but it was refused. They fell, however, in their demands from ten men to
six. The proposition was rejected by Tontonimo. The magistrates then
urged him to deliver up the murderer: this he promised to do. But while
the subject was in agitation, he privately withdrew from the court with
the rest of the Podunk Sachems, and retired to the fortress belonging to
his nation. Both the magistrates and the complainants were offended at
this behaviour of Tontonimo. However, the magistrates appointed a
committee to persuade the Indians to continue at peace with each other.
At their solicitation, Uncas at length consented to accept the murderer,
and promised to be satisfied if he should be delivered up; but the
Podunk Indians told the English that they could not comply with this
condition, because the friends of Weaseapano were numerous and powerful,
and would not agree to the proposal.
The governor then addressed them in form, urging them to continue in
peace, and endeavouring to persuade the complainants to accept of
wampum. This they again refused, and withdrew; after it had been agreed
on all hands that the English should not take any part in the
controversy, and after the Indians had promised that they would not
injure the persons or possessions of the English on either side the
river.
Soon after, Uncas assembled an army for the purpose of avenging his
wrongs; but being met near Hoccanum river by an equal number of the
Podunks, and considering the issue of a battle as doubtful, he prudently
retired, after having sent a message to Tontonimo, in which he declared,
that if the Podunk Sachem persisted in withholding the murderer from
justice, he would send to the Mohawks to come and destroy both him and
his people.
Not long after, the crafty Mohegan accomplished his purpose in the
following manner. He sent a trusty warrior, furnished with some Mohawk
weapons, to Podunk, directing him to set fire in the night to a house
near the fort, and then to leave the weapons on the ground in the
vicinity, and immediately return. The warrior executed his commission.
When the Podunks came in the morning to examine the ruins they found the
weapons, and knowing them to belong to the Mohawks, were so alarmed with
the apprehension that Uncas was about to execute his threat, that they
delivered up the murderer, and sued for peace.
[Illustration]
HARPER’S FERRY,
(FROM THE BLUE RIDGE.)
* * * * *
The scenery at Harper’s Ferry is, perhaps, the most singularly
picturesque in America. The Views already given display its beauties, as
seen from below. To attain that given in the present number, it was
necessary to climb the Blue Ridge, by a narrow winding path, immediately
above the bank of the Potomac. The view from this lofty summit amply
repays the fatigue incurred by its ascent. The junction of the two
rivers is immediately beneath the spectator’s feet; and his delighted
eye resting first upon the beautiful and thriving village of Harper’s
Ferry, wanders over the wide and woody plains, extending to the
Alleghany mountains. President Jefferson, who has given the name to a
beautiful rock immediately above the village, has left a powerful
description of the scenery of Harper’s Ferry, which we shall give to our
readers.
“The passage of the Potomac through the Blue Ridge, is, perhaps, one of
the most stupendous scenes in nature. You stand on a very high point of
land; on your right comes up the Shenandoah, having ranged along the
foot of the mountain a hundred miles to seek a vent. On your left
approaches the Potomac, in quest of a passage also; in the moment of
their junction, they rush together against the mountain, rend it
asunder, and pass off to the sea. The first glance of this scene hurries
our senses into the opinion that this earth has been created in time;
that the mountains were formed first, that the rivers began to flow
afterwards, that in this place particularly they have been dammed up by
the Blue Ridge of mountains, and have formed an ocean which filled the
whole valley; that, continuing to rise, they have at length broken over
at this spot, and have torn the mountain down from its summit to its
base. The piles of rock on each hand, but particularly on the
Shenandoah—the evident marks of their disrupture and avulsion from
their beds by the most powerful agents of nature, corroborate the
impression. But the distant finishing which nature has given to the
picture, is of a very different character; it is a true contrast to the
foreground; it is as placid and delightful as that is wild and
tremendous; for the mountain being cloven asunder, she presents to your
eye, through the cleft, a small catch of smooth blue horizon, at an
infinite distance in the plain country, inviting you, as it were, from
the riot and tumult roaring around, to pass through the breach and
participate of the calm below. Here the eye ultimately composes itself;
and that way, too, the road happens actually to lead. You cross the
Potomac above the junction, pass along its side through the base of the
mountain for three miles, its terrible precipices hanging in fragments
over you, and, within about twenty miles, reach Fredericktown, and the
fine country round that. This scene is worth a voyage across the
Atlantic; yet here, as in the neighbourhood of the Natural Bridge, are
people who have passed their lives within half a dozen miles, and have
never been to survey these monuments of a war between rivers and
mountains, which must have shaken the earth itself to its centre.”
[Illustration]
BARHYDT’S LAKE, NEAR SARATOGA.
* * * * *
I drove to Barhydt’s Lake, with the accomplished artist whose name is at
the bottom of the drawing, on one of the finest days of early September.
