From my long silence of late, you will no doubt have deemed me out of
the _civil_ and perhaps out of the _whole world_.
I have, to be sure, been a great deal of the time _out of the limits_
of one and, at times, nearly _out of_ the other. Yet I am _living_,
and hold in my possession a number of epistles which passing events
had dictated, but which I neglected to transmit at the proper season.
In my headlong transit through the Southern tribes of Indians, I have
“_popped out_” of the woods upon this glowing land, and I cannot
forego the pleasure of letting you into a few of the secrets of this
delightful place.
“_Flos—floris_,” &c. every body knows the meaning of; and _Florida_,
in Spanish, is a country of flowers.—_Perdido_ is _perdition_, and Rio
Perdido, _River_ of _Perdition_. Looking down its perpendicular banks
into its black water, its depth would seem to be _endless_, and the
doom of the unwary to be gloomy in the extreme. Step not accidentally
or wilfully over its fatal brink, and Nature’s opposite extreme is
spread about you. You are _literally_ in the land of the “cypress and
myrtle”—where the ever-green live oak and lofty magnolia dress the
forest in a perpetual mantle of green.
The sudden transition from the ice-bound regions of the North to this
mild climate, in the midst of winter, is one of peculiar pleasure. At a
half-way of the distance, one’s cloak is thrown aside; and arrived on
the ever-verdant borders of Florida, the bosom is opened and bared to
the soft breeze from the ocean’s wave, and the congenial warmth of a
summer’s sun.
Such is the face of Nature here in the rude month of February;
green peas are served on the table—other garden vegetables in great
perfection, and garden flowers, as well as wild, giving their full and
sweetest perfume to the winds.
I looked into the deep and bottomless _Perdido_, and beheld about
it the thousand charms which Nature has spread to allure the unwary
traveller to its brink. ’Twas not enough to entangle him in a web of
sweets upon its borders, but _Nature_ seems to have used an _art_ to
draw him to its _bottom_, by the voluptuous buds which blossom under
its black waters, and whose vivid colours are softened and enriched the
deeper they are seen below its surface. The sweetest of wild flowers
enamel the shores and spangle the dark green tapestry which hangs
over its bosom—the stately _magnolia_ towers fearlessly over its black
waters, and sheds (with the myrtle and jessamine) the richest perfume
over this chilling pool of death.
How exquisitely pure and sweet are the delicate tendrils which Nature
has hung over these scenes of melancholy and gloom! and how strong,
also, has she fixed in man’s breast the passion to possess and enjoy
them! I could have hung by the tree tops over that fatal stream, or
blindly staggered over its thorny brink to have culled the sweets which
are found only in its bosom; but the _poisonous fang_, I was told, was
continually aimed at my heel, and I left the sweetened atmosphere of
its dark and gloomy, yet enamelled shores.
Florida is, in a great degree, a dark and sterile wilderness, yet
with spots of beauty and of loveliness, with charms that cannot be
forgotten. Her swamps and everglades, the dens of alligators, and
lurking places of the desperate savage, gloom the thoughts of the wary
traveller, whose mind is cheered and lit to admiration, when in the
solitary pine woods, where he hears nought but the echoing notes of
the _sand-hill cranes_, or the howling wolf, he suddenly breaks out
into the open savannahs, teeming with their myriads of wild flowers,
and palmettos (+plate+ 147); or where the winding path through which
he is wending his lonely way, suddenly brings him out upon the beach,
where the rolling sea has thrown up her thousands of hills and mounds
of sand as white as the drifted snow, over which her green waves are
lashing, and sliding back again to her deep green and agitated bosom
(+plate+ 148). This sketch was made on _Santa Rosa Island_, within
a few miles of Pensacola, of a favourite spot for _tea_ (and other
convivial) _parties_, which are often held there. The hills of sand
are as _purely white as snow_, and fifty or sixty feet in height, and
supporting on their tops, and in their sides, clusters of magnolia
bushes—of myrtle—of palmetto and heather, all of which are evergreens,
forming the most vivid contrast with the snow-white sand in which they
are growing. On the beach a family of Seminole Indians are encamped,
catching and drying red fish, their chief article of food.
