Mississippi to New Orleans. By the time that I should arrive there,
the extreme heats of an American summer would have been prevailing
in that very unhealthy climate, and a stranger is almost certain to
be attacked by fever and ague. The voyage down the river occupies
five or six days; the voyage up the river is not performed in less
than ten or twelve; and I was consoled by learning that the voyage is
exceedingly tedious, as the low banks offer no variety of scenery for
many days—so much so, that upon rising in the morning, a person might
almost be persuaded he had not moved from that part of the river where
he had been the previous evening. I therefore determined to make a
tour through part of Pennsylvania: I had heard much of the beauty of
the scenery, of the trout fishing, and “all that,” and accordingly
having engaged a place in the coach to Harrisburg, the capital of the
State, I started by it, at the nondescript hour of two in the morning,
and arrived at Harrisburg the same evening. The road lay through a
well-cultivated, but not particularly interesting country; at least
I did not think so, for it rained in torrents the whole morning; and
although I was inside the coach, one arm was completely wet through,
in consequence of the oilskin panels being but loosely fastened. The
great heat of summer renders it necessary that the conveyances should
be as airy as possible; the panels, which are made either of leather
or oilskin, are rolled up in dry weather; but the “gentleman in the
corner” sometimes comes off very badly on a cold or rainy day. In
addition to this, it must be remembered that the American coaches
usually carry nine inside, and do not afford too much liberty to the
legs. The three passengers who sit in the middle, lean their shoulders
against a broad leather strap, which passes across the coach; and as
this occasionally gets unhooked in passing over a forest road, their
heads are instantly thrown in contact with the stomachs of those who
are behind them.
The most considerable place we passed was Reading, which has much the
appearance of a second-rate country town in England. Viewed from the
Sunbury road, by which I returned to it in my way back to Philadelphia,
its situation, in a fine surrounding country, appears to much greater
advantage. We passed no other place of note but Lebanon; in the
vicinity of which is to be found some of the finest arable land in
Pennsylvania. Harrisburg is delightfully situated on the Susquehanna.
It was here for the first time I saw that beautiful river; in breadth
about three quarters of a mile. Its clear and shallow stream is not
really slow, but at a little distance it appears as tranquil and
unruffled as the surface of a lake. Immediately opposite to Harrisburg
is an island, from either side of which a long wooden bridge is
thrown to the opposite bank of the river. Harrisburg is the capital
of Pennsylvania, and is a thriving, neat and pretty-looking town,
containing about four thousand inhabitants. The House of Assembly, or
Capitol, as it is always called in America, is built on an eminence.
The sittings of the senate and house of representatives of Pennsylvania
were held first at Philadelphia, then at Lancaster, and subsequently
for nearly the last twenty years at Harrisburg, which, from its central
situation, has been found much more convenient. The chamber where the
representatives hold their sittings is very large, with separate desks
for every two or three members, disposed in a semicircle, in the same
manner as in the French chamber of deputies. The chair in which the
Speaker sits was filled by the celebrated patriot John Hancock, when
he presided in the assembly, by the members of which the declaration
of independence was signed in the state-house at Philadelphia. The
senate and representatives had just finished their sittings, after
having passed only two hundred and sixty-seven Acts. I saw a list
of them. They chiefly related to internal improvements; and many of
them made honourable provision for old soldiers, or the widows and
families of old soldiers, who had served in the revolutionary war. An
experiment, which would have been deemed serious in an older country,
was on the eve of trial: an Act had been passed for levying a tax on
personal property throughout the state. The bulk of the taxes had
hitherto been paid by the land owners, and a new assessment made once
every three years. The annual tax is at the rate of one, two, or three
dollars the acre, according to the value of the land. The owner of
personal property only, however, enjoyed an immunity, of which the
present measure was intended to divest him, by making him pay a tax of
one dollar in a thousand. Every individual will be obliged to swear
to the amount of his personal property; and should he be supposed to
swear falsely, an officer will be empowered to compel the production
of any deed, bond, note, or bill, or of any writing being evidence of
a debt owing to him. However, the general opinion seemed to be, that
the graceless impost would be acquiesced in as one of fairness and
necessity. On account of the enterprise of canals, railroads, and other
improvements, the state debt of Pennsylvania is larger than that of any
other of the Union, amounting to 14,463,161 dollars,—the debt of New
York amounting to nearly 9,000,000 dollars. The individual State debts
are very likely to be increased rather than diminished, in the end;
but as no State debt has in any instance been increased except for the
purposes of internal improvements, the augmentation of the debt will
but add eventually to the prosperity and wealth of the State. Suppose
any state, New York for instance, were to borrow 4,000,000 dollars for
some public work, as a canal or rail-road, at a fixed rate of interest,
and that the capital borrowed were to be reimbursable in the year 1850.
