their
heads, India-rubbers on their feet, their dresses tucked up, and cloaks
swathed round them. Our party were speeded up the hill by the fear that
Charley would be wakened and alarmed by the storm; but it was a
breathless sort of novelty to be working our way through one continued
pond to the foot of the hill, and then up the slippery ascent,
unbonneted, with the strangling gust in our faces, and no possibility of
our finding our way in the pitchy darkness but by the flashes of blue
lightning. Well clad as we were, we felt, I believe, something like
being paupers, or gentry of the highway, or some such houseless
personages exposed to the pelting of the pitiless storm. Charley was
found to be sound asleep, and we ourselves no worse off than being
steeped over the ankles.
The time came too soon when I must leave the beloved village, when I
must see no longer the morning baking and the evening milking; and the
soap cauldron boiling in the open air behind the house, with Charley
mounted on a log, peeping into it; and the reading and working, and
tying up of flowers in the afternoon. The time was come when the
motherly and sisterly kiss were ready for me, and my country life in New
England was at an end. It is well for us that our best pleasures have an
immortality like our own; that the unseen life is a glorification of the
seen. But for this, no one with a human heart would travel abroad, and
attach himself to scenes and persons which he cannot but love, but which
he must leave.
It was not always that the villagers of New England could place
themselves on hill tops, and leave their doors unfastened. There is a
striking contrast between their present security and the fears of their
forefathers, in the days when the nursling went to church, because it
was unsafe at home, in the absence of its father. Father, mother, and
children, all went on one horse to meet the total population within the
walls of the church; the one parent armed, the other prying about for
traces of the fearful red man. Those were the days when the English
regicides had fled to the colonies, and were there secreted. Those were
the days when anything that was to be made known to all was announced in
church, because everybody was sure to be there; and a fast-day was
ordained if anything very remarkable was to be done, or conveyed.
Sometimes formal announcements were made; sometimes intimations were so
interwoven with the texture of the discourse, as that unfriendly ears,
if such should be present, should not apprehend the meaning. When any
emissary of Charles the Second was prowling in search of a concealed
regicide, the pastor preached from some such text as, "Hide the
outcasts. Bewray not him that wandereth;"[9] and the flock understood
that they were to be on their guard against spies. Charles the Second
could never get hold of one of his enemies who had taken refuge in these
colonies.
On looking abroad over the valley of the Connecticut, from the top of
Mount Holyoke, I saw the village of Hadley, seated in the meadows, and
extending across a promontory, formed by the winding of the river. This
promontory afforded a secure grazing ground for the cattle by day, which
were driven by night into the area of the village, where the church
stood. Goffe, the regicide, was concealed for many years in the
parsonage at Hadley; all the people in the village, except two or three,
being, in this instance, unaware of an outcast being among them. One
Sunday, the Indians attacked the village while the people were all in
church. The women and children were left in the church, while their
husbands, fathers, and brothers went out to do battle with the cruel
foe. It went hard with the whites; the Indians were fast bearing them
down, when an unknown figure appeared in their ranks, with flowing
robes, streaming white hair, and a glittering sword. The cry was raised
that the angel Gabriel had been sent in answer to the prayers of the
women in the church. Every spirit was cheered, every arm was nerved, and
the Indians were beaten off, with great slaughter. Upon this, Gabriel
vanished; but tradition long preserved the memory of his miraculous
appearance. The very few who recognized in him Goffe, with his undressed
hair, and in his morning gown, kept the secret faithfully. How blessed a
change has come over rural life in Massachusetts since those days! Never
may its peace and security be invaded by those social abuses which are
more hateful than foreign spies; more cruel and treacherous than the
injured and exasperated red man of the wilderness!
The contrast is also striking between the country life of New England
and that of the west. I staid for some weeks in the house of a wealthy
land-owner in Kentucky. Our days were passed in great luxury; and some
of hottest of them very idly. The house was in the midst of grounds, gay
with verdure and flowers, in the opening month of June; and our
favourite seats were the steps of the hall, and chairs under the trees.
From thence we could watch the play of the children on the grass-plat,
and some of the drolleries of the little negroes. The red bird and the
blue bird flew close by; and the black and white woodpecker with crimson
head, tapped at all the tree-trunks, as if we were no interruption. We
relished the table fare, after that with which we had been obliged to
content ourselves on board the steam-boats. The tender meat, fresh
vegetables, good claret and champagne, with the daily piles of
strawberries and towers of ice-cream, were welcome luxuries. There were
thirty-three horses in the stables, and we roved about the neighbouring
country accordingly. There was more literature at hand than time to
profit by it. Books could be had at home; but not the woods of
Kentucky;--clear, sunny woods, with maple and sycamore springing up to a
height which makes man feel dwarfish. The glades, with their turf so
clean, every fallen leaf having been absorbed, reminded me of Ivanhoe, I
almost looked for Gurth in my rambles. All this was, not many years ago,
one vast canebrake, with a multitude of buffalo and deer: the pea-vine
spreading everywhere, and the fertility far greater than even now.
