I had come to New Orleans to be married, and the knot once tied, there
was little inducement for my wife, myself, or any of our party, to
remain in that city. Indeed, had we been disposed to linger, an account
that was given us of the most unwelcome of all visitors, the yellow
fever, having knocked at the doors of several houses in the Marigny
suburb, would have been sufficient to drive us away. For my part, I was
anxious to find myself in my now comfortable home, and to show my new
acquisition--namely, my wife--to my friends above Bâton Rouge, well
assured that the opinion of all would be in favour of the choice I had
made. By some eccentric working of that curious machinery called the
mind, I was more thoughtful than a man is usually supposed to be upon
his wedding-day; and I received the congratulations of the guests, went
through the _obligato_ breakfast, and the preparations for departure, in
a very automatical manner. I took scarcely more note of the nine shots
that were fired as we went on board the steamer, of the hurrahs shouted
after us from the quay by a few dozen sailors, or the waving of the
star-spangled banners that fluttered over the poop and forecastle--of
all the honour and glory, in short, attending our departure. I was busy
drawing a comparison between my first and this, my last, voyage to the
Red River.
It was just nine years and two months since I had first come into
possession of my "freehold of these United States," as the papers
specified it. Five thousand dollars had procured me the honour of
becoming a Louisianian planter; upon the occurrence of which event, I
was greeted by my friends and acquaintances as the luckiest of men.
There were two thousand acres, "with due allowance for fences and
roads," according to the usual formula; and the wood alone, if I might
believe what was told me, was well worth twenty thousand dollars. For
the preceding six months, the whole of the western press had been
praising the Red River territory to the very skies; it was an
incomparable sugar and cotton ground, full sixteen feet deep of river
slime--Egypt was a sandy desert compared to it--and as to the climate,
the zephyrs that disported themselves there were only to be paralleled
in Eldorado and Arcadia. I, like a ninny as I was, although fully aware
of the puffing propensities of our newspaper editors, especially when
their tongues, or rather pens, have been oiled by a few handfuls of
dollars, fell into the trap, and purchased land in the fever-hole in
question, where I was assured that a habitable house and two negro huts
were already built and awaiting me. The improvements alone, the
land-speculator was ready to take his oath, were worth every cent of two
thousand dollars. In short, I concluded my blind bargain, and in the
month of June, prepared to start to visit my estate. I was at New
Orleans, which city was just then held fast in the gripe of its annual
scourge and visitor, the yellow fever. I was in a manner left alone; all
my friends had gone up or down stream, or across the Pont Chartrain.
There was nothing to be seen in the whole place but meagre hollow-eyed
negresses, shirtless and masterless, running about the streets, howling
like jackals, or crawling in and out of the open doors of the houses. In
the upper suburb things were at the worst; there, whole streets were
deserted, the houses empty, the doors and windows knocked in; while the
foul fever-laden breeze came sighing over from Vera Cruz, and nothing
was to be heard but the melancholy rattle of the corpse-carts as they
proceeded slowly through the streets with their load of coffins. It was
high time to be off, when the yellow fever, the deadly _vomito_, had
thus made its triumphant entry, and was ruling and ravaging like some
mighty man of war in a stormed fortress.
I had four negroes with me, including old Sybille, who was at that time
full sixty-five years of age; Cæsar, Tiberius, and Vitellius, were the
three others. We are fond of giving our horses and negroes these high
sounding appellations, as a sort of warning, I am inclined to think, to
those amongst us who sit in high places; for even in our young republic
there is no lack of would-be Cæsars.
The steamers had left off running below Bâton Rouge, so I resolved to
leave my gig at New Orleans, procuring in its stead a sort of dearborn
or railed cart, in which I packed the whole of my traps, consisting of a
medley of blankets and axes, barrows and ploughshares, cotton shirts and
cooking utensils. Upon the top of all this I perched myself; and those
who had known me only three or four months previously as the gay and
fashionable Mr Howard, one of the leaders of the _ton_, the deviser and
proposer of fêtes, balls, and gaieties of all kinds, might well have
laughed, could they have seen me half buried amongst pots and pans,
bottles and bundles, spades and mattocks, and suchlike useful but homely
instruments. There was nobody there to laugh, however, or to cry either.
Tears were then scarce articles in New Orleans; for people had got
accustomed to death, and their feelings were more or less blunted. But
even had the yellow fever not been there, I doubt if any one would have
laughed at me; there is too much sound sense amongst us. Our town
beauties--ay, the most fashionable and elegant of them--think nothing of
installing themselves, with their newly wedded husbands, in the
aforesaid dearborns, and moving off to the far west, leaving behind them
all the comforts and luxuries among which they have been brought up.
Whoever travels in our backwoods, will often come across scenes and
interiors such as the boldest romance writer would never dare to invent.
Newly married couples, whose childhood and early youth have been spent
in the enjoyment of all the superfluities of civilization, will buy a
piece of good land far in the depths of forests and prairies, and found
a new existence for themselves and their children. One meets with their
dwellings in abundance--log-houses, consisting for the most part of one
room and a small kitchen: on the walls of the former the horses' saddles
and harness, and the husband's working clothes, manufactured often by
the delicate hands of his lady; in one corner, a harp or a piano; on the
table, perhaps, a few numbers of the North American or Southern reviews,
and some Washington or New York papers. A strange mixture of wild and
civilized life. It is thus that our Johnsons, our Livingstons, and
Ranselaers, and hundreds, ay, thousands of families, our Jeffersons and
Washingtons, commenced; and truly it is to be hoped, that the rising
generation will not despise the custom of their forefathers, or reject
this healthy means of renovating the blood and vigour of the community.