Such a rate of tonnage would be levied on the canal or railroad as
would, after payment of the interest, leave a sinking fund available
for the redemption of the capital borrowed, and the State would be
left in possession of a large tract of country rendered productive
and valuable on account of the additional facility afforded for the
carriage of produce to market. Once only since the formation of the
constitution, and during the presidency of John Adams, has a direct
and general property-tax been imposed by the federal government in time
of peace.
The view from the dome of the capitol at Harrisburg is very fine;
but a much better is obtained from the summit of a hill about a mile
behind the town, although, perhaps, the town itself is not seen to
such advantage. A great part of the surrounding country is very well
cultivated; corn-fields, pasture, and woodlands, are distributed over
hill and hollow; and occasionally here and there is perceived a small
farm-house, of a neater and more English appearance than any I had yet
seen. On every side the landscape is terminated as usual by a boundless
forest. The Susquehanna seems to lose itself through a gap in the Blue
Mountains; and throughout the whole of its course, which is visible for
a great distance, its banks and beautiful islands are clothed with the
richest foliage to the water’s edge. I proceeded along the north bank
of the river towards Duncan’s Island, and after a ride of eight or nine
miles, I arrived at the gap I have just mentioned. Its scenery forcibly
reminded me of the Rhine at Drachenfells. The abrupt and lofty hill
on the left is not surmounted by a “castled crag,” but it overhangs,
perhaps, a nobler river, whose banks are covered with the forest trees
of America, instead of being formally scarped for the culture of vines,
trimmed like gooseberry bushes. At a short distance from the gap, the
river is crossed by an enormous wooden bridge of eight arches, which is
very nearly half a mile in length. The bridges in America are usually
of wood, of admirable construction, neatly painted, and covered over
like many of the bridges in Switzerland. The piers are of stone of
great size, and buttressed towards the stream. This bridge is the
largest of the kind I have seen any where.
In the garden of the inn, or tavern, as it is usually called, is an
Indian tumulus, about fifteen feet in height, hemispherical in shape,
and evidently once much higher. These tumuli are to be seen in various
parts of Pennsylvania, and in fact, in all parts of America; often two
are found at no great distance from one another. At Liverpool, in that
state, are two of them, about three quarters of a mile apart; but one
had been ploughed over by the Gothic proprietor of the soil. At first
it is not difficult to infer from this, that a great battle had taken
place in the vicinity, and that each party had adopted this place for
the burial of the dead,—that universally, and eternally distinguishing
characteristic between mankind and those of the brute creation that
make the nearest approaches to humanity. Where, however, they are found
singly, the researches of Mr. Jefferson and of others, induce us to
believe that they were heaped together upon other occasions. In one
which he opened, Mr. Jefferson conjectures that there might be as many
as a thousand skeletons; and appearances indicated that it had derived
its origin and enlargement from a custom of collecting the bones of the
dead on the spot at different times. They were deposited in layers, but
in the utmost confusion of relative position; the bones of the most
distant parts of the body being crowded together. Those of infants and
half-grown persons were found among them. These tumuli are sometimes
composed of earth, and sometimes of loose stones, like the cairn and
carnedd of Scotland and Wales.
The conjecture, that they were either raised over the dead in battle,
or in accordance with the custom supposed by Mr. Jefferson, is the more
probable, on account of the bones being always found in quantities.
The European tumuli, of whatever age or nation, have either been
heaped up over the ashes of some distinguished person, or are found to
contain but a few coffins, of rough-hewn and loose stone. In America,
I believe, none are supposed to cover the remains of one person only,
deeply buried as in Europe, under the superincumbent mass; but in the
tumuli of America the external coating of earth will easily crumble
away when disturbed, and will frequently discover the bones at a
trifling depth beneath the surface. Arrows and other implements of
war are frequently found amongst them. The formation of these tumuli
is no where understood to be a modern custom. The Indians have a
feeling of reverence for them, and use them as land marks; but the
most aged are unable to furnish any clue to the discovery of their
antiquity. The knowledge of their own ancestors is confined to three
or four generations, and nothing certain is known of the aborigines
who formed these tumuli. Humboldt himself, in his “New Spain,” after
a learned dissertation on the subject, is obliged to admit that
“the general question of the first origin of the inhabitants of the
continent, is beyond the limits prescribed to history, and is not
perhaps even a philosophical question.” There can be no doubt that
they were a distinct race, and more civilised than the wild Indians of
the present day, whose Asiatic origin is also a subject of dispute.
Humboldt believes that the analogy between the languages of Tartary and
those of the new Continent extends to a very small number of words.
