Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
_SPECIAL EDITION_
WITH THE WORLD'S
GREAT TRAVELLERS
EDITED BY CHARLES MORRIS
AND OLIVER H. G. LEIGH
Vol. I
CHICAGO
UNION BOOK COMPANY
1901
COPYRIGHT 1896 AND 1897
BY
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
COPYRIGHT 1901
E. R. DUMONT
[Illustration: THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN
PAINTING BY SPADA]
CONTENTS.
SUBJECT. AUTHOR. PAGE
New Dependencies of the United States OLIVER H. G. LEIGH 9
Winter and Summer in New England HARRIET MARTINEAU 22
Niagara Falls and the Thousand Islands CHARLES MORRIS 31
From New York to Washington in 1866 HENRY LATHAM 39
The Natural Bridge and Tunnel of EDWARD A. POLLARD 49
Virginia
Plantation Life in War Times WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL 62
Among Florida Alligators S. C. CLARKE 74
In the Mammoth Cave THERESE YELVERTON 83
Down the Ohio and Mississippi THOMAS L. NICHOLS 94
From New Orleans to Red River FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED 104
Winter on the Prairies G. W. FEATHERSTONHAUGH 114
A Hunter's Christmas Dinner J. S. CAMPION 124
A Colorado "Round-Up" ALFRED TERRY BACON 133
Among the Cow-boys LOUIS C. BRADFORD 141
Hunting the Buffalo WASHINGTON IRVING 147
In the Country of the Sioux MERIWETHER LEWIS 157
The Great Falls of the Missouri WILLIAM CLARKE 168
Hunting Scenes in Canadian Woods B. A. WATSON 178
The Grand Falls of Labrador HENRY G. BRYANT 189
Life Among the Esquimaux WILLIAM EDWARD PARRY 200
Fugitives from the Arctic Seas ELISHA KENT KANE 210
Rescued from Death W. S. SCHLEY 220
The Muir Glacier SEPTIMA M. COLLIS 230
A Summer Trip to Alaska JAMES A. HARRISON 239
The Fort William Henry Massacre JONATHAN CARVER 249
The Gaucho and His Horse THOMAS J. HUTCHINSON 257
Valparaiso and Its Vicinity CHARLES DARWIN 265
An Escape from Captivity BENJAMIN F. BOURNE 274
List of Illustrations
VOLUME I
THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN _Frontispiece_
MORRO CASTLE, HAVANA 14
WASHINGTON ELM, CAMBRIDGE 28
NEW YORK AND THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE 42
ON THE COAST OF FLORIDA 78
SUNRISE FROM THE SUMMIT OF PIKE'S PEAK 134
A KANSAS CYCLONE 144
THE CATSKILLS--SUNRISE FROM SOUTH MOUNTAIN 180
PARLIAMENT HOUSES, OTTAWA 198
WINTER IN THE FAR NORTH 214
MUIR GLACIER, ALASKA 236
PREFACE.
Next to actual travel, the reading of first-class travel stories by men
and women of genius is the finest aid to the broadening of views and
enlargement of useful knowledge of men and the world's ways. It is the
highest form of intellectual recreation, with the advantage over
fiction-reading of satisfying the wholesome desire for facts. With all
our modern enthusiasm for long journeys and foreign travel, now so easy
of accomplishment, we see but very little of the great world. The fact
that ocean voyages are now called mere "trips" has not made us
over-familiar with even our own kinsfolk in our new dependencies.
Foreign peoples and lands are still strange to us. Tropic and Arctic
lands are as far apart in condition as ever; Europe differs from Asia,
America from Africa, as markedly as ever. Man still presents every grade
of development, from the lowest savagery to the highest civilization,
and our interest in the marvels of nature and art, the variety of plant
and animal life, and the widely varied habits and conditions, modes of
thought and action, of mankind, is in no danger of losing its zest.
These considerations have guided us in our endeavor to tell the story of
the world, alike of its familiar and unfamiliar localities, as displayed
in the narratives of those who have seen its every part. Special
interest attaches to the stories of those travellers who first gazed
upon the wonders and observed the inhabitants of previously unknown
lands, and whose descriptions are therefore those of discoverers.
One indisputable advantage belongs to this work over the average record
of travel: the reader is not tied down to the perusal of a one-man book.
He has the privilege of calling at pleasure upon any one of these
eminent travellers to recount his or her exploit, with the certainty of
finding they are all in their happiest vein and tell their best stories.
The adventures and discoveries here described are gathered from the four
quarters of the globe, and include the famous stories of men no longer
living, as well as those of present activity. Many of the articles were
formerly published in the exhaustive work entitled, "The World's Library
of Literature, History and Travel" [The J. B. Lippincott Co.,
Philadelphia].
For the rich variety and quality of our material we are indebted to
many travellers of note, and to the courtesy of numerous publishers
and authors. Among these it is desired to acknowledge particularly
indebtedness to the following publishers and works: To Harper and
Brothers, for selections from Stanley's "Through the Dark Continent," Du
Chaillu's "Equatorial Africa," Prime's "Tent-Life in the Holy Land,"
Orton's "The Andes and the Amazon," and Browne's "An American Family in
Germany." To Charles Scribner's Sons: Stanley's "In Darkest Africa,"
Field's "The Greek Islands," and Schley's "The Rescue of Greely." To G.