To return to my own proceedings. I got upon my dearborn, in order to
leave as soon as possible the pestilential atmosphere of New Orleans;
and I had just established myself amongst my goods and chattels, when
Cæsar came running up in great exultation, with a new cloak which he had
been so lucky as to find lying before the door of a deserted house in
the suburb. I took hold of the infected garment with a pair of tongs,
and pitched it as far as I was able from the cart, to the great dismay
of Cæsar, who could not understand why I should throw away a thing which
he assured me was well worth twenty dollars. We set off, and soon got
out of the town. Not a living creature was to be seen as far as the eye
could reach along the straight road. On the right hand side, the suburb
of the Annunciation was enclosed in wooden palisades, upon which
enormous bills were posted, containing proclamations by the mayor of the
town, and headed with the word "Infected," in letters that could be read
half a mile off. These proclamations, however, were unnecessary. New
Orleans looked more like a churchyard than a city; and we did not meet
five persons during the whole of our drive along the new canal road.
At the first plantation at which we halted, in order to give the horses
a feed, gates and doors were all shut in our faces, and the hospitable
owner of the house warned us to be off. As this warning was conveyed in
the shape of a couple of rifle-barrels protruded through the jalousies,
we did not think it advisable to neglect it. The reception was cheerless
enough; but we came from New Orleans, and could expect no better one.
Cæsar, however, dauntless as his celebrated namesake, jumped over a
paling, and plucked an armful of Indian corn ears, which he gave to the
horses; an earthen pan served to fetch them water from the Mississippi,
and after a short pause we resumed our journey. Five times, I remember,
we halted, and were received in the same humane and hospitable manner,
until at last we reached the plantation of my friend Bankes. We had come
fifty miles under a burning sun, and had passed more than fifty
plantations, each with its commodious and elegant villa built upon it;
but we had not yet seen a human face. Here, however, I hoped to find
shelter and refreshment; but in that hope I was doomed to be
disappointed.
"From New Orleans?" enquired the voice of my friend through the
jalousies of his verandah.
"To be sure," answered I.
"Then begone, friend, and be d----d to you!" was the affectionate reply
of the worthy Mr Bankes, who was, nevertheless, kind enough to cause a
huge ham and accessories, together with half a dozen well-filled
bottles, to be placed outside the door--a sort of mute intimation that
he was happy to see us, so long as we did not cross his threshold. I had
a hearty laugh at this half-and-half hospitality, eat and drank, wrapped
myself in a blanket, and slept, with the blue vault for a covering, as
well or better than the president.
In the morning, before starting, I shouted out a "Thank ye! and be
d----d to you!" by way of _remerciment_; and then we resumed our march.
At last, upon the third evening, we managed to get our heads under a
roof at the town of Bâton Rouge, in the house of an old French soldier,
who laughed at the yellow fever as he had formerly done at the Cossacks
and Mamelukes; and the following morning we started for the Red River,
in the steamboat Clayborne. By nightfall we reached my domain.
_Santa Virgen!_ exclaims the Spaniard in his extremity of grief and
perplexity: what I exclaimed, I am sure I do not remember; but I know
that my hair stood on end, when I beheld, for the first time, the
so-called improvements on my new property. The habitable and comfortable
house was a species of pigsty, built out of the rough branches of trees,
without doors, windows, or roof. There was I to dwell, and that in a
season when the thermometer was ranging between ninety-five and a
hundred degrees. The very badness of things, however, stimulated us to
exertion; we set to work, and in two days had built a couple of very
decent huts, the only inconvenience of which was, that when it rained
hard, we were obliged to take refuge under a neighbouring cotton-tree.
Fortunately, out of the two thousand acres, there really were fifty in a
state of cultivation, and that helped us. I planted and kept house as
well as I could: in the daytime I ploughed and sowed; and in the evening
I mended the harness and the holes in my inexpressibles. With society I
was little troubled, seeing that my nearest neighbour lived
five-and-twenty miles off. The first summer passed in this manner; the
second was a little better; and the third better still--until at last
the way of life became endurable. There is nothing in the world
impracticable; and Napoleon never spoke a truer word than when he said,
"_Impossible!--C'est le mot d'un fou!_"
And then a hunting-party in the savannahs of Louisiana or Arkansas!
There is a something in those endless and gigantic wildernesses which
seems to elevate the soul, and to give to it, as well as to the body, an
increase of strength and energy. There reign, in countless multitudes,
the wild horse and the bison; the wolf, the bear, and the snake; and,
above all, the trapper, surpassing the very beasts of the desert in
wildness--not the old trapper described by Cooper, who never saw a
trapper in his life, but the real trapper, whose adventures and mode of
existence would furnish the richest materials for scores of romances.