One morning I took a lesson in rifle-shooting; the gentlemen having
brought out their weapons for a few hours' sport among the squirrels. A
rifle does not bounce like a musket, and affords, therefore, an easy
beginning. I took aim at twenty-five paces, and hitting within an inch,
thought it best to leave off with credit. A child of eighteen months
stood in the middle of the gravel-walk, very composedly, while the
rifles were popping off; and his elder brothers were busy examining the
shots. Children seem born to their future pursuits, in new countries.
Negro children seem all born riders and drivers. It was an amusement to
see little children that in England could not hold themselves on a large
horse, playing pranks with a whole equipage that they were leading to
water.
In the afternoon of this day we took a long drive in search of buffalo;
the only herd of those hideous animals now to be seen in Kentucky. None
of the family liked to be left behind, so we filled the barouche and the
phaeton, and Master H., eight years old, in his garden costume, mounted
the mare, whose foal could not be induced to remain at home, and
frolicked beside us all the way. We rattled on through lanes, over open
ground above a pond, beneath locust groves, and beechen shades, seeing
herds of mules, and the finest of cattle within the verge of the woods.
The mules are raised for exportation to the fields of Louisiana. Then we
reached the hill-side where eight buffalo were grazing, four of the pure
and four of a mixed breed. The creatures stood looking at us as if they
had been turned into stone at the sight of us. Their sidelong gaze, as
they stood motionless beside a stump, or beneath a tree, was horrid. I
never saw an eye and attitude of which I should be so much afraid. As
they appeared to have no intention of moving a hair of their tails or
huge necks while we halted, a little slave, named Oliver, was sent up
the hill to put them in motion; there being no danger whatever in the
operation. Oliver disappeared, and no result of his exertions was
visible. When the buffalo and we had mutually stared for another five
minutes, Oliver's master called to him to know what he was about. He
replied that the buffalo looked too hard at him. At last, however, he
went near enough to put them in motion; and then they moved all at once,
each seeming more clumsy than the others in its headlong run. I am glad
to have seen buffalo, but there is nothing to be said for their beauty
or grace.
In the evening we repaired to the cool grass-plat, to amuse ourselves
with the pretty sport of trying which should find out the first star. It
was then ascertained that two gentlemen present were well qualified to
entertain us with stories of horrible western murders,--more fearful
than any other murders. So we sat till late at night, amidst summer
lightning and the glancing of fire-flies, listening to the most
harrowing and chilling set of tales of human misdeeds and their
retributions, that it ever was my fortune to listen to. The Christmas
firesides of England yield no impressions of horror like the plain facts
of a life in the wilderness, told under the trees, in a sultry night,
while the pale lightning is exploding on the horizon.
We had tidings of a camp-meeting to be held at some distance, the next
day. I had never seen a camp-meeting; but the notice was too short, and
the distance too great, and I missed the chance.
One of the slaves of a neighbouring gentleman came and asked his master
what he would give him for two bee-holes. "You are a pretty fellow,"
said his master, "to ask me to pay for my own trees." The negro urged
that his master would never have found out the bee-holes for himself;
which was very true. He was referred to his mistress; and it was finally
arranged that three of us English strangers should see the felling of a
bee-tree; a spectacle we had all heard of, but not seen. A large party
dined at this gentleman's house; and, presently after dinner, all set
out in carriages, or on horseback, for the spot in the woods where the
bee-tree stood. It was a shabby black walnut, which seemed scarcely fit
company for the noble array of trees around it. It was of so respectable
a circumference near the ground, however, and the negroes were making
such slow progress into its interior, that it was plain we should have
time for a drive in the woods before the catastrophe; so my host mounted
the box of our barouche, and we wound hither and thither under the
trees, over the rich grass; and, seldom having to stoop to avoid the
branches, catching bright glimpses of a hundred glades. It was a full
hour before the tree fell. We arrived just when it was chopped into the
middle, and some minutes before the event. It is a pretty sight to see
the top branches of the falling glory quiver, its canopy shake, and its
huge bulk come crashing down, while everybody runs away at the shout
which tells that it is coming. This tree fell on the wrong side, and
destroyed several yards of fence, snapping the stakes, and setting them
flying in all directions.