P. Putnam's Sons: De Amicis's "Holland and its People," Taylor's "Lands
of the Saracens," and Brace's "The New West." To Houghton, Mifflin and
Co.: Melville's "In the Lena Delta," and Hawthorne's "Our Old Home." To
Roberts Brothers: Hunt's "Bits of Travel at Home." To H. C. Coates and
Co.: Leonowen's "Life and Travel in India." Equal tribute is offered to
the authors who have courteously permitted the use of their material,
and in these acknowledgments we include Charles Morris, editor of the
above work, and Oliver H. G. Leigh, whose pen has won honors in various
fields, for their special contributions to this edition.
WITH THE WORLD'S
GREAT TRAVELLERS.
NEW DEPENDENCIES OF THE UNITED STATES.
OLIVER H. G LEIGH.
[The trend of events makes it certain that our geographical
knowledge is going to be enlarged by personal investigation.
The boom of Dewey's big guns sent us to our school-books with
mixed feelings as to the practical value of much of our alleged
learning. The world suddenly broadened as we gazed in surprise.
Hawaii invited itself into the circle of new relations. The
near West Indies and the remote Philippines craved peculiar
attentions. Whether moved by commercial zeal, official duty
or the profitable curiosity of pleasure or scientific
investigation, he is in the highest sense a patriotic
benefactor of his own country and the land he visits, who
devotes his energies to making Americans more intimately
acquainted with the communities now linked with the most
powerful of nations.]
The scope of holiday travel, or tours of profitable investigation, has
been widely extended by the new relationship between the United States
and Hawaii, now included in its possessions, and the former Spanish
islands over which it exercises a kindly protectorate. Through the usual
channels public sentiment is being formed upon the resources and
responsibilities of the new dependencies. Many will be attracted to
Cuba, Porto Rico, Hawaii, and even to the remote Philippines, by
considerations of a practical kind. No truer patriotic motive can
inspire the American traveller than the desire to develop the natural
resources, and, by consequence, the social welfare of a dependent
community Whether bent on business, pleasure, or official duty in the
service of the United States the prospective voyager, and the friends he
leaves behind him, will profit by these gatherings from the impressions
and experiences of former travellers.
The approach to Havana at daybreak overwhelms the senses with the
gorgeous beauties of the sky and landscape. Foul as the harbor may be
with city drainage it seems a silvery lake encircled with the charms of
Paradise and over-arched with indescribable glories of celestial forms
and hues and ever-changing witcheries wrought by the frolicsome sun in
his ecstasy of morning release. Strange that where nature most lavishes
her wealth of charms and favors, the listlessness of perverse man
responds in ungrateful contrasts rather than in harmonies. Havana
has the interest of age, with the drawbacks incident to hereditary
indifference to progressive change. As in all important cities there are
sharp contrasts in its quarters. With long avenues of stately mansions,
marble-like and colonnaded, and exquisitely designed courtyards, there
are unpaved thoroughfares with an open sewer in the mid-roadway, flanked
by tenement houses with a family in each room. Most of Havana's two
hundred thousand citizens live in one-story buildings, lacking
conveniences which the poorest American considers necessities. The older
streets are mere alleys, about twenty feet wide, of which the sidewalks
take up seven. Light and ample ventilation are obtained by grated
window-openings without frames or glass. The dwellings and public
buildings throughout Cuba are planned to give free passage to every
zephyr that wafts relief from the oppressive heat. This is not because
the thermometer mounts much higher than it does in the United States,
for it never touches the records of our great cities, where a hundred in
the shade is not unknown. From 80 to 50 degrees is the year's average,
and it is this steady continuance of warmth that tries strength and
temper.
In the better districts of Havana the driveways are twenty-three feet
and the sidewalks about ten feet wide. Politeness keeps native and
foreign men hopping up and down the foot deep curb to allow ladies a
fair share of elbow-room on the pavements. Your guest-chamber in a
well-to-do family residence has probably a window twenty by eight feet,
sashless, but with several lace curtains and shutters to suit the
weather. The walls are tinted with the Spaniard's eye for rich color
display, the massive furniture is solid carved old mahogany, and the
graceful mosquito curtains suggest experiences better left untold.
House-rent is high, owing to the heavy taxation, which will doubtless be
modified after American administration has put the city in a sanitary
condition. Flour used to cost the poorer classes from two to three times
its price in the United States.
Before we leave the capital for the interior we must note two or three
of the time-mellowed edifices, which give the flavor of old-world
mediaevalism to the island. The gloomy Morro Castle is familiar in the
chronicles of the war. It stands guard at the water-gate of the city,
a grim-visaged dungeon that echoes with the despairing groans of more
victims of cruel oppression than can ever be counted. A more cheerful
landmark is the old Cathedral, looking as if it dates further back than
1724, cooped up in its crowded quarter. Here rest the ashes of Columbus,
say the faithful, and they are probably right. He died in Spain May 20,
1506. In 1856, his bones were brought to San Domingo and from there were
transferred in January, 1796, to this Cathedral, where they rest in the
wall behind the bust and tablet to his memory. The elaborate monument
under the dome is a splendid work of art. Four life-size sculptured
ecclesiastics bear a sarcophagus on their shoulders. There is also a
supposed portrait bust on a mural tablet.