Our American civilization has engendered certain corrupt off-shoots, of
which the civilization of other countries knows nothing, and which could
only spring up in a land where liberty is found in its greatest
development. These trappers are for the most part outcasts, criminals
who have fled from the chastisement of the law, or else unruly spirits
to whom even the rational degree of freedom enjoyed in the United States
has appeared cramping and insufficient. It is perhaps fortunate for the
States, that they possess the sort of fag-end to their territory
comprised between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains; for much
mischief might be caused by these violent and restless men, were they
compelled to remain in the bosom of social life. If, for example, _la
belle France_ had had such a fag-end or outlet during the various crises
that she has passed through in the course of the last fifty years, how
many of her great warriors and equally great tyrants might have lived
and died trappers! And truly, neither Europe nor mankind in general
would have been much the worse off, if those instruments of the greatest
despotism that ever disguised itself under the mask of freedom--the
Massenas, and Murats, and Davousts, and scores more of suchlike laced
and decorated gentry--had never been heard of.
One finds these trappers or hunters in all the districts extending from
the sources of the Columbia and Missouri, to those of the Arkansas and
Red Rivers, and on the tributary streams of the Mississippi which run
eastward from the Rocky Mountains. Their whole time is passed in the
pursuit and destruction of the innumerable wild animals, which for
hundreds and thousands of years have bred and multiplied in those remote
steppes and plains. They slay the buffalo for the sake of his hump, and
of the hide, out of which they make their clothing; the bear to have his
skin for a bed; the wolf for their amusement; and the beaver for his
fur. In exchange for the spoils of these animals they get lead and
powder, flannel shirts and jackets, string for their nets, and whisky to
keep out the cold. They traverse those endless wastes in bodies several
hundreds strong, and have often desperate and bloody fights with the
Indians. For the most part, however, they form themselves into parties
of eight or ten men, a sort of wild guerillas. These must rather be
called hunters than trappers; the genuine trapper limiting himself to
the society of one sworn friend, with whom he remains out for at least a
year, frequently longer; for it takes a considerable time to become
acquainted with the haunts of the beaver. If one of the two comrades
dies, the other remains in possession of the whole of their booty. The
mode of life that is at first adopted from necessity, or through fear of
the laws, is after a time adhered to from choice; and few of these men
would exchange their wild, lawless, unlimited freedom, for the most
advantageous position that could be offered them in a civilized country.
They live the whole year through in the steppes, savannahs, prairies,
and forests of the Arkansas, Missouri, and Oregon territories--districts
which comprise enormous deserts of sand and rock, and, at the same time,
the most luxuriant and beautiful plains, teeming with verdure and
vegetation. Snow and frost, heat and cold, rain and storm, and hardships
of all kinds, render the limbs of the trapper as hard, and his skin as
thick, as those of the buffalo that he hunts; the constant necessity in
which he finds himself of trusting entirely to his bodily strength and
energy, creates a self-confidence that no peril can shake--a quickness
of sight, thought, and action, of which man in a civilized state can
form no conceptions. His hardships are often terrible; and I have seen
trappers who had endured sufferings, compared to which the fabled
adventures of Robinson Crusoe are mere child's play, and whose skin had
converted itself into a sort of leather, impervious to every thing
except lead and steel. In a moral point of view, these men may be
considered a psychological curiosity: in the wild state of nature in
which they live, their mental faculties frequently develop themselves in
a most extraordinary manner; and in the conversation of some of them may
be found proofs of a sagacity and largeness of views, of which the
greatest philosophers of ancient or modern times would have no cause to
be ashamed.
The daily and hourly dangers incurred by these trappers must, one would
think, occasionally cause them to turn their thoughts to a Supreme
Being; but such is not the case. Their rifle is their god--their knife
their patron saint--their strong right hand their only trust. The
trapper shuns his fellow-men; and the glance with which he measures the
stranger whom he encounters on his path, is oftener that of a murderer
than a friend: the love of gain is as strong with him as it is found to
be in a civilized state of society, and the meeting of two trappers is
generally the signal for the death of one of them. He hates his white
competitor for the much-prized beaver skins far more than he does his
Indian one: the latter he shoots down as coolly as if he were a wolf or
a bear; but when he drives his knife into the breast of the former, it
is with as much devilish joy as if he felt he were ridding mankind of as
great an evil-doer as himself. The nourishment of the trapper,
consisting for years together of buffalo's flesh--the strongest food
that a man can eat--and taken without bread or any other accompaniment,
doubtless contributes to render him wild and inhuman, and to assimilate
him in a certain degree to the savage animals by which he is surrounded.
During an excursion that I made with some companions towards the upper
part of the Red River, we met with several of these trappers; amongst
others, with one weather-beaten old fellow, whose face and bare neck
were tanned by sun and exposure to the colour of tortoise-shell. We
hunted two days in his company, without noticing any thing remarkable
about the man; he cooked our meals, which consisted usually of a haunch
of venison or a buffalo's hump, instructed us where to find game, and
was aware of the approach of the latter even sooner than his huge
wolf-dog, which never left his side. It was only on the morning of the
third day, that we discovered something calculated to diminish our
confidence in our new comrade. This was a number of lines and crosses
upon the butt of his rifle, which gave us a new and not very favourable
insight into the man's character. These lines and crosses came after
certain words rudely scratched with a knife-point, and formed a sort of
list, of which the following is a copy:--
Buffaloes--no number given, they being probably too numerous.
Bears, nineteen--the number being indicated by nineteen strait strokes.
Wolves, thirteen--marked by oblique strokes.