I have traversed the snow-white shores of Pensacola’s beautiful bay,
and I said to myself, “Is it possible that Nature has done so much
in vain—or will the wisdom of man lead him to add to such works the
embellishments of art, and thus convert to his own use and enjoyment
the greatest luxuries of life?” As a travelling stranger through the
place, I said “yes: it must be so.” Nature has here formed the finest
harbour in the world; and the dashing waves of the ocean have thrown
around its shores the purest barriers of sand, as white as the drifted
snow. Unlike all other Southern ports, it is surrounded by living
fountains of the purest water, and its shores continually fanned by the
refreshing breathings of the sea. To a Northern man, the winters in
this place appear like a continual spring time; and the intensity of a
summer’s sun is cooled into comfort and luxury by the ever-cheering sea
breeze.
This is the only place I have found in the Southern country to which
Northern people can repair with safety in the summer season; and I know
not of a place in the world where they can go with better guarantees
of good health, and a reasonable share of the luxuries of life. The
town of Pensacola is beautifully situated on the shore of the bay,
and contains at present about fifteen hundred inhabitants, most of
them Spanish Creoles. They live an easy and idle life, without any
energy further than for the mere means of living. The bay abounds in
the greatest variety of fish, which are easily taken, and the finest
quality of oysters are found in profusion, even alongside of the
wharves.
Government having fixed upon this harbour as the great naval depôt
for all the Southern coast, the consequence will be, that a vast sum
of public money will always be put into circulation in this place;
and the officers of the navy, together with the officers of the army,
stationed in the three forts built and now building at this place, will
constitute the most polished and desirable society in our country.
What Pensacola _has been_ or _is_, in a commercial point of view,
little can be said; but what it _can be_, and most certainly _will
be_, in a few years, the most sanguine can hardly predict. I would
unhesitatingly recommend this to the enterprising capitalists of the
North, as a place where they can _live_, and where (if nature has been
kind, as experience has taught us) they _will_ flourish. A few such
men have taken their stand here within a few months past; and, as a
first step towards their aggrandizement, a plan of a rail-road has been
projected, from Pensacola to Columbus, in Georgia; which needs only to
be completed, to place Pensacola at once before any other town on the
Southern coast, excepting New Orleans. Of the feasibility of such a
work, there is not the slightest doubt; and, from the opinions advanced
by Captain Chase and Lieutenant Bowman, two of the most distinguished
engineers of the army, it would seem as if Nature had formed a level
nearly the whole way, and supplied the best kind of timber on the spot
for its erection. The route of this rail-road would be through or near
the principal cotton-growing part of Alabama, and the quantity of
produce from that state, as well as from a great part of the state of
Georgia, which would seek this market, would be almost incalculable.
Had this road been in operation during the past winter, it has been
ascertained by a simple calculation, that the cotton-growers of
Alabama, might have saved 2,000,000 of dollars on their crop; by being
enabled to have got it early into market, and received the first price
of 18¾ cents, instead of waiting six weeks or two months for a rise of
water, enabling them to get it to Mobile—at which time it had fallen to
nine cents per pound.
As a work also of _national utility_, it would rank amongst the
most important in our country, and the Government might afford to
appropriate the whole sum necessary for its construction. In a period
of war, when in all probability, for a great part of the time, this
port may be in a state of blockade, such a communication with the
interior of the country, would be of incalculable benefit for the
transportation of men—of produce and munitions of war.
[Illustration: 147]
[Illustration: 148]
Of the few remnants of Indians remaining in this part of the country, I
have little to say, at present, that could interest you. The sum total
that can be learned or seen of them (like all others that are half
civilized) is, that they are to be pitied.
The direful “_trump of war_” is blowing in East Florida, where I was
“steering my course;” and I shall in a few days turn my steps in a
different direction.
Since you last heard from me, I have added on to my former Tour “down
the river,” the remainder of the Mississippi (or rather Missouri),
from St. Louis to New Orleans; and I find that, from its source to the
Balize, the distance is 4500 _miles only_! I shall be on the wing again
in a few days, for a shake of the hand with the Camanchees, Osages,
Pawnees, Kioways, Arapahoes, &c.—some hints of whom I shall certainly
give you from their different localities, provided I can keep the hair
on my head.
This Tour will lead me up the Arkansas to its source, and into the
Rocky Mountains, under the protection of the United States dragoons.
You will begin to think ere long, that I shall acquaint myself pretty
well with the manners and customs of our country—at least with the
_out-land-ish_ part of it.
I shall hail the day with pleasure, when I can again reach the free
land of the lawless savage; for far more agreeable to my ear is the
Indian yell and war-whoop, than the civilized groans and murmurs about
“_pressure_,” “_deposites_,” “_banks_,” “_boundary questions_,” &c.;
and I vanish from the country with the sincere hope that these tedious
words may become _obsolete_ before I return. Adieu.
LETTER—No. 37.