bank of the Hudson, we met riding horses, exercised by grooms, and more
than one handsome carriage; tokens that we were approaching some centre
of luxury. The view of Albany rising from the river side, with its brown
stone courthouse and white marble capitol, is fine; but it wants the
relief of more trees within itself, or of a rural background. How
changed is this bustling city, thronged with costly buildings, from the
Albany of the early days of Mrs. Grant of Laggan, when the children used
to run up and down the green slope which is now State-street, imposing
from its width and the massiveness of the houses seen behind its rows of
trees! A tunnel is about to be made under the Hudson at Albany; meantime
we crossed, as everybody does, by a horse ferryboat; a device so cruel
as well as clumsy, that the sooner it is superseded the better. I was
told that the strongest horses, however kept up with corn, rarely
survive a year of this work.
We observed that, even in this city, the physicians have not always
their names engraved on brass doorplates. On the most conspicuous part
of their houses, perhaps on the angle of a corner house, is nailed some
glazed substance like floorcloth, with "Dr. Such-an-one" painted upon
it. At Washington I remember seeing "MAGISTRATE" thus affixed to a mere
shed.
As we surmounted the hill leading to our hotel, we saw our two shipmates
dancing down the steps to welcome us. There certainly is a feeling among
shipmates which does not grow out of any other relation. They are thrown
first into such absolute dependance on one another, for better for
worse, and are afterward so suddenly and widely separated, that if they
do chance to meet again, they renew their intimacy with a fervour which
does not belong to a friendship otherwise originated. The glee of our
whole party this evening is almost ridiculous to look back upon.
Everything served to make a laugh, and we were almost intoxicated with
the prospect of what we were going to see and do together. We had
separated only a fortnight ago, but we had as much to talk over as if we
had been travelling apart for six months. The Prussian had to tell his
adventures, we our impressions, and the Southerner his comparisons of
his own country with Europe. Then we had to arrange the division of
labour by which the gentlemen were to lighten the cares of travelling.
Dr. J., the Prussian, was on all occasions to select apartments for us;
Mr. S., the Dutchman, to undertake the eating department; Mr. H., the
American, was paymaster; and Mr. O., the German, took charge of the
luggage. It was proposed that badges should be worn to designate their
offices. Mr. S. was to be adorned with a corncob. Mr. H. stuck a
bankbill in front of his hat; and, next morning, when Mr. O. was looking
another way, the young men locked a small padlock upon his button-hole,
which he was compelled to carry there for a day or two, till his
comrades vouchsafed to release him from his badge.
The hotel was well furnished and conducted. I pointed out, with some
complacency, what a handsome piano we had in our drawing-room; but when,
in the dark hour, I opened it in order to play, I found it empty of
keys! a disappointment, however, which I have met with in England.
Mr. Van Buren and his son happened to be in Albany, and called on me
this afternoon. There is nothing remarkable in the appearance of this
gentleman, whom I afterward saw frequently at Washington. He is small in
person, with light hair and blue eyes. I was often asked whether I did
not think his manners gentlemanly. There is much friendliness in his
manners, for he is a kind-hearted man; he is also rich in information,
and lets it come out on subjects in which he cannot contrive to see any
danger in speaking. But his manners want the frankness and confidence
which are essential to good breeding. He questions closely, without
giving anything in return. Moreover, he flatters to a degree which so
cautious a man should long ago have found out to be disagreeable; and
his flattery is not merely praise of the person he is speaking to, but a
worse kind still; a skepticism and ridicule of objects and persons
supposed to be distasteful to the one he is conversing with. I fully
believe that he is an amiable and indulgent domestic man, and a
reasonable political master, a good scholar, and a shrewd man of
business; but he has the skepticism which marks the lower order of
politicians. His public career exhibits no one exercise of that faith in
men and preference of principle to petty expediency by which a statesman
shows himself to be great.