Red underloppers, four--marked by four crosses.
White underloppers, two--noted by two stars.
Whilst we were examining this curious calendar, and puzzling ourselves
to make out the meaning of the word "underloppers," I observed a grim
smile stealing over the features of the old trapper. He said nothing,
however; drew the buffalo's hump he was cooking from under the hot
embers, took it out of the piece of hide in which it was wrapped, and
placed it before us. It was a meal that a king might have envied, and
the mere smell of it made us forget the rifle butt. We had scarcely
fallen to, when the old man laid hold of his gun.
"Look ye," said he, with a strange grin. "It's my pocket-book. D'ye
think it a sin to kill one of them red or white underloppers?"
"Whom do you mean?" asked we.
The man smiled again and rose to depart; his look, however, was alone
enough to enlighten us as to who the two-legged interlopers were whom he
had first shot, and then noted on his rifle-butt with as much cool
indifference as if they had been wild turkeys instead of human beings.
In a region to which the vengeful arm of the law does not reach, we did
not feel ourselves called upon or entitled to set ourselves up as
judges, and we let the man go.
These trappers occasionally, and at long intervals, return for a few
days or weeks to the haunts of civilization; and this occurs when they
have collected a sufficient quantity of beaver skins. They then fell a
hollow tree that stands on the shore of some navigable stream, make it
water-tight, launch it, load it with their merchandise and their few
necessaries, and float and row for thousands of miles down the Missouri,
Arkansas, or Red River, to St Louis, Natchitoches, or Alexandria. They
may be seen roaming and staring about the streets of these towns, clad
in their coats of skins, and astonishing strangers by their wild and
primitive appearance.
* * * * *
I was sitting on a sofa in a corner of the ladies' cabin, with Louise by
my side, and talking over with her these and other recollections of more
or less interest. The tea hour was long past, and the cabins were
lighted up. Suddenly we were interrupted in our conversation by a loud
noise overhead.
"A nigger killed!" sang out somebody upon deck.
"A nigger killed!" repeated two, ten, twenty, and at length a hundred
voices; and thereupon there was a running and trampling, and hurrying
and scurrying, an agitation in our big floating inn as if the boilers
were on the brink of bursting, and giving us a passage into eternity in
the midst of their scalding contents. Louise started up, and dragging me
with her, hurried breathless through the two saloons, to the stairs
leading upon deck.
"Who is killed? Where is the poor negro?"
The answer I got was a horse-laugh from a score of backwoodsmen.
"Much noise about nothing, dear Louise."
And we were on the point of descending the stairs again, when we were
detained, and our attention riveted, by the picturesque appearance of
the deck--I should rather say of the persons grouped upon it--seen in
the red, flickering, and uncertain light of sundry lamps, lanterns, and
torches. Truly, the night-piece was not bad. In the centre of the
steamer's deck, at an equal distance from stem and stern, stood a knot
of fellows of such varied and characteristic appearance as might be
sought for in vain in any other country than ours. It seemed as if all
the western states and territories had sent their representatives to our
steamer. Suckers from Illinois, and Badgers from the lead-mines of
Missouri--Wolverines from Michigan, and Buckeyes from Ohio--Redhorses
from old Kentuck, and Hunters from Oregon, stood mingled before us, clad
in all sorts of fantastical and outlandish attire. One had a
hunting-shirt of blue and white striped calico, which made its wearer's
broad back and huge shoulders resemble a walking feather-bed; another
was remarkable for a brilliant straw-hat--a New Orleans purchase, that
looked about as well on his bronzed physiognomy as a Chinese roof would
do on a pigsty. Wiñebago wampum belts and Cherokee mocassins, jerkins of
tanned and untanned deer-hide, New York frock-coats, and red and blue
jackets, composed some of the numerous costumes, of which the mixture
and contrast were in the highest degree picturesque.
In the middle of this group stood a personage of a very different
stamp--a most interesting specimen of the genus Yankee, contrasting in a
striking manner with the rough-hewn sons of Anuk who surrounded him. He
was a man of some thirty years of age, as dry and tough as leather, of
grave and pedantic mien, the skin of his forehead twisted into
innumerable small wrinkles, his lips pressed firmly together, his bright
reddish-grey eyes apparently fixed, but, in reality, perpetually
shifting their restless glances from the men by whom he was surrounded,
to some chests that lay upon the deck before him, and again from the
chests to the men; his whole lean, bony, angular figure in a position
that made it difficult to conjecture whether he was going to pray, or to
sing, or to preach a sermon. In one hand he held a roll of pigtail
tobacco, in the other some bright-coloured ribands, which he had taken
from an open chest containing the manifold articles constituting the
usual stock in trade of a pedlar. Beside this chest were two others, and
beside those lay a negro, howling frightfully, and rubbing alternately
his right shoulder and his left foot; but nevertheless, according to all
appearance, by no means in danger of taking his departure for the other
world. As the Yankee pedlar raised his hand and signed to the vociferous
blackamoor to be silent, the face of the former gradually assumed that
droll, cunning, and yet earnest expression which betrays those double
distilled Hebrews, when they are planning to get possession, in a
quasi-legal manner, of the dollars of their fellow-citizens; in a word,
when they are manoeuvering to exchange their worthless northern wares
for the sterling coin of the south. Presently his arms began to swing
about like those of a telegraph; he threw a long and loving glance at
the two unopened chests, which had apparently slipped down from the top
of a quantity of merchandise piled upon deck, and fallen on the foot and
shoulder of the negro; then measuring the latter with a look of
reproach, he suddenly opened his compressed lips, from which a sharp,
high-toned, schoolmasterlike voice issued.