He adds, that the want of wheat, oats, barley, rye, and of all those
nutritive gramina which go under the name of cereal, seems to prove
that if Asiatic tribes passed into America, they must have descended
from pastoral people. We see in the old continent, that the cultivation
of cereal gramina, and the use of milk were introduced as far back as
we have any historical records. The inhabitants of the new continent,
cultivated no other gramina than maize. They fed on no species of milk,
though the lamas alpacas, and in the north of Mexico and Canada, two
kinds of indigenous oxen, would have afforded them milk in abundance.
These are striking contrasts between the Mongol and American race.
However, in the Transactions of the Literary and Historical Society
of Quebec, there has lately been published a “Catalogue of a few
(ninety-six) remarkable instances, which induce a belief of the Asiatic
origin of the North American Indians. By Major Mercer, R. A.” These
I recommend, as they are very interesting. Robertson says that “the
Esquimaux Indians, are the only people in America who, in their aspect
and character, bear any resemblance to the Northern Europeans.” They
differ from all the other Indian tribes in their language, disposition,
and habits of life. He thence infers the probability of their having
originally passed over from the North-west of Europe, and adds, “that
among all the other inhabitants of America, there is such a striking
similitude in the form of their bodies, and the qualities of their
minds, that notwithstanding the diversities occasioned by the influence
of climate, or unequal progress of improvement, we must pronounce
them to be descended from one source—the north east of Asia.” It may
be here added, that Cuvier, when speaking of the mouflon of the Blue
Mountains, informs us, that it is the only quadruped of any size, the
discovery of which is entirely modern, and gives it as his opinion,
that perhaps it is only a Siberian goat that has crossed the ice.
* * * * *
The junction of the Susquehanna and Juniata rivers, takes place at
Duncan’s Island. The latter is a much smaller river, varying from one
to two hundred yards in breadth. In some places its thickly forested
banks rise to a great height above the gloomy-looking stream, whose
dark placidity is occasionally disturbed by small rapids, or falls,
as they are termed, though they hardly deserve the name. I observed a
sunken raft, and one solitary fish-hawk (osprey). The road continues
along the side of the Juniata for several miles; it then leaves it,
and conducts the traveller to Lewistown. I observed nothing remarkable
in this place. Its situation, however, is picturesque, as it is
surrounded with abrupt hills and rising grounds of different elevation,
with plenty of forest, as usual. The distance from Lewistown to a
place called Brown’s Mills, is not more than five miles. Here I found
an excellent country inn, kept by an Irishman, and a most delicious
trouting stream, running rapidly through the woods, and emerging close
to the inn. It is wadeable in every part, and swarms with trout, some
of them weighing more than three pounds. Those killed with a fly, do
not average more than half a pound in weight; but it is no uncommon
occurrence to kill five or six dozen in two or three hours. When I was
there, and in fact during the whole time I passed in Pennsylvania,
the season was early, and the weather cold and unfavourable, so that I
killed but very few fish. A severe walk of twenty-five miles through
the forest, and across a range of hills known by the name of the
Seven Mountains, brought me to Belfont; a large and thriving town,
conspicuous from being placed on a hill in the midst of a very pretty
country. Close to Belfont are three full mountain streams, or creeks,
as they are called in America. Spring creek in particular, contains
an enormous quantity of trout, of about the same size as those at
Brown’s Mills; but the weather was still unfavourable, and it was all
in vain that I waded down the stream for nearly four miles. I took
but seven or eight moderate-sized fish. The red hackle is considered
the best general fly. The other streams are known by the names of the
Bald Eagle, and Logan’s creek. The former takes its name from a bald
eagle’s nest, that was annually built in the vicinity, or, which is
more probable, from a tribe of Indians so called, who resided there.
At the head waters of the other creek, is still seen the place of
residence of the celebrated Mingo chief, Logan,—whose eloquent message
to Lord Dunmore, is too well known to need insertion here. Many of the
aged inhabitants of Belfont still remember him. His fate resembled
that of Demosthenes and Cicero: he perished for his eloquence. An old
officer of the United States army, who, soon after the close of the
revolutionary war, was ordered to make surveys of the country watered
by the Alleghany river, informed me that Logan’s nephew, a remarkably
fine young Indian, dined with him one day in his tent, and that he
asked him what became of Logan. I killed him, was the reply. Why did
you kill him?—The nation ordered it. For what reason?—He was too great
a man to live: he talked so well, that although the whole nation had
intended to put any plan in execution, yet, if Logan did not approve
of it, he would soon gain a majority in favour of his opinions. Was
he not then generally in the right?—Often; but his influence divided
the nation too much. Why did they choose you to put him to death? If
any one else had done it, I would certainly have killed him: I, who am
his nephew, shall inherit his greatness. Will they not then kill you
also?—Yes: and when I become as great a man as Logan (laying his hand
on his breast with dignity), I shall be content to die! He added, that
he shot him near the Alleghany river. When informed of the resolution
of the council of his nation, Logan stopped his horse, drew himself up
in an attitude of great dignity, and received the fatal ball without a
murmur.