With a pair of crop ponies, whose _going_, simply, we acknowledged we
had never seen beaten on the smooth roads of England, and a day over our
heads of the most inspiriting freshness, we dashed through the pine
woods of Saratoga in a light waggon, and pulled up at Barhydt’s door in
twenty minutes from leaving the Springs.
The old man sat under his Dutch _stoup_, smoking his pipe, and suffered
us to tie our ponies to his fence without stirring; and in answer to our
inquiries if there was a boat on the lake, simply nodded an assent, and
pointed to the water’s edge. Whether this indifference to strangers is
indolence merely, or whether Herr Barhydt does not choose to be
considered an inn-keeper, no one is enough in his secrets to divine. He
will give you a dram, or cook you a dinner of trout, and seems not only
indifferent whether you like his fish or his liquor, but quite as
indifferent whether and what you pay him. In his way, Herr Barhydt is
kind and courteous.
We descended to the lake, and after pulling up to the upper extremity
where the view is taken, we returned to partake of the old Dutchman’s
hospitality, and have a little conversation with him. Among other
things, we asked him if he was aware that he had been put in a book.
“I’ve hearn tell on’t,” said he; “a Mr. Wilkins, or Watkins, has writ
something about me, but I don’t know why. _I never did him no harm as I
know on._”
We had not the book to show the injured old gentleman his picture, but
as it happens to lie by us now, and really contains a very literal
description of the spot, we will copy out the extract:—
“Herr Barhydt is an old Dutch settler, who, till the mineral springs of
Saratoga were discovered some four miles from his door, was buried in
the depth of a forest unknown to all but the prowling Indian. The sky is
supported above him, (or looks to be,) by a wilderness of straight
columnar pine-shafts, gigantic in girth, and with no foliage except at
the top, where they branch out like round tables spread for a banquet in
the clouds. A small ear-shaped lake, sunk as deep into the earth as the
firs shoot above it, and clear and unbroken as a mirror, save the
pearl-spots of the thousand lotuses holding up their cups to the blue
eye of heaven, sleeps beneath his window; and around him in the forest,
lies, still unbroken, the elastic and brown carpet of the faded
pine-tassels, deposited in yearly layers since the continent first rose
from the flood, and rotted a foot beneath the surface to a rich mould
that would fatten the Symplegades to a flower-garden. With his black
tarn well stocked with trout, his bit of a farm in the _clearing_ near
by, and an old Dutch Bible, Herr Barhydt lived a life of Dutch musing,
talked Dutch to his geese and chickens, sung Dutch psalms to the echoes
of the mighty forest, and, except on his far-between visits to Albany,
which grew rarer and rarer as the old Dutch inhabitants dropped faster
away, saw never a white human face from one maple-blossoming to another.
“A roving mineralogist tasted the waters of Saratoga, and, like the work
of a lath-and-plaster Aladdin, up sprung a thriving village around the
fountain’s lip; and hotels, tin-tumblers, and apothecaries, multiplied
in the usual proportion to each other, but out of all precedent with
every thing else for rapidity. Libraries, newspapers, churches,
livery-stables, and lawyers, followed in their train; and it was soon
established, from the plains of Abraham to the Savannahs of Alabama,
that no person of fashionable taste or broken constitution could exist
through the months of July and August without a visit to the chalybeate
springs and populous village of Saratoga. It contained seven thousand
inhabitants before Herr Barhydt, living in his forest seclusion only
four miles off, became aware of its existence. A pair of loons,
philandering about the forest on horseback, popped in upon him one June
morning, and thenceforth there was no rest for the soul of the Dutchman.
Everybody rode down to eat his trout, and make love in the dark shades
of his mirrored lagoon; and, at last, in self-defence, he added a room
or two to his shanty, enclosed his cabbage-garden, and set a price on
his trout dinners. The traveller, now-a-days, who has not dined at
Barhydt’s, with his own champagne cold from the tarn, and the
white-headed old settler ‘gargling’ Dutch about the house in his
maniform vocation of cook, ostler, and waiter, may as well not have seen
Niagara.”
[Illustration]
FAIR MOUNT GARDENS, PHILADELPHIA.
* * * * *
The walks here, though not extensive, are delightful, from the views
they command over the Schuylkill. In the early days of William Penn,
this side of the river was covered by a thick wood; and so late as
Franklin’s time, (who “frequented it,” says the annalist, “with his
companions, Osborne, Watson, and Ralph,”) the banks afforded a secluded
and rural retreat, much resorted to by swimmers. The name of Schuylkill,
given it by the Dutch, is said to express “Hidden River,” as its mouth
is not visible in ascending the Delaware. The Indians called it by a
name, meaning “The Mother;” and a small branch of the Schuylkill, higher
up, called “Maiden Creek,” was named by them, _Ontelaunee_, meaning “the
little daughter of a great mother.”