"Sambo, Sambo! What have you done? Sambo, Sambo!" he repeated, while his
voice became more solemn, and he raised his hands and eyes as if
appealing to heaven for justice. "Sambo, you onlucky nigger, what have
you been a doin'?"
"A 'sarve,' a wonderful 'sarve!'" screamed the man, pointing to the
chests with an appearance of the profoundest grief.
"Heaven forgive you, Sambo! but you have endangered, perhaps sp'iled, a
'sarve,' compared to which all the 'intments and balms of Mecca, Medina,
and Balsora--of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, or whatever other places
they may come from, air actilly no better than cart-grease. Ah, Sambo!
if you were twenty times a nigger, and could be brought twenty times on
the auction table, you wouldn't fetch enough money to pay for the harm
you have done!"
"Boe! Boe!" howled the negro by way of parenthesis.
"Ah, Boe! Boe!" screamed the Yankee, "you may well say Boe, Boe! And you
ain't the only one as may say it, that's sartain. There be ladies and
gentlemen here, as respectable ladies and gentlemen as can be found any
where--ay, even to Boston, the cradle of our independence--and they
might say Boe! Boe! if they knew all. In them two chests are a hundred
tin boxes and glass phials; and if only twenty of them are damaged,
there is more injury done than your hide could pay for, if it were
twenty times as thick and twenty times as vallyable as it is. Your whole
carcass ain't worth one of the boxes of that precious 'intment. Ah,
Sambo!"
"Boe! Boe!" howled Sambo in reply.
"What's the palaver about?" growled some of the Badgers and Buckeyes;
"open the chests, and you'll see what harm's done."
"D'ye ye hear, Sambo?" cried the Yankee with the same immovable
countenance; "you're to hold yer tongue, the gentlemen say; they're
tired of yer noise, and no wonder. What's the use of boohooin' away at
that rate? Helps you nothin'; you desarve what you've got. I'll thank
you for your long knife, Mister. That'll do. That opens it, cuts in like
rael steel; better it should be into hard word than soft flesh. There
they are, then, and not broken; onhurt, without a spot or a crack. Sing
praises to the Lord! psalms and hymns of rejoicin'--not a phial broke,
nor a box smashed! Praised be the Lord! I say ag'in. Since they are
safe, it don't matter if twenty shoulder-blades and ankle-bones are put
out. Verily the mercy of Heaven shall be made manifest, and that by the
means of a feeble vessel, Jared Bundle by name. Down with ye,
Sambo--down with ye, I say!--Your shoulder and your dingy hide shall be
made whole, and your black bones shall be comforted!"
Not a muscle of the Yankee's face moved; he preserved the grave and
solemn appearance of a man to whom a sacred trust has been confided, and
who is fully penetrated with the importance of his mission. Once or
twice, however, I observed him give a keen but almost imperceptible
glance around him, as if to observe the effect of his eloquence upon his
auditors.
"Down with you, Sambo!" he repeated to the negro, who had got himself
into a sort of sitting posture upon the deck.
"Down, down!" cried the men of Kentucky.
"Down!" those of Missouri and Ohio.
"Be quick about it!" shouted an Illinois sucker.
"Let's see the Yankee's wonderful cure!" exclaimed a hunter from Oregon.
And amidst shouts and exclamations and laughter, poor Sambo was seized
by half a dozen of their bear's fists, and stretched out upon a heap of
coffee-bags like a pig that's going to be killed.
"Boe! Boe!" clamoured the negro at the top of his voice.
"Boohoo as much as you like," cried the Yankee in a shrill tone, that
was heard above all the howlings of the unlucky Sambo. "You'll sing to
another tune when you see and understand and feel what a Conne'ticut man
_can_ do. You say Boe, Boe! like a poor benighted crittur as you are,
but what do you say to that?" cried the pedlar in a triumphant voice, as
he held close to the negro's nose a piece of linen rag on which he had
smeared a green greasy substance bearing a strong resemblance to
paste-blacking in a state of decomposition. Then, taking up the box
which contained this precious compound, he put it in close proximity to
the obtuse snout of the blackamoor, who made a grimace as if his
olfactories were but moderately regaled by the odour emanating from the
miraculous ointment.
"What d'ye think of that, Sambo? Is that the stuff or not? Will that do,
think ye? Well, you shall soon see. Gentlemen!" he continued, with all
the gravity of a legitimate M.D. "Gentlemen! the arms and legs of this
poor Sambo must be stretched as much as possible, in order that the
sarve may take its full effect. Will you be good enough to assist me?"
Upon the word, the backwoodsmen caught hold of the negro's limbs, and
began pulling and tugging at them till the poor devil roared as if they
had been impaling him.
"Boohoo away!" cried the Yankee. "It's all for your good. If your
shoulder is put out, the stretchin' will put it in ag'in."
The negro continued his lamentations, as well he might, when every one
of his joints was cracking under the force applied.
"All no use your callin' out!" screamed the pedlar, as he stuck the
salved rag upon the ebony hide of the patient. "Better hold yer tongue.