The consequence is, that, with all his opportunities, no great deed has
ever been put to his account, and his shrewdness has been at fault in
some of the most trying crises of his career. The man who so little
trusts others, and so intensely regards self as to make it the study of
his life not to commit himself, is liable to a more than ordinary danger
of judging wrong when compelled, by the pressure of circumstances, to
act a decided part. It has already been so with Mr. Van Buren more than
once; and now that he is placed in a position where he must sometimes
visibly lead, and cannot always appear to follow, it will be seen
whether a due reverence of men and a forgetfulness of self would not
have furnished him with more practical wisdom than all his "sounding on
his dim and perilous way." Mr. Calhoun is, I believe, Mr. Van Buren's
evil genius. Mr. Calhoun was understood to be in expectation of
succeeding to the presidential chair when Mr. Van Buren was appointed
minister to Great Britain. This appointment of President Jackson's did
not receive the necessary sanction from the Senate, and the new minister
was recalled on the first possible day, Mr. Calhoun being very active in
bringing him back. Mr. Calhoun was not aware that he was recalling one
who was to prove a successful rival. Mr. Calhoun has not been president;
Mr. Van Buren is so; but the successful rival has a mortal dread of the
great nullifier; a dread so obvious, and causing such a prostration of
all principle and all dignity, as to oblige observers to conclude that
there is more in the matter than they see; that it will come out some
day why the disappointed aspirant is still to be propitiated, when he
seems to be deprived of power to do mischief. In "Society in America" I
have given an account of the nullification struggle, and of the
irritation, the mysterious discontent which it has left behind.[2]
Footnote 2: Society in America, vol. i., p. 91.
Perhaps Mr. Van Buren may entertain the opinion which many hold, that
that business is not over yet, and that the slavery question is made a
pretext by the nullifiers of the South for a line of action to which
they are impelled by the disappointed personal ambition of one or two,
and the wounded pride of the many, who cannot endure the contrast
between the increase of the free states of the North and the
deterioration of the slave states of the South. However this may be, to
propitiate Mr. Calhoun seems to have been Mr. Van Buren's great object
for a long time past; an object probably hopeless in itself, and in the
pursuit of which he is likely to lose the confidence of the North far
faster than he could, at best, disarm the enmity of the South.
In the spring of 1836, when Mr. Van Buren was still vice-president, and
the presidential election was drawing near, Mr. Calhoun brought forward
in the Senate his bill (commonly called the Gag Bill) to violate the
postoffice function, by authorizing postmasters to investigate the
contents of the mails, and to keep back all papers whatsoever relating
to the subject of slavery. The bill was, by consent, read the first and
second times without debate; and the Senate was to be divided on the
question whether it should go to a third reading. The votes were equal,
18 to 18. "Where's the vice-president?" shouted Mr. Calhoun's mighty
voice. The vice-president was behind a pillar, talking. He was compelled
to give the casting vote, to commit himself for once; a cruel necessity
to a man of his caution. He voted for the third reading, and there was a
bitter cry on the instant, "The Northern States are sold." The bill was
thrown out on the division on the third reading, and the vice-president
lost by his vote the good-will of the whole body of abolitionists, who
had till then supported him as the democratic and supposed anti-slavery
candidate. As it was, most of the abolitionists did not vote at all, for
want of a good candidate, and Mr. Van Buren's majority was so reduced as
to justify a belief, that if the people had had another year to consider
his conduct in, or if another democratic candidate could have been put
forward, he would have been emphatically rejected. Having once committed
himself, he has gone further still in propitiation of Mr. Calhoun. On
the day of his presidential installation he declared that under no
circumstances would he give his assent to any bill for the abolition of
slavery in the District of Columbia. This declaration does not arise out
of a belief that Congress has not power to abolish slavery in the
District; for he did, not long before, when hard pressed, declare that
he believed Congress to possess that power. He has therefore hazarded
the extraordinary declaration that he will not, under any circumstances,
assent to what may become the will of the people constitutionally
imbodied. This is a bold intimation for a "non-committal man" to make.
It remains to be seen whether Mr. Calhoun, if really dangerous, can be
kept quiet by such fawning as this; and whether the will of the people
may not be rather stimulated than restrained by this sacrifice of them
to the South, so as either to compel the president to retract his
declaration before his four years are out, or to prevent his
re-election.