Straw and sulphur were burned in the hollow of the trunk. A few little
startled bees flew out, and wreaked their vengeance on our host and
myself; but most of them perished very quietly. I was asked whether I
should like to look into the cleft; and when I was stepping over the
bristling branches for the purpose, a bough was put into my hand, with
directions to wave it before me. I returned, stung, but having seen what
I wanted; and then I was told that if I had not waved a bough, I should
have escaped the bees. Mine was the common fate of persons who follow
unasked advice. Our host capered among the trees, with a bee or two
under his cravat and hair. It was impossible to help laughing. A stout
gentleman of the party did the same, under the mere idea of bees being
upon him; and, while tossing his head and arms about, he ran up, with a
great shock, against his own horse; on which sat a little negro,
grinning from ear to ear. The result of the whole was,--half a tumbler
glass full of blackened honey, and the high gratification of the
spectators, native and foreign, unharmed and stung.
Such is a fair specimen of our life in the West. Contrasts rise up
before my mind's eye, as the scenes of my journeying present themselves;
contrasts in the face of the country, as striking as in the modes of
living.
When I was at Salem, in Massachusetts, the friends whose hospitality I
was enjoying proposed an excursion to Cape Ann, (the northern point of
Massachusetts' bay,) and round the peninsula which constitutes the
township of Gloucester. This excursion impressed me strongly, from the
peculiar character of the scenery: but I know not whether it is an
impression which can be conveyed by description. Whether it be or not, I
would recommend all strangers to go and visit this peninsula; and, if
convenient, in fine autumn weather, when the atmosphere lends its best
aid to the characteristic charms of the landscape.
It was the 19th of October, a foggy morning, when we mounted the
carry-all,--a carriage which holds four,--and drove merrily out of
Salem, upon a carpet of fallen leaves. I love streets that have trees in
them; Summer Street in Boston; State Street in Albany; and Chesnut
Street in Salem. We passed through Beverley, where, as in most of the
small New England towns, the population has a character of its own. At
Marblehead, on the bay, near Salem, the people are noisy, restless,
high-spirited, and democratic. At Beverley, in the near neighbourhood,
they are quiet, economical, sober, and whig. Such, at least, is the
theory: and one fact in this connexion is, that the largest sums in the
Boston savings' banks are from Beverley. We passed over a long
bridge,--a respectable toll-bridge. The Americans are not fond of tolls
of above a certain age,--for fear of monopoly. There is a small bridge,
called Spite Bridge, because it spites the Beverley toll, which is much
used in preference. Seven miles further is Manchester;--how unlike the
English Manchester! A mere with pond-lilies! woods with the glorious
magnolia flourishing in the midst! This is the only place in New England
where the magnolia grows. In summer, parties are formed to visit the
woods; and children make much money as guides and gatherers.
Cabinet-making is the great business of the place. We saw logs of
mahogany lying outside the houses; and much furniture in pieces standing
up against the walls, ready to be packed for New Orleans. The furniture
of the southern cities is almost entirely derived from this
neighbourhood. One manufacturer, who makes the furniture here, and sells
it from his warehouse at New Orleans, has an income of 150,000 dollars.
The inhabitants of Manchester are very prosperous. The houses were all
good, except, here and there, the abode of a drunkard, known by its
unpainted walls, loose shingles, broken shutters, and decayed door-step,
in striking contrast with the neat white or yellow painted houses of the
neighbours, with their bright windows, and spruce Venetian blinds.
Seven miles further, stands Gloucester; the road to it winding among
wooded rocks; sometimes close down to the shore; and sometimes
overhanging the rippling waters of Massachusetts Bay. The gay autumn
copses harmonized well with the grey granite, out of which they seemed
to grow; and with the pearly sea, sinning out from beneath the
dissolving mist.
We crossed a little canal which opens into the bay, near Gloucester; and
hastened onto the most interesting ground we had to traverse, stopping
only a few minutes at Gloucester, to consult a map which indicated
almost every rock and house in the peninsula.
The population of the peninsula is homogeneous. There is probably no
individual beyond Gloucester whose parentage may not be referred to a
particular set of people, at a particular date in English history. It
has great wealth of granite and fish. It is composed of granite; and
almost its only visitors are fish.
It is a singular region. If a little orchard plot is seen, here and
there it seems rescued by some chance from being grown over with
granite. It was pleasant to see such a hollow, with its apple tree, the
ladder reared against it, the basket beneath, and the children picking
up the fallen fruit. The houses look as if they were squeezed in among
the rocks. The granite rises straight behind a house, encroaches on each
side, and overhangs the roof, leaving space only for a sprinkling of
grass about the door, for a red shrub or two to wave from a crevice, and
a drip of water to flow down among gay weeds. Room for these dwellings
is obtained by blasting the rocks. Formerly, people were frightened at
fragments falling through the roof after a blasting: but now, it has
become too common an occurrence to alarm any body. One precaution is
enforced: no one is allowed to keep more than twenty-eight pounds of
powder in one town or village; and the powder-houses may be seen,
insulated on rocks, and looking something like watch-boxes, at some
distance from every settlement. The school-houses are also remarkable
buildings. The school-house may always be known at a glance: a single
square room, generally painted white or pale green, and reared on a
grassy eminence, with a number of small heads to be seen through the
windows, or little people gathered about the door. There are twenty-one
school-houses in this township of Gloucester, the population of which is
nine thousand.