Ain't you lucky to have met with me at a time when all the doctors in
the world--the Browns, and Hossacks, and Sillimans--could not have done
you a cent's worth of good? All their drugs would have had no more
effect than a ladleful of pea-soup. You ought to be rejoicin' in yer
luck, instead of screamin' like a wounded catamount. Keep still, will
you? There, that'll do. Many thanks, gentlemen; I thank you in the name
of this senseless crittur. That's enough. No cause for complaint, man!"
continued he, as he stuck a second plaster on the negro's foot. "All
safe enough when Jared Bundle is there with his Palmyra sarve. You be
the first as was ever know'd to scream after havin' one smell of that
precious 'intment. And I tell you what it is, my man, if both your black
legs had been broken clean off, and were swimmin' down the Mississippi
half rotten--ay, or if they had just come out of the jaws of an
alligator, and you were to stick 'em on, and plaster them up with this
'intment, you may take my word, Jared Bundle's word, that they'd grow to
your body again--the flesh would become your flesh, and the bone your
bone, as sure as I am now here." And he looked round at his auditors
with a world of confidence and veracity depicted upon his countenance.
"There was Aby Sparks to Penobscot--you know, ladies and gentlemen, Aby
Sparks, the son of Enoch Sparks, who married Peggy Heath. Good family
the Sparkses--very good family, as you know, ladies and gentlemen.
Respectable people in a respectable way of business, the general
line--drugs and cutlery, and hats patent waterproof, bird-seed and
jewellery, tea and coffee pots, and shoes of the newest fashion. Ladies
and gentlemen, do you want a good tea or coffee pot? Partiklar jam,
_they_ are, I reckon. Well, Aby Sparks said to me, 'Jared Bundle,' says
he, 'leave me a dozen boxes or phials, whichever you like, of your
Palmyra sarve. Wonderful stuff that!' says he. 'What!' says I, 'leave
you some of my Palmyra sarve! You're jist right to say it ain't common
apothecaries' stuff; that it certainly ain't. But what would the ladies
and gentlemen on the lower Mississippi say, if I left any of it here?
It's all meant for them,' says I; 'they're my best customers.'"
"Soft sawder! Jared Bundle," grunted a Kentuckian.
"Cart grease and cobbler's wax," said a man of Illinois.
"He's from the north," laughed a third, "where there's more wooden
clocks than cows and calves."
"Where the grasshoppers break their legs in jumpin' from one potato heap
to another," interposed a fourth.
"Where the robins starve in harvest time, and the mockin'-bird is too
hungry to mock," cried a fifth.
"Nothin' in the world like Jared Bundle's 'intment," continued the
imperturbable Yankee. "Finest thing possible for corns. Ain't genteel to
talk of such things, ladies and gentlemen; but if any of you have got
corns, rub 'em just two or three times with the Palmyra sarve, and
they'll disappear like snow in sunshine. Worth any money against tan and
freckles. You, miss," cried he to Louise, "you ain't got any freckles,
but you may very likely git 'em. A plaster on each cheek afore you go to
bed--git up in the mornin', not a freckle left--all lilies and roses!"
"Hold your impudent tongue!" said I, "or I will plaster you."
"We're in a free country," was the answer; "free to sell and free to
buy. Gentlemen," continued Mr Bundle, "famous stuff for razor-strops.
Rub a little on, draw the razor a couple of times over it--shave. Razor
runs over the face like a steam-carriage along a railroad, you don't
know how; beard disappears like grass before the sickle, or a regiment
of Britishers before Yankee rifles. Great vartue in the sarve--uncommon
vartue! Ma'am!" cried he to a lady who, like ourselves, was looking on
from a short distance at this farcical scene, "Ma'am!"
I looked round at the lady. "Bless my soul! Mrs Dobleton and the Misses
Dobleton from Concordia, my neighbours on the Mississippi. Delighted to
see you, Mrs Dobleton; allow me the honour of introducing my wife to
you."
Our greetings and compliments were drowned by the piercing voice of the
indefatigable Yankee.
"Ma'am!" cried he, with a box of ointment in each hand, "Ma'am! the
finest cure in the world for toothach. If teeth are good, it keeps 'em
so; if bad, it makes 'em sound and white as ivory. A small bit on the
point of a knife between the teeth and the gum--acts like a charm. Young
ladies! a capital remedy for narrow chests."
The skinny Miss Dobletons turned green with vexation.
"Incomparable remedy!" continued Jared; "rub it well in on the part
affected, and in a short time the most contracted chest becomes as wide
as that of Mrs Broadbosom to Charleston. Fine thing for lockjaw, ma'am!"
cried he to a Mrs Bodwell who was standing by, and amongst whose good
qualities that of silence was not considered to hold a conspicuous
place; "a famous cure for lockjaw, from whatever cause it may come on.
There was Miss Trowlop--she had a very handsum' mouth and a considerable
gift of the gab--was goin' to be married to Mr Shaver, run a hickory
splinter through her prunella shoe into her foot--jaw locked as fast as
old Ebenezer Gripeall's iron safe. If she'd a-had my Palmyra sarve she'd
be still alive, Mrs Shaver, now; 'stead of that, the land-crabs have
eaten her. Another example, ladies: Sally Brags, Miss Sally Brags to
Portsmouth. You know Portsmouth, Providence, where the pretty gals grow;
some folk _do_ say they're prettier to Baltimore--won't say they
ain't--matter of taste, pure matter of taste; but Miss Sally Brags,
ladies, had the lockjaw--couldn't say a word; took a box of my Palmyra
sarve--ladies, two dollars a box by retail--her tongue now goes
clap-clap-clap like any steam-mill. Famous cure for lockjaw!"