The Spanish element in the city is popularly said to be an exaggeration
of the old country quality. The Tacon theatre holds three thousand
people. Cafes and restaurants abound, and never lack customers. Some day
Havana may be transformed into a nearer Paris, with a larger American
colony than haunts the dearer city across the sea. Cuba has nearly
the same area as England. The Province of Havana has a population of
452,000, of whom 107,500 are black. Large tracts of the island have not
yet been explored. The long years of intermittent battling between
the Cubans and Spaniards have grievously hindered progress in all
directions. Nature is bountiful beyond belief, yet her overtures have
been scorned, partly because of native inertia, but mainly through dread
of loss. Both sides have been guilty of laying waste vast areas of
cultivated land, ruining its husbandmen, capitalists and laborers alike.
The millennium bids fair to come before long. Peace is restoring
confidence. The reign of justice will bring capital and labor back to
the soil and tempt American migration to the cities and towns, where
life can be lived so enjoyably by those who bring modern methods and
ideas to bear in the task of converting a man-made wilderness into an
alluring paradise. Not long ago an American bought seventy acres of
ground in Trinidad valley, which he cleared and planted at a cost of
$3,070 for the first year. The second year's cultivation cost $1,120. He
made it a banana orchard. At the end of the second year he had realized
$30,680 net profit by the sale of his crop of 54,000 bunches.
Havana has the cosmopolitan air. Clubs, cafes, and entertainments abound
and flourish. Its suburbs and nearby towns afford all the allurements
the modern city-man seeks in country life. The rural charms of Marianao
are unsurpassed in any land. Ornately simple architecture marks the
columned houses of its best street. Around it are the cosy cottages in
their luxuriant gardens, and beyond these the open country, a veritable
Eden of foliage, flowers and fruit. In one spot a famous old banyan tree
has thrown out its limbs, thrusting them deep into the soil till they
have sprouted and spread over a five-acre field.
As we traverse the garden landscape in any settled part of the island,
and in Porto Rico, we note the habits of the rustic native in his
interesting simplicity. Poor enough in all conscience, but wonderfully
contented with his crust of bread, his cigarette, the family pig,
bananas for the pickaninnies' staple fare, and the frequent sips of rum
which are to the West Indian laborer what beefsteak is to the American
toiler. He is by no means a drunkard, and if he lacks book-learning
he excels in some civic virtues of the homelier kind, and is not
extravagant in his tailor-bills. The children's costume is usually that
of Eve before the fall, and the apparel of a goodly family might be
bought for the price of a dude's red vest.
Cock-fighting is the favorite native sport. It is encountered at any
hour, anywhere. There are other sports, such as boar hunts, spearing
fish, not to mention that of killing tarantulas, sand-flies, land-crabs,
and the gentle crocodile. The thousand miles of steam railway in Cuba
are unevenly distributed. From Havana the trip through Pinar del Rio
gives an astounding revelation of the wealth of forest and soil and
mines. Devastated as so much of this country was during the long years
of dragging war, its charms of scenery and possibilities of development
will work its speedy salvation. A single acre of choice land has
produced $3,000 worth of tobacco.
Two crops of corn and two of strawberries grow each year, vegetables and
many fruits are superabundant, yet wheat and flour are imported, and
cotton, besides other important staples, can be successfully cultivated.
Journeying to the charming Isle of Pines, and then south and east
through Matanzas, Santa Clara, and Puerto Principe to Santiago, there is
the same invitation of Nature to come and enjoy all that makes earth
lovely. The island is dotted with towns large and small having much the
same characteristics as Havana. Her virgin forests have some of the
richest woods known to commerce. Her hills hold stores of iron, copper,
coal and other minerals. Her soil is ready to yield many-fold to
the courageous cultivator. When the swords have been turned into
plough-shares and the spears to pruning-hooks, there will come a new day
for the native Cuban. He will feel himself liberated from the hindering
rancors and jealousies, inevitable in the light of recent history, which
alone now stand between his beautiful island and the prosperity that
hovers, waiting his encouragement to alight. Then the traveller will
return with reports of Havana rejuvenated, her harbor dredged and
purified, her highways paved, homes made healthy and the whole island
lifted to the higher and happier plane that will give the Pearl of the
Antilles its rightful setting among the other gems of God's earth.
[Illustration: MORRO CASTLE, HAVANA]
Porto Rico, the "rich port," so named by Columbus, came gladly under the
American flag. Its population of about 900,000 has had a sorry time for
three hundred years. They have been steeped in spiritless poverty from
first to last, so used to the oppressor's yoke that ambition seems to
have been crushed. Yet their island is an earthly paradise, save for
its rain-storms and occasional droughts. It is rich in undeveloped
mineral deposits and splendid forests. Nature has helped to discourage
native effort by providing the means of sustenance over-lavishly, in one
sense. The people scattered through the interior find everything ready
grown to hand. The bulk of the population throng the shore areas and are
as listlessly happy with the minimum of life's necessaries as are the
animals.