We dined at Sandy Bay, in a neat little hotel, whose windows bloomed
with chrysanthemums, nasturtium, and geraniums; and where we feasted on
chowder, an excellent dish when well cooked. It consists of fish, (in
this instance haddock,) stewed in milk, with potatoes. The parlour table
was graced with a fair collection of books; as was almost every parlour
I saw, throughout the country. Sandy Bay is a thriving place. It has a
pretty, and very conspicuous church, and a breakwater, built by the
people, at an expense of 40,000 dollars, but now too small for their
purposes. The Atlantic rolls in upon their coast fiercely in winter: and
the utility of a harbour hereabouts for all vessels, is a sufficient
ground for an application to Congress for an appropriation of 100,000
dollars, to make a larger breakwater. If the application has succeeded,
Sandy Bay will soon be an important place. While dinner was preparing,
we went down to the little harbour, and saw the dancing fishing-vessels,
the ranges and piles of mackarel barrels, and an immense display of the
fish drying. The mackarel fishery begins in June, and continues almost
through the year. There are three orders of mackarel, to which the
unfortunate individuals which are detained in their summer excursion
are assigned, according to their plumpness; one dollar per barrel being
the superiority of price of one over another.
After dinner, we proceeded on our travels, first visiting Cape Ann, the
extreme north end of Massachusetts Bay. We had the bay before us, and
the great Atlantic on our left. We ought to have seen Boston; but the
fog had not quite cleared away in the distance. Thatcher's Island was
near, with its two lighthouses, and a bright, green sea playing about
it. Then we turned and drove northward along the shore, with busy and
most picturesque quarries to our left. There were tall poles in the
quarries, with stretched ropes, the pulleys by which the blocks of stone
were raised: there were ox-teams and sleds: there were groups of workmen
in the recesses of the rocks, and beside the teams, and about the little
bays and creeks, where graceful sloops were riding under the lee of tiny
breakwaters, where the embarkation of the stone for foreign parts goes
on. Blocks of granite lay by the road-side, marked, either in reference
to its quality, if for sale; or to its proportion among the materials
which are being prepared to order for some great building in New York,
or Mobile, or New Orleans. Some may wonder how granite should be exposed
for sale in such a district; and who would be likely to buy it. I saw,
this afternoon, gate-posts, corner-posts, and foundations of common
houses, of undressed granite; and, also, an entire house, the abode of
the blacksmith. The friend who sat beside me told me that he hoped to
see many more such mechanics' dwellings before he dies. Stone becomes
cheaper, and wood dearer, continually; and there is no question which is
the more desirable material for those who can afford it. With regard to
beauty merely, I know of no building material to equal granite; dressed
in the city; undressed in the country. We went into a quarry, and saw an
untold wealth of fissured stone. The workmen contrive to pursue their
business even in the winter. When the snow is on the ground, and the
process of drilling is stopped, they remove ordinary pieces out of the
way, and make all clear for their spring labours. They "turn out"
250,000 dollars'-worth a-year; and the demand is perpetually on the
increase.
Along the north side of the peninsula the road was very pretty. The
grey, distant coast of New Hampshire bounded the sea view. Groups of
children were playing on the sands of a deep cove; and the farmers were
collecting or spreading their manure of sea-weed and fish-heads. Squam
river, which forms the peninsula, flowed out into the sea, and the
village of Annisquam spread along its bank. We crossed the bridge, close
by the only tide mill I ever saw. It works for six hours, and stops for
six, while the flow of the tide fills the pond above. The gates are then
shut, and a water-power is obtained till the tide again flows.
We saw what we could of Gloucester, on our return to that little town,
before sunset. There are some very good houses, newly-built; and the
place has the air of prosperity that gladdens the eye wherever it turns,
in New England. We ran down to the shore. It is overlooked by a
windmill, from whose grassy platform we beheld the scene in the singular
light which here succeeds an autumn sunset. The sky and sea were,
without exaggeration, of a deep scarlet: Ten Pound Island sat black upon
the waters, with its yellow beacon just lighted. Fishing vessels lay
still, every rope being reflected in the red mirror; and a boat, in
which a boy was sculling across the harbour, was the only moving object.