During this unceasing flow of words, the Yankee had found the time to
drive a capital trade; his merchandise of all kinds was rapidly
disappearing, and the more the backwoodsmen laughed, the faster flowed
the dollars into the pedlar's pouch. It was most diverting to observe
the looks of the purchasers of the Palmyra ointment, as they first
smelled at it and then shook their heads, as if in doubt whether they
were not duped.
"Wonderful stuff!" cried the Yankee with imperturbable gravity, and as
if to reassure them. "And capital coffee-pots," continued he to a
leather-jerkined Missouri man, who had taken up one of the latter and
was examining it. "I'll warrant 'em of the best description, and no
mistake. Wonderful stuff this Palmyra sarve, came direct from Moscow,
where the Archbishop of Abyssinia had brought it, but, havin' got into
debt, he was obliged to sell off; and from Moscow, which, as you all
know, is a great seaport, it passed into the hands of the Grand Duke of
Teheran or Tombuctoo, who lives somewhere about the Cape of Good Hope.
From there it came to Boston in the brig Sarah, Captain Larks. I was one
of the first to go on board, and as soon as I smelled to it, I knew
directly what time o' day it was--where the wind blew from, as I may
say. Ladies, here you have the means of preservin' your health and your
beauty for the longest day you live, and all for two dollars--only two
dollars a box. In short, ladies and gentlemen," concluded the
persevering fellow sententiously, "you have my warranty that this sarve
heals all curable diseases; and if it be true, as the famous Doctor
Flathead says, that there be only two sorts of maladies--them of which
people die, and them of which they get well--you must see how important
it is to have a box of the Palmyra 'intment. Best of all sarves, ladies!
two dollars a box, ladies!
"Ladies and gentlemen," resumed Mr Bundle after a brief pause, "d'ye
want any other articles--silks, linen, calicoes, fine spices, nutmegs?
None of your walnut-wood nutmegs, but ginu_ine_ Boston goods, out of the
most respectable stores. Ah! ladies and gentlemen, Jared Bundle's tea
and coffee pots--let me recommend 'em to you. The metal is of a
particular sort, corrects the oily matter contained in the tea, which
the doctors say is no better than so much p'ison. Should be sorry for
you to suppose I was instigated by love of gain--filthy lucre, ladies;
but think of your vallyable health--your precious health--and buy my
teapots; two dollars twenty-five cents a-piece. Yes, ma'am," continued
he, turning to one of the negresses who were crawling, and grinning, and
gaping around his wares, "beautiful Lyons ribands, and Bengal
neck-handkerchiefs _di_rect from Calcutta; lovely things them
handkerchiefs, and the ribands too, partic'lerly the broad ones--quarter
of a dollar a yard. Four yards did you say, ma'am? Better go the
_en_tire figur'--take eight, and you'll have twice as much. Now, ladies
and gentlemen, to return to the teapots"----
"The teapots!" cried several voices a short distance off. "Hurra! Jared
Bundle's teapots! Look here at the Yankee teapots!"
At the same moment the steward of the steamer made his appearance upon
the field of Mr Bundle's operations, escorted by half a dozen of the
backwoodsmen, and stepping into the torchlight, held up the very
coffee-pot which the shameless Yankee had sold to the leather-jacketed
man of Missouri. The pot had been filled with boiling water, which was
now oozing out comfortably and deliberately at every side and corner of
the vessel. For one moment the spectators stared in mute astonishment;
but then the discovery of the Yankee's cheatery drew from them a peal of
laughter which seemed likely to be inextinguishable.
"Jared Bundle! What do you say to that? Jared Bundle's teapots! A hurra
for Jared Bundle and the Yankee teapots!"
The immovable pedlar was by no means put out of countenance by this
discovery. While the backwoodsmen were having their laugh out, he took
hold of the teapot, examined it deliberately on all sides, at front and
back, inside and out, and then shook his head gravely. When the laughers
had exhausted their uproariousness, he cleared his throat, and resumed.
"Ah, gentlemen! or rather ladies and gentlemen! in our happy land of
freedom and enlightenment, the most enlightened country in the world, no
one, I am sure, will refuse to hear the poor pedlar's explanation of
this singular circumstance. I know you are all most desirous of havin'
it explained, and explain it I can and will. I am sorry to say there are
gentlemen who sell teapots for the southern states which are only meant
for the northern ones, and others who sell for the north what is meant
for the south. That's how I've been deceived in these teapots, which
come from the store of the highly respectable Messrs Knockdown. They are
for northern consumption, gentlemen, without the smallest doubt, and
you know that many teapots will support the cold of the north, but are
worth nothin' when they git into a southern climate. It's oncommon hot,
you see, down hereaway on the Mississippi, and I reckon that's the
reason that you southern gentlemen _are_ sich an almighty b'ilin' up
people, who take a gougin' to your breakfast as we should a mackerel.