How strange it is to recall one's first impressions of public men in the
midst of one's matured opinions of them! How freshly I remember the chat
about West Point and Stockbridge acquaintances that I had that afternoon
at Albany, with the conspicuous man about whom I was then ignorant and
indifferent, and whom I have since seen committed to the lowest
political principles and practices, while elected as professing some of
the highest! It only remains to be said, that if Mr. Van Buren feels
himself aggrieved by the interpretation which is commonly put upon the
facts of his political life, he has no one to blame but himself; for
such misinterpretation (if it exists) is owing to his singular reserve;
a reserve which all men agree in considering incompatible with the
simple honesty and cheerful admission of responsibility which democratic
republicans have a right to require of their rulers.
Before breakfast the next morning we walked down to the Padroon's house,
known by reputation, with the history of the estate, to everybody. We
just caught a sight of the shrubbery, and took leave to pass through the
courtyard, and hastened back to breakfast, immediately after which we
proceeded by railroad to Schenectady. There we at once stepped into a
canalboat for Utica. I would never advise ladies to travel by canal,
unless the boats are quite new and clean; or, at least, far better kept
than any that I saw or heard of on this canal. On fine days it is
pleasant enough sitting outside (except for having to duck under the
bridges every quarter of an hour, under penalty of having one's head
crushed to atoms), and in dark evenings the approach of the boatlights
on the water is a pretty sight; but the horrors of night and of wet days
more than compensate for all the advantages these vehicles can boast.
The heat and noise, the known vicinity of a compressed crowd, lying
packed like herrings in a barrel, the bumping against the sides of the
locks, and the hissing of water therein like an inundation, startling
one from sleep; these things are very disagreeable. We suffered under an
additional annoyance in the presence of sixteen Presbyterian clergymen,
some of the most unprepossessing of their class. If there be a duty more
obvious than another on board a canalboat, it is to walk on the bank
occasionally in fair weather, or, at least, to remain outside, in order
to air the cabin (close enough at best) and get rid of the scents of the
table before the unhappy passengers are shut up to sleep there. These
sixteen gentlemen, on their way to a Convention at Utica, could not wait
till they got there to begin their devotional observances, but obtruded
them upon the passengers in a most unjustifiable manner. They were not
satisfied with saying an almost interminable grace before and after each
meal, but shut up the cabin for prayers before dinner; for missionary
conversation in the afternoon, and for scripture reading and prayers
quite late into the night, keeping tired travellers from their rest, and
every one from his fair allowance of fresh air.
The passengers were all invited to listen to and to question a
missionary from China who was of the party. The gentleman did not seem
to have profited much by his travels, however; for he declared himself
unable to answer some very simple inquiries. "Is the religion of the
Christian missionaries tolerated by the Chinese government?" "I am not
prepared to answer that question." "Are the Chinese cannibals?" "I am
not prepared to answer that question." One requested that any brother
would offer a suggestion as to how government might be awakened to the
sinfulness of permitting Sunday mails; during the continuance of which
practice there was no hope of the Sabbath being duly sanctified. No one
was ready with a suggestion, but one offered a story, which every head
was bent to hear. The story was of two sheep-drovers, one of whom feared
God, and the other did not. The profane drover set out with his sheep
for a particular destination two hours earlier than the other, and did
not rest on Sunday like his pious comrade. What was the catastrophe? The
Godfearing drover, though he had stood still all Sunday, arrived at his
destination two hours earlier than the other. "Ah!" "Ah!" resounded
through the cabin in all conceivable tones of conviction, no one asking
particulars of what had happened on the road; of how and where the
profane drover had been delayed. Temperance was, of course, a great
topic with these divines, and they fairly provoked ridicule upon it. One
passenger told me that they were so strict that they would not drink
water out of the Brandywine river; and another remarked that they
partook with much relish of the strong wine-sauce served with our
puddings.
In addition to other discomforts, we passed the fine scenery of Little
Falls in the night. I was not aware what we had missed till I traversed
the Mohawk valley by a better conveyance nearly two years afterward. I
have described this valley in my other work on America,[3] and must
therefore restrain my pen from dwelling on its beauties here.