The Schuylkill and Delaware, in former days, were the scenes of feats in
swimming and skaiting, which are not emulated in these graver times. The
colonial annals record the achievements of George Tyson, a fat broker,
weighing one hundred and ninety pounds; and “Governor Mifflin, and Joe
Claypoole,” descend on the page of history as the best skaiters of
Pennsylvania. The annalist enters on this theme with great unction.
“During the old-fashioned winters, when about New-year’s day every one
expected to see or hear of an _ox-roast_ on the river, upon the
thick-ribbed ice, which, without causing much alarm among the thousands
moving in all directions upon its surface, would crack and rend itself
by its own weight without separating, in sounds like thunder, among the
then multitudinous throngs of promenaders, sliders, and skaiters,
visible all about the river, as far as the eye could reach. Of the many
varieties of skaiters of all colours and sizes mingled together, and
darting about here and there, upward and downward, mingled and
convolved, a few were at all times discernible as being decidedly
superior to the rest for dexterity, power, and grace; namely, Governor
Mifflin, Joe Claypoole, and others, not forgetting, by the way, a black
Othello, who, from his apparent muscle and powerful movement, might have
sprung, as did the noble Moor, from “men of royal size.” In swiftness he
had no competitor; he outstripped the wind; the play of his elbows in
alternate movement with his low-gutter skaites, while darting forward
and uttering occasionally a wild scream peculiar to the African race
while in active exertion of body, was very imposing in appearance and
effect. Of the gentlemen skaiters before enumerated, George Heyl took
the lead in graceful skaiting, and in superior dexterity in cutting
figures and _High Dutch_ within a limited space of ice. On a larger
field of glass he might be seen moving about elegantly, and at perfect
ease, in curve lines, with folded arms, being dressed in a red coat, as
was the fashion, and buckskin tights, his bright broad skaites in an
occasional turn flashing upon the eye. Then, again, to be pursued by
others, he might be seen suddenly changing to the back and heel-forward
movement, offering them his hand, and, at the same time, eluding their
grasp by his dexterous and instantaneous deviations to the right and
left, leaving them to their hard work of striking out after him with all
their might and main.”
Among the recorded amusements of Philadelphia, however, the “Meschianza”
is the most remarkable. This was a tilt and tournament, with other
entertainments, given to Sir William Howe, by the officers of his army,
on quitting his command to return to England. The company were embarked
on the Delaware, in a grand regatta of three divisions; and with a band
of music to each, and an outer line of barges to keep off the crowd of
the uninvited, they proceeded to the neighbouring country-seat of Mr.
Wharton. The tilting-ground was a lawn of one hundred and fifty yards on
each side, lined with troops, and faced with several pavilions; and in
front of each sat seven young ladies, dressed in Turkish costume, and
wearing on their turbans the prizes for the victors. At the sound of a
trumpet, “_seven white knights_, habited in white and red silk, and
mounted on grey chargers, richly caparisoned,” made their appearance,
followed by seven esquires, and a herald in his robe. After saluting the
ladies, the herald proclaimed their challenge in the name of the
“_Knights of the blended Rose_.” At the third repetition of the
challenge, a black herald made his appearance, and accepted the
challenge in the name of the “_Knights of the Burning Mountain_.”
Immediately after entered the black knights, with tunics representing a
mountain in flames, and the motto, “I burn for ever;” and the tournament
began. They fought with spears, pistols, and swords, and the contest was
long and desperate; but whether the white or black knights had the
victory is not recorded.
After the tilt, the company ascended a flight of steps to a
banqueting-room, and after the banquet, a ball-room was flung open,
“decked with eighty-five mirrors, festoons of flowers, and a light and
elegant style of painting.” Four drawing-rooms on the same floor
contained sideboards with refreshments. The knights and their ladies
opened the ball, and at twelve o’clock followed fireworks, and a supper,
which was spread in a saloon of two hundred and ten by forty feet,
ornamented with fifty-six large pier glasses, and containing alcoves
with side-tables. There were one hundred branch lights, eighteen
lustres, three hundred wax tapers on the supper tables, four hundred and
thirty covers, and twelve hundred dishes. They were waited on by a great
number of black slaves in oriental dresses, with silver collars and
bracelets.
The queen of the “Meschianza,” concludes the annalist, with a remark
which contains a moral, “was a once beautiful Mrs. L——, _now blind and
fast waning from the things that be_.”
[Illustration]
SING-SING PRISON, AND TAPPAN SEA.
* * * * *
An American prison is not often a picturesque object, and, till late
years, it suggested to the mind of the philanthropist only painful
reflections upon the abuses and thwarted ends of penitentiary
discipline. To the persevering humanity of Louis Dwight, and to the
liberal association that sustained him, we owe the change in these
institutions which enables us to look on them without pain and disgust
as places of repentance and reformation, rather than as schools for
vice, and abodes of neglect and idleness. It is