Spain has left its mark upon the island, a mark representing a
civilization not to be sneered at, though not of the modern stamp. Range
through the island's lovely valleys, struggle up its mountain slopes to
isolated hamlets where primitive life lingers in all its bewildering
unloveliness; thread the rude thoroughfare of its picturesque towns, and
you will come upon replicas of the familiar Spanish church, the symbol
and centre of an ever potent influence for good. With all its faults,
this local haven of peace and good cheer has tempered the lot of
generations that never fully realized the hopelessness of their fate. A
venerable church peeping out of a leafy glade gives a touch of poetic
grace to the landscape. It is something, perhaps, though not very much,
that sectarian animosities do not embitter the easy minds of these
peasants, who dwell together in enviable fraternity.
Porto Rico is only one of some thirteen hundred islands in the West
Indies that are now in the American fold. It has several large towns
that will intensely interest the traveller. San Juan, with twenty-five
thousand inhabitants, is the principal city. A fine old military road
runs from it across the mountains to Ponce, on the south shore. It is
twenty feet wide, hard and dustless, winds along through eighty miles
of scenery unsurpassed in any country, though the island is only forty
miles directly across.
Every considerable town has its cathedral. That at Sabana Grande was
built in 1610. Some of them have gorgeous altars and precious paintings.
In one little church the figure of the Blessed Virgin is of pure gold.
Another has an altar of silver.
The retail stores in the cities make little or no front display. The
store is virtually a sample room, with extensive warehouses in the rear.
Town life is, in its way, Parisian. The cathedral stands in a square or
park, the promenade and gossiping ground for both sexes. The midday
siesta is the rule, a two hours' cessation from the round of toil. The
evenings are given to music and dancing, or the merry chatter of groups
as they enjoy the strains of the band. The lacy mantilla adds grace to
the generally captivating beauty of the women, as they cunningly drape
it over their heads to take the place of hats. The palms and cocoa-nut
trees, the clusters of coffee-trees, the sugar-cane, the groves of
oranges, lemons, bananas, and other fruits lend great beauty to the
landscape. Tobacco is largely cultivated, with plenty of inducements
for a more systematic treatment of a commodity which ought greatly to
increase the wealth of the island.
Since it has come under American influence many improvements have been
effected. The cities are treated to the modern system of drainage, and
roads have been constructed which will make traffic between the towns
easier and thus encourage trade.
Exceptionally fierce hurricanes and floods wrought havoc with many
plantations soon after the war. Other misfortunes plunged the always
poor laboring class into absolute starvation, many of the well-to-do
were ruined, and business has been severely hampered by questions of
tariff arising out of the change in political status. The United States
government has done much and will continue its kindly endeavors to
ameliorate the condition of these people. With the speedy return of good
times there ought to be a growing stream of pleasure as well as business
traffic to an island so exceptionally rich in the natural features which
give fresh delight to the travelled eye and unfold a new world of charm
to the fortunate ones who go abroad for the first time.
* * * * *
Honolulu, the capital of the Hawaiian group, has long been an American
city in all but name. The geographical position of the islands destined
them to come within the pale of our civilization. Within a century
the natives have been transformed from a state of animalism into a
self-respecting, progressive people. While the aborigines have been
rapidly dying out there has been a steady influx of new blood from
various sources. The population is about 120,000, immigrants from Japan
and Portugal forming a considerable proportion of the laboring class.
Chinese immigration has been restricted.
The traveller might almost imagine himself in some New England or
Pennsylvania town as he drives through the streets of Honolulu. The
capital is laid out on the American plan, the churches and houses might
have been transplanted by a cyclone, and the very attire of the people
in general keeps up the illusion of being at home from home. The palace
of the last king and queen bears as little relation to the hut of their
great predecessor, Kamehameha the First, as do the New York tailor-made
suits and dresses of the citizens of Honolulu to the scanty loin-cloth
which their grandparents considered the height of Sandwich Islands
fashion.
More and more will these lovely isles become the pleasure-grounds for
our people and for all world-tourists. The important practical value of
their annexation will be better understood if it ever becomes necessary
to back up the essential principle of the Monroe Doctrine against
foreign foes. As a growing metropolis Honolulu has charms of its own
independent of the ideal climate and luxuriant flora of the twelve
islands.
The narratives of the first travellers to Owhyee, as they styled it,
glowed with descriptions of the voluptuous charms of the natives, whose
life was a round of pleasure, untempered by the wholesome necessity for
hard toil. It was a lotos land for all who sojourned there. The harmful
consequences of unwholesome ease are not yet eradicated. Christianity
has achieved almost miraculous triumphs, and the conditions of
modern life in crowded communities are helping to harden the native
temperament. The leper colony in Molokai is one of several sad sights
which are, perhaps, better left unseen. Also the clandestine Saturnalia
still kept up on the old lines, with some winking or dozing on the part
of natives in authority.