Footnote 3: "Society in America," vol. ii., p. 188.
The appearance of the berths in the ladies' cabin was so repulsive, that
we were seriously contemplating sitting out all night, when it began to
rain so as to leave us no choice. I was out early in the misty morning,
however, and was presently joined by the rest of my party, all looking
eagerly for signs of Utica being near.
By eight o'clock we were at the wharf. We thought Utica the most
extempore place we had yet seen. The _right-up_ shops, the daubed
houses, the streets running into the woods, all seemed to betoken that
the place had sprung up out of some sudden need. How much more ancient
and respectable did it seem after my return from the West, where I had
seen towns so much newer still! We were civilly received and
accommodated at Bagg's hotel, where we knew how to value cold water,
spacious rooms, and retirement, after the annoyances of the boat.
Our baggage-master was fortunate in securing a neat, clean stage to take
us to Trenton Falls (14 miles), where we promised each other to spend
the whole day, on condition of being off by five the next morning, in
order to accomplish the distance to Syracuse in the course of the day.
The reason for our economy of time was not merely that it was late in
the season, and every day which kept us from the Falls of Niagara,
therefore, of consequence, but that our German friend, Mr. O., was
obliged to be back in New-York by a certain day. We all considered a
little extra haste and fatigue a small tax to pay for the privilege of
his companionship.
We clapped our hands at the sight of the "Rural Retreat," the
comfortable, hospitable house of entertainment at Trenton, standing in
its garden on the edge of the forest, so unlike hotels on the high road.
As no other company was there, we could choose our own hours. We ordered
a late dinner, and proceeded to the Falls. We had only to follow a path
in the pine forest for a few paces, and we were at the edge of the
ravine which encloses the cascades.
It is a pity that the Indian name is not retained. Trenton Falls are
called Cayoharic by the Indians. They are occasioned by the descent of
West Canada Creek through a ravine, where it makes a succession of leaps
from platforms of rock, six of these falls being pretty easily
accessible by travellers. Much has been said of the danger of the
enterprise of ascending the ravine; but I saw no peril to persons who
are neither rash nor nervous. The two accidents which have happened
have, I believe, been owing, the one to extreme rashness, and the other
to sudden terror.
From the edge of the ravine the black water, speckled with white foam,
is seen rushing below with a swiftness which already half turns the head
of the stranger. We descended five flights of wooden steps fixed against
the steep face of the rock, and at the bottom found ourselves at the
brink of the torrent. I never was in so dark and chill a place in the
open air; yet the sun was shining on the opposite face of the rock,
lighting the one scarlet maple which stood out from among the black
cedars and dark green elms. We selected our footing with a care which we
were quite ready to ridicule when we came back; and were not above
grasping the chain which is riveted into the rock where the shelf which
forms the pathway is narrowest, and where the angles are sharpest. The
hollow is here so filled with the voice of many waters, that no other
can be heard; and after many irreverent shouts had been attempted, we
gave up all attempts to converse till we reached a quieter place. Being
impatient to see the first fall, I went on before the rest, and having
climbed the flight of wooden steps, so wetted with the spray of the fall
as to be as slippery as ice, I stood on the platform under a covert of
rock foaming with the thunder of the waters, and saw my companions, one
by one, turn the angle of the path, and pause in front of the sheet of
liquid amber sprinkled with snow. The path on which they stood seemed
too narrow for human foot; and when, discerning me, they waved their
hands, I trembled lest, disregarding their footing, they should be swept
away by the furious torrent. When we found our heads turning with the
rush of the dark waters, we amused ourselves with admiring the little
wells in the rock, and the drip from the roots of a cedar projecting
from the top of the ravine, a never-failing, glittering shower. Between
the fifth and sixth fall there is a long tranquil reach of water; and
here we lingered to rest our bewildered senses before entering upon the
confusion of rocks through which the sixth forces its way. We seesawed
upon a fallen trunk, sent autumn leaves whirling down the stream, and
watched the endless dance of the balls of foam which had found their
way into the tiny creeks and bays opposite, and could not get out again.