I'm a'most inclined to think, too, that you bile your water a deal too
hot, which our northern tea and coffee pots ain't used to, and can't
stand nohow."
"Humbug!" growled a score of backwoodsmen, some of whom began to close
round the Yankee, as if to make sure of him and his worthless wares.
"Boe! Boe!" howled Sambo, who had been quite forgotten during this
scene.
"You still here, you black devil!" cried the pedlar, turning fiercely
round upon the negro. "Am I to be deafened by your cussed croakin'?
Don't mind him, ladies and gentlemen--pay no attention to him. Who cares
about a nigger? He only cries out for his amusement. It's all his tricks
and cunnin'; he'd like to git some more of my sarve on his black hide!
He won't have any, tho'! Be off with ye, you stinkin' nigger!"
"Stinkin' nigga! Massa Yankee say stinkin' nigga!" yelled Sambo, showing
all his white teeth in an ecstasy of anger. "Matto stinkin' nigga now,"
screamed he as he sprang suddenly to his feet, to the infinite delight
of the backwoodsmen, and began capering and hopping about, and grinning
like a mad ape. "Matto stinkin' nigga now; one hour 'go him dearie
Matto, and good Matto, and Massa Yankee promise four picaillee[33] if
Matto let dam heavy chest wid stinkin' serve fall on him foot and
shoulder. Boe! Boe! Massa Yankee no good man; bad Massa, Massa Yankee!"
And so it was and turned out to be. The rogue of a Yankee had made a
sort of bargain with Sambo, and arranged a scheme by which to draw the
attention of the passengers in a natural manner to the famous Palmyra
salve. Seldom or never had the risible nerves of the burly backwoodsmen
on board the Ploughboy steamer, been so enormously tickled as by the
discovery of this Yankee trick. The laughter was deafening, really
earsplitting; and was only brought to something like an end by the
appearance of the captain, who came with a petition from the lady
passengers, to the effect that the Yankee should not be too hardly dealt
with for his ingenious attempt to transfer his fellow-citizens' dollars
into his own pocket. Thereupon Badgers and Buckeyes, Wolverines and
Redhorses, abated their hilarity; and it was comical to see how these
rough tenants of the western forests proceeded, with all the gravity of
backwoods etiquette, to respond to the humanity of the ladies. In the
first place a deputation was chosen, consisting of two individuals, who
were charged to assure the ladies of the universal willingness to treat
the Yankee as tenderly as might be consistent with the nature of his
transgression; secondly, a commission was appointed for the examination
of the spurious wares. The articles that had been bought were produced
one after the other, their quality and value investigated, and then they
were either condemned and thrown overboard, or their sale was confirmed.
The tea and coffee pots were almost, without exception, pronounced
worthless; for although well enough calculated for a long voyage on the
Mississippi, they could never have been meant to hold boiling
Mississippi water. The wonderful Palmyra salve proved to be neither more
nor less than a compound of hog's lard and gunpowder, with the juice of
tobacco and walnut leaves--a mixture that might perhaps have been useful
for the destruction of vermin, but the efficacy of which as an antidote
to freckles and lockjaw was at least problematical. The teapots, the
ointment, and some spices, amongst which wooden nutmegs cut an important
figure, were duly consigned to the keeping of the Mississippi kelpies;
while the dollars that had been paid for them were retransferred from
the pockets of the Yankee to those of the credulous purchasers. Finally,
Mr Bundle himself, in consideration of the truly republican stoicism
with which he witnessed the execution of the judgment pronounced on his
wares, was invited with much ceremony to regale himself with a
"go-the-whole-hog-cocktail," an honour which he accepted and replied to
in a set speech, at the conclusion of which he enquired whether the
honourable society by whose sentence he had been deprived of the larger
portion of his merchandise, could not recommend him to a schoolmaster's
place in one of their respectable settlements. I almost wondered that he
did not treat us to a Methodist sermon as a preparation for our
slumbers. He seemed the right man to do it. He exactly answered to the
description given of the Yankees by Halleck, in his Connecticut:--
----"Apostates, who are meddling
With merchandise, pounds, shillings, pence, and peddling,
Or wandering through southern climates teaching
The A, B, C, from Webster's spelling-book;
Gallant and godly, making love and preaching,
And gaining by what they call hook and crook,
And what the moralists call overreaching,
A decent living. The Virginians look
Upon them with as favourable eyes
As Gabriel on the devil in Paradise."
There was a deafening "Hurrah for the honourable Mistress Howard!" as
the party of backwoodsmen walked off towards the gentlemen's cabin; and
then things became quieter. I had invited the bears to drink a glass to
Mrs Howard's health, and had told the steward to put down to my account
the slings and cocktails they might consume. Mrs Dobleton, whose husband
is secretary to a temperance society, pulled a wry face or two at what
she doubtless thought an encouragement to vice; but for my part I have
no such scruples. It always gives me pleasure to find myself thrown by
chance among these rough and wild, but upright and energetic sons of the
wilderness--these pioneers of the west, who pass their lives in
converting tangled thickets and endless forests into fields and
pastures, for the benefit of generations yet unborn. Truly, dear Louise,
a few dollars spent amongst these worthy fellows are not thrown away, if
they serve to form one, the smallest, link of the chain of good-will and
good fellowship that does and ought to bind us to our fellow-citizens.