Trips can be made to the surrounding islands, famous for their volcanic
mountains and tropical verdure. The largest active crater in the world
is that of Kilauea, being nine miles in circumference, with vertical
sides about one thousand feet deep and at the bottom a lake of molten
lava, boiling furiously in some parts and throwing off fibres like spun
silk which float in the air. These craters are apt to break into
activity without warning.
City life in Honolulu, as already remarked, can almost delude a
Southerner into fancying himself at home. It is quite cosmopolitan in
its degree. There are well-equipped hotels, an English library, street
railways, electric lights, telephones, insurance offices, colonies and
clubs of American and British lawyers, business men, physicians and
journalists. Modern progress is strikingly impressed on the visitor who
draws his own picture of the primitive semi-savages he expects to see,
when he hears the familiar hum of mills and factories, the roar and
pounding noises of foundries, and the imposing array of wharves and
vessels. Hawaii is a natural hub of the wheel of world-traffic. From its
ports there is a large and fast-growing steamship trade with the
principal commercial centres all over the globe. We shall pass from
Honolulu round to the Philippines in the easiest fashion. One is
surprised at the number of Chinese and Japanese laborers in Hawaii, some
of whom have prospered and own large business establishments. The
foreign element in the labor field has been a source of mild trouble but
is now in a fair way to solve itself. A gratifying feature is the public
school system. Everywhere are centres of light and learning, promising a
grand future for the island population. The abundant yield of rice,
sugar, coffee, bananas, and other foodstuffs is mostly bought for the
American people.
* * * * *
The pleasures and pains of the voyage to the Philippines have been the
subject of too many public letters since the war to need re-telling. The
two thousand islands which form the little-known archipelago are the
homes of a number of mixed tribes, with whom the traveller will not
crave intimate acquaintance for some time. In Luzon, the chief island,
we may feel fairly at home, now that its all but pathless wilds, as well
as its long-settled towns and hamlets, are sprinkled with American
soldiers. In time, doubtless, scientific exploration will approximately
fix the value of the mineral and arable fields of the archipelago. Until
knowledge increases in this direction there will not be much inducement
to roam among peoples with questionable manners, strange religions and
outlandish dialects. The Tagal folk has reached, as regards the more
favored class, a high degree of civilization. The Malay blood has
peculiarities of its own. Under long-continued Spanish rule the Luzon
native has developed intellectually and nurtured an ambition for
self-government. This half-amicable, half-hostile relationship between
the Spanish friars, who have been the spiritual, and perhaps still more
the civic, trainers and masters of the natives, is a most interesting
study for the newly arrived visitor.
Landing at Manila, the commercial centre and capital of the islands,
we find ourselves in a city blending the characteristics of an
old-fashioned Spanish town with the mild business air of a third-rate
western port. The buildings speak of the tropical perils to be
encountered. Dewey's bombardment was more generous than the earthquakes
and gales that smote the Cathedral. These visitations come oftener than
those of angels. Houses are built low and massively on the ground floor,
to insure that a one-story home shall remain when the upstairs section
flies away. Terrific gales come unannounced and life is temporarily
suspended until it is possible to swim into the streets and rake in the
flotsam and jetsam that once lodged within your walls. Periodical rains
lend variety to the novice's experience. They descend in Niagaras,
giving free and wholesome baths to the many who need them and to those
who need them not, and give the mud lanes that serve for streets a
timely cleaning up. The rainfall record has shown as much as 114 inches
in a year.
Your hotel will be the perfection of cleanliness, but the window
openings are vast and glass-panes are unknown. The mahogany bedstead
is bedless, a mat of woven cane strips, bare of everything that can
encourage warmth or harbor little neighbors, but winged visitors float
in to remind the sleeper he is not in the Waldorf-Astoria, and then
depart, perhaps. By day life can be very enjoyable. Churches, which are
largely art-galleries also, fine squares and promenades, fashionable
drives, town clubs and country clubs, shared by the American, English,
and German business men, these and other aids to happiness flourish in
Manila and suburbs.
The general aspect of Philippine scenery to the untutored eye of a
stranger resembles the tropical views already described, allowance being
made for differing conditions. When the fortunes of war brought the
islands within our ken the principal trade was divided between Spain and
outside countries. The treaty of 1898 brought the archipelago into
closer trade relations, with mutual advantages. When Aguinaldo, the
Tagal leader, declared his allegiance to the United States, the fact
assured the establishment of a friendly arrangement which in time will
bring high prosperity to the islands and civilization to their people.
The two hundred thousand who live in and around Manila are mainly
Christians.
Generally the natives with whom we are in closest contact are a civil
and good-tempered people. Picturesque in costume, or the lack of it,
they share with the scenery around the characteristic freedom from
commonplace. Prolonged familiarity with modern methods of culture will
take much of the charm out of life in the Philippines, replacing it, no
doubt, with the practical methods which conduce to progress. A voyage to
these distant islands affords a rare opportunity to trace the process of
evolution from the simple and natural to the complex machinery which is
grinding organized society into drab-tinted duplications of a rather
uninteresting original.