Gay butterflies seemed quite at home in this ravine. They flit through
the very spray of the falls. It seemed wonderful that an insect could
retain its frail life in the midst of such an uproar. When the sun, in
its course, suddenly shone full into the glen through a chasm in its
rocky wall, how the cascade was instantly dressed in glory! crowned with
a rainbow, and invested with all radiant hues! How the poor banished
Indians must mourn when the lights of their Cayoharic visit their senses
again in the dreams of memory or of sleep! The recollection of these
poor exiles was an ever-present saddening thought in the midst of all
the most beautiful scenes of the New World.
When we had surmounted the sixth fall, we saw indeed that we could go no
farther. A round projection of rock, without trace of anything that I
could call a foothold, barred us out from the privacy of the upper
ravine. The falls there are said to be as beautiful as any that we saw,
and it is to be hoped that, by blasting a pathway or by some other
means, they also may be laid open to the affections of happy visiters.
They have been seen and reported of. A friend of mine has told me, since
I was there, how Bryant the poet and himself behaved like two
thoughtless boys in this place. Clambering about by themselves one
summer day, when their wives had gone back to the house, they were
irresistibly tempted to pass the barrier, and see what lay beyond. They
got round the rock, I cannot conceive how, by inequalities in its
surface. They met with so many difficulties and so much beauty higher
up, that they forgot all about time, till they found themselves in utter
darkness. They hastened to grope their way homeward through the forest,
and were startled, after a while, by shouts and moving lights. Till that
moment they never recollected how alarmed their wives must be. It was
past ten o'clock, and the poor ladies had been in a state of uneasiness
half the evening, and of mortal terror for the last two hours. They had
got people from the neighbourhood to go out with torches, little
expecting to see their husbands come walking home on their own feet, and
with nothing the matter with them but hunger and shame. I hope the
ladies were exceedingly angry when their panic was over.
The forest at the top of the ravine was a study to me, who had yet seen
but little forest. Moss cushioned all the roots of the trees; hibiscus
overspread the ground; among the pine stems there was a tangle of
unknown shrubs; and a brilliant bird, scarlet except its black wings,
hovered about as if it had no fear of us. I could learn nothing more
about it than that the people call it the red robin. Before we returned
the moon hung like a gem over the darkness of the ravine. I spent
another happy day among these falls some months after, and was yet more
impressed with their singularity and beauty.
When we had exchanged our wet clothes, an excellent dinner was served,
and our host himself waited upon us, sitting down by the window when
nothing was wanted. In the course of dinner Mr. H. related to me some
particulars of the slave insurrection at Charleston a few years before,
when upward of thirty slaves were hanged at once. Some circumstance
which he told led me to observe that I should have done as the thirty
did in their place. "Oh," said he, "so should I." I thanked him for his
response, saying that no defence he could now make of slavery would
stand against such an admission. He did not retract, but a long argument
ensued, in which our host became deeply interested. He moved his chair
forwarder and forwarder, till I saw him leaning over the table between
two of the gentlemen to listen. Everybody had long done eating, and
every dish on the table was quite cold, and the debate concluded, before
our host remembered that we had not had our pudding, and started up to
serve us.
We soon retired to our rooms, being in need of rest after the
discomforts of the canalboat and the fatigues of the day; but it was not
too late for the neighbours to offer their hospitable welcomes. Just
after I was undressed, the cards of visiters were brought me, with a
friendly message; but it was too late to do more than send a message in
return.
We left the place at a little after five in the morning, in a dismal
rain. While breakfasting at Utica, we engaged an "exclusive extra" to
carry us to Buffalo for eighty dollars, the precise route being agreed
upon, and the choice of times and seasons to remain with us. On going
out to our carriage we found the steps of the hotel occupied by a number
of persons, some from Boston, who offered me welcome to the country, and
any information or assistance I might need. One gentleman put into my
hand a letter of introduction to an influential friend of his at
Cincinnati, as it was understood that I was going there. So from this
strange place, where I had not spent above two hours, we drove off amid
a variety of friendly greetings.