From Belfont I proceeded on foot over the mountains to Philipsburg,
on the western slope of the Alleghany ridge. The distance was about
twenty-eight miles. After walking for several hours along the side of
the Bald Eagle creek, I arrived at the foot of the Alleghanies. They
are composed of sandstone, and are more extensive than any in the
States on this side of the Rocky Mountains, though their height is
inconsiderable. The most elevated part of the ridge in Pennsylvania
does not, as I have said before, exceed 1300 feet; but at the other
peak, in Virginia, it rises to 3950 feet above the level of the great
western rivers, being two or three hundred feet higher than Ben
Lomond. The High Peak on the Rocky Mountains is the highest mountain
in the United States, and attains an elevation of 12,500 feet. Mount
Washington, the highest of the White Mountains, is 6234 feet in
height; Mansfield, in Vermont, the most lofty of the Green Mountains,
is somewhat higher than Ben Nevis in Scotland, as it rises to 4279
feet. I ascended the Alleghany by a good road, that wound gradually up
the side of the mountain, and after a walk of about three hours and a
half, I was in full contemplation of the most extensive forest view I
had ever yet beheld. I have seen many of the dark and impenetrable pine
forests in the north of Europe, where the mountains are far higher, and
the scenery proportionably grander, but I never remember a forest so
interminable as that I am speaking of. One small patch of cultivation
was perceivable in a very distant valley, called, I believe, Penn’s
Valley. The vast thickets of Norway, Sweden, and Russia, are chiefly
of pine trees, and are grand and gloomy enough, but sometimes tiresome
from their monotony. Nature has painted them with her usual ability;
but the colouring she has employed may be compared to that of a
drawing in Indian ink, equally creditable to the artist, but not so
pleasing to the eye as a many-tinted picture. There are plenty of pines
on the Alleghany, but there is also an immense assemblage of other
trees. A lady informed me, that being desirous of sending to England
specimens of the different woods of this part of the country, she
collected fifty-two without any difficulty; but there are many more
than these. The principal material of the American navy is, as I have
before noticed, afforded by the live-oak, so called from its being
an evergreen, and from its elasticity, extreme durability, and other
generous properties. The leaf of this tree resembles the ilex of Spain
and England, but is rather larger, and more pointed. It is not found in
Pennsylvania—growing in the southern States chiefly, in Georgia and
the Carolinas, whence it is conveyed to the different dock-yards of the
Union.
There are here, nevertheless, more than thirty varieties of the
oak, each bearing a distinct fruit: of these, the white-oak, which
is inferior in quality but comes the nearest to the navy-oak of
Great Britain; the red-oak, the black, and the rock, or scrub-oak,
are the most common. The other trees of the forest, are usually the
Spanish-chestnut (two varieties)—the horse-chestnut is not indigenous
in America, but thrives well; I saw one at the Manor near Baltimore—the
hickory (two varieties); the black-walnut; the American-poplar, or
tulip-tree, the pride of the American forest, and growing frequently to
an enormous size; yellow, white, spruce, and hemlock pines—the larch
is not found, or is rarely to be met with, in the United States: I
have not seen them in the Canadas—bass-wood, or common English-lime;
sugar-maple, white maple, red and white elm, willow, sassafras, black
and yellow birch, ash, gum-tree, beech, iron-wood, mulberry, dog-wood,
rhododendron in great quantities, kalmea, latifolia, hazel, red and
white cedar, clematis, virginiana, indigo, and a great variety of ferns
and wild vines.
In the autumn, or fall, as it is universally and prettily termed in
America, the forest view is excessively beautiful, in consequence of
the brilliant assemblage of colours exhibited by the diversity of
foliage collected together. My eye roved over a constant succession
of mountain and valley, and hill and hollow, all alike clothed in the
glorious forest garb, whilst the more distant tints became bluer and
bluer, till they faded away at the farthest verge of the horizon.
The Indian had long been driven or bought out from this part of the
country; but the rocks and thickets of the forest beneath me had
doubtless concealed many an ambush, and witnessed many a carnage. They
had responded to the sharp twang of the rifle, and re-echoed the more
terrific war-whoop; but during the time that I remained on the top of
the mountain, all around me was as silent as the place was solitary,
with the exception of the occasional stroke from the peaceful axe of
the back-woodsman, that resounded from a glade about a mile from the
spot where I had sat down to rest myself.