WINTER AND SUMMER IN NEW ENGLAND.
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
[The "Society in America" and the "Retrospect of Western
Travel," by Harriet Martineau, contain many interesting
pictures of life and scenery in the United States. Of the
descriptive passages of the latter work we select that
detailing her experience of winter weather in Boston, which she
seems to have looked upon with true English eyes, and not with
the vision of one "to the manner born."]
I believe no one attempts to praise the climate of New England. The
very low average of health there, the prevalence of consumption and of
decay of the teeth, are evidences of an unwholesome climate which I
believe are universally received as such. The mortality among children
throughout the whole country is a dark feature of life in the United
States.... Wherever we went in the North we heard of the "lung fever" as
a common complaint, and children seemed to be as liable to it as grown
persons.
The climate is doubtless chiefly to blame for all this, and I do not see
how any degree of care could obviate much of the evil. The children must
be kept warm within-doors; and the only way of affording them the range
of the house is by warming the whole, from the cellar to the garret, by
means of a furnace in the hall. This makes all comfortable within; but,
then, the risk of going out is very great. There is far less fog and
damp than in England, and the perfectly calm, sunny days of midwinter
are endurable; but the least breath of wind seems to chill one's very
life. I had no idea what the suffering from extreme cold amounted to
till one day, in Boston, I walked the length of the city and back again
in a wind, with the thermometer seven degrees and a half below zero. I
had been warned of the cold, but was anxious to keep an appointment to
attend a meeting. We put on all the merinoes and furs we could muster,
but we were insensible of them from the moment the wind reached us. My
muff seemed to be made of ice; I almost fancied I should have been
warmer without it. We managed getting to the meeting pretty well, the
stock of warmth we had brought out with us lasting till then. But we set
out cold on our return, and by the time I got home I did not very well
know where I was and what I was about. The stupefaction from cold is
particularly disagreeable, the sense of pain remaining through it, and I
determined not to expose myself to it again. All this must be dangerous
to children; and if, to avoid it, they are shut up through the winter,
there remains the danger of encountering the ungenial spring....
Every season, however, has its peculiar pleasures, and in the retrospect
these shine out brightly, while the evils disappear.
On a December morning you are awakened by the domestic scraping at your
hearth. Your anthracite fire has been in all night; and now the ashes
are carried away, more coal is put on, and the blower hides the kindly
red from you for a time. In half an hour the fire is intense, though, at
the other end of the room, everything you touch seems to blister your
fingers with cold. If you happen to turn up a corner of the carpet with
your foot, it gives out a flash, and your hair crackles as you brush it.
Breakfast is always hot, be the weather what it may. The coffee is
scalding, and the buckwheat cakes steam when the cover is taken off.
Your host's little boy asks whether he may go coasting to-day, and his
sisters tell you what days the schools will all go sleighing. You may
see boys coasting on Boston Common all the winter day through, and too
many in the streets, where it is not so safe.
To coast is to ride on a board down a frozen slope, and many children do
this in the steep streets which lead down to the Common, as well as on
the snowy slopes within the enclosure where no carriages go. Some sit on
their heels on the board, some on their crossed legs. Some strike their
legs out, put their arms akimbo, and so assume an air of defiance amid
their velocity. Others prefer lying on their stomachs, and so going
headforemost, an attitude whose comfort I could never enter into.
Coasting is a wholesome exercise for hardy boys. Of course, they have
to walk up the ascent, carrying their boards between every feat of
coasting; and this affords them more exercise than they are at all aware
of taking.
As for the sleighing, I heard much more than I experienced of its
charms. No doubt early association has something to do with the American
fondness for this mode of locomotion, and much of the affection which is
borne to music, dancing, supping, and all kinds of frolic is transferred
to the vehicle in which the frolicking parties are transported. It must
be so, I think, or no one would be found to prefer a carriage on runners
to a carriage on wheels, except on an untrodden expanse of snow. On a
perfectly level and crisp surface I can fancy the smooth, rapid motion
to be exceedingly pleasant; but such surfaces are rare in the
neighborhood of populous cities. The uncertain, rough motion in streets
hillocky with snow, or on roads consisting for the season of a ridge of
snow with holes in it, is disagreeable and provocative of headache. I am
no rule for others as to liking the bells; but to me their incessant
jangle was a great annoyance. Add to this the sitting, without exercise,
in a wind caused by the rapidity of the motion, and the list of
_desagremens_ is complete. I do not know the author of a description of
sleighing which was quoted to me, but I admire it for its fidelity. "Do
you want to know what sleighing is like? You can soon try. Set your
chair on a spring-board out on the porch on Christmas-day; put your feet
in a pailful of powdered ice; have somebody to jingle a bell in one ear,
and somebody else to blow into the other with the bellows, and you will
have an exact idea of sleighing."
[This quotation would appear to be a variant of Dr. Franklin's
recipe for sleighing. As for Miss Martineau's experience
"behind the bells," it seems to have been very unfortunate.]
If the morning be fine, you have calls to make, or shopping to do, or
some meeting to attend. If the streets be coated with ice, you put on
your India-rubber shoes--unsoled--to guard you from slipping. If not,
you are pretty sure to measure your length on the pavement before your
own door. Some of the handsomest houses in Boston, those which boast the
finest flights of steps, have planks laid on the steps during the season
of frost, the wood being less slippery than stone. If, as sometimes
happens, a warm wind should be suddenly breathing over the snow, you go
back to change your shoes, India-rubbers being as slippery in wet as
leather soles are on ice. [It must be borne in mind that the writer is
speaking of the rubber shoes of sixty years ago.] Nothing is seen in
England like the streets of Boston and New York at the end of the
season, while the thaw is proceeding. The area of the street had been so
raised that passengers could look over the blinds of your ground-floor
rooms; when the sidewalks become full of holes and puddles they are
cleared, and the passengers are reduced to their proper level; but the
middle of the street remains exalted, and the carriages drive along a
ridge. Of course, this soon becomes too dangerous, and for a season
ladies and gentlemen walk; carts tumble, slip, and slide, and get on
as they can; while the mass, now dirty, not only with thaw, but with
quantities of refuse vegetables, sweepings of the poor people's houses,
and other rubbish which it was difficult to know what to do with while
every place was frozen up, daily sinks and dissolves into a composite
mud. It was in New York and some of the inferior streets of Boston that
I saw this process in its completeness.
If the morning drives are extended beyond the city there is much to
delight the eye. The trees are cased in ice; and when the sun shines out
suddenly the whole scene looks like one diffused rainbow, dressed in a
brilliancy which can hardly be conceived of in England. On days less
bright, the blue harbor spreads in strong contrast with the sheeted snow
which extends to its very brink....
The skysights of the colder regions of the United States are resplendent
in winter. I saw more of the aurora borealis, more falling stars and
other meteors, during my stay in New England than in the whole course of
my life before. Every one knows that splendid and mysterious exhibitions
have taken place in all the Novembers of the last four years, furnishing
interest and business to the astronomical world. The most remarkable
exhibitions were in the Novembers of 1833 and 1835, the last of which I
saw....
On the 17th of November in question, that of 1835, I was staying in the
house of one of the professors of Harvard University at Cambridge. The
professor and his son John came in from a lecture at nine o'clock, and
told us that it was nearly as light as day, though there was no moon.
The sky presented as yet no remarkable appearance, but the fact set
us telling stories of skysights. A venerable professor told us of a
blood-red heaven which shone down on a night of the year 1789, when an
old lady interpreted the whole French Revolution from what she saw. None
of us had any call to prophesying this night. John looked out from time
to time while we were about the piano, but our singing had come to a
conclusion before he brought us news of a very strange sky. It was now
near eleven. We put cloaks and shawls over our heads, and hurried into
the garden. It was a mild night, and about as light as with half a moon.
There was a beautiful rose-colored flush across the entire heavens, from
southeast to northwest. This was every moment brightening, contracting
in length, and dilating in breadth.
My host ran off without his hat to call the Natural History professor.
On the way he passed a gentleman who was trudging along, pondering the
ground. "A remarkable night, sir," cried my host. "Sir! how, sir?"
replied the pedestrian. "Why, look above your head!" The startled walker
ran back to the house he had left to make everybody gaze. There was some
debate about ringing the college-bell, but it was agreed that it would
cause too much alarm.
The Natural Philosophy professor came forth in curious trim, and his
household and ours joined in the road. One lady was in her nightcap,
another with a handkerchief tied over her head, while we were cowled in
cloaks. The sky was now resplendent. It was like a blood-red dome, a
good deal pointed. Streams of a greenish-white light radiated from the
centre in all directions. The colors were so deep, especially the red,
as to give an opaque appearance to the canopy, and as Orion and the
Pleiades and many more stars could be distinctly seen, the whole looked
like a vast dome inlaid with constellations. These skysights make one
shiver, so new are they, so splendid, so mysterious. We saw the heavens
grow pale, and before midnight believed that the mighty show was over;
but we had the mortification of hearing afterwards that at one o'clock
it was brighter than ever, and as light as day.
Such are some of the wintry characteristics of New England.
If I lived in Massachusetts, my residence during the hot months should
be beside one of its ponds. These ponds are a peculiarity in New England
scenery very striking to the traveller. Geologists tell us of the time
when the valleys were chains of lakes; and in many parts the eye of the
observer would detect this without the aid of science. There are many
fields and clusters of fields of remarkable fertility, lying in basins,
the sides of which have much the appearance of the greener and smoother
of the dykes of Holland. These suggest the idea of their having been
ponds at the first glance. Many remain filled with clear water, the
prettiest meres in the world. A cottage on Jamaica Pond, for instance,
within an easy ride of Boston, is a luxurious summer abode. I know of
one unequalled in its attractions, with its flower-garden, its lawn,
with banks shelving down to the mere,--banks dark with nestling pines,
from under whose shade the bright track of the moon may be seen, lying
cool on the rippling waters. A boat is moored in the cove at hand. The
cottage itself is built for coolness, and the broad piazza is draperied
with vines, which keep out the sun from the shaded parlor.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON ELM, CAMBRIDGE]
The way to make the most of a summer's day in a place like this is to
rise at four, mount your horse and ride through the lanes for two hours,
finding breakfast ready on your return. If you do not ride, you slip
down to the bathing-house on the creek; and, once having closed the
door, have the shallow water completely to yourself, carefully avoiding
going beyond the deep-water mark, where no one knows how deep the mere
may be. After breakfast you should dress your flowers, before those
you gather have quite lost the morning dew. The business of the day, be
it what it may, housekeeping, study, teaching, authorship, or charity,
will occupy you till dinner at two. You have your dessert carried into
the piazza, where, catching glimpses of the mere through the wood on the
banks, your watermelon tastes cooler than within, and you have a better
chance of a visit from a pair of humming-birds.
You retire to your room, all shaded with green blinds, lie down with a
book in your hands, and sleep soundly for two hours at least. When you
wake and look out, the shadows are lengthening on the lawn, and the hot
haze has melted away. You hear a carriage behind the fence, and conclude
that friends from the city are coming to spend the evening with you.
They sit within till after tea, telling you that you are living in
the sweetest place in the world. When the sun sets you all walk out,
dispersing in the shrubbery or on the banks. When the moon shows herself
above the opposite woods, the merry voices of the young people are heard
from the cove, where the boys are getting out the boat. You stand, with
a companion or two, under the pines, watching the progress of the skiff
and the receding splash of the oars. If you have any one, as I had, to
sing German popular songs to you, the enchantment is all the greater.
You are capriciously lighted home by fireflies, and there is your table
covered with fruit and iced lemonade. When your friends have left you
you would fain forget it is time to rest, and your last act before you
sleep is to look out once more from your balcony upon the silvery mere
and moonlit lawn.
The only times when I felt disposed to quarrel with the inexhaustible
American mirth was on the hottest days of summer. I liked it as well as
ever; but European strength will not stand more than an hour or two of
laughter in such seasons. I remember one day when the American part of
the company was as much exhausted as the English. We had gone, a party
of six, to spend a long day with a merry household in a country village,
and, to avoid the heat, had performed the journey of sixteen miles
before ten o'clock. For three hours after our arrival the wit was in
full flow; by which time we were all begging for mercy, for we could
laugh no longer with any safety. Still, a little more fun was dropped
all round, till we found that the only way was to separate, and we all
turned out of doors. I cannot conceive how it is that so little has been
heard in England of the mirth of the Americans; for certainly nothing in
their manner struck and pleased me more. One of the rarest characters
among them, and a great treasure to all his sportive neighbors, is a man
who cannot take a joke.
The prettiest playthings of summer are the humming-birds. I call them
playthings because they are easily tamed, and are not very difficult to
take care of for a time. It is impossible to attend to book, work, or
conversation while there is a humming-bird in sight, its exercises and
vagaries are so rapid and beautiful. Its prettiest attitude is vibrating
before a blossom which is tossed in the wind. Its long beak is inserted
in the flower, and the bird rises and falls with it, quivering its
burnished wings with dazzling rapidity. My friend E---- told me how
she had succeeded in taming a pair. One flew into the parlor where
she was sitting, and perched. E----'s sister stepped out for a branch
of honeysuckle, which she stuck up over the mirror. The other bird
followed, and the pair alighted on the branch, flew off, and returned to
it. E---- procured another branch, and held it on the top of her head;
and thither also the little creatures came without fear. She next held
it in her hand, and still they hovered and settled. They bore being
shut in for the night, a nest of cotton-wool being provided. Of course,
it was impossible to furnish them with honeysuckles enough for food; and
sugar-and-water was tried, which they seemed to relish very well.
One day, however, when E---- was out of the room, one of the little
creatures was too greedy in the saucer; and, when E---- returned, she
found it lying on its side, with its wings stuck to its body and its
whole little person clammy with sugar. E---- tried a sponge and warm
water: it was too harsh; she tried old linen, but it was not soft
enough; it then occurred to her that the softest of all substances is
the human tongue. In her love for her little companion she thus cleansed
it, and succeeded perfectly, so far as the outward bird was concerned.
But though it attempted to fly a little, it never recovered, but soon
died of its surfeit. Its mate was, of course, allowed to fly away.
NIAGARA FALLS AND THE THOUSAND ISLANDS.
CHARLES MORRIS.
[Among travellers' descriptions of the natural marvels of this
continent, much has been written of perhaps the greatest of
them all, the celebrated cataract of the Niagara River. The
Thousand Islands have also excited much admiration.
Fortunately, these two scenic wonders are sufficiently
contiguous to be dealt with in one record, and the compiler of
the present work ventures to give his own impressions of them,
from a printed statement made some twenty-five years ago.]
Who has not read in story and seen in picture, countless times, how the
water goes over at Niagara? I came here expecting to find every curve
and plunge of the river appealing like a household thing to my memory.
So in great measure it proved, yet travellers never succeed in
exhausting a situation in their narratives; something of the unexpected
always remains to freshen the sated appetite of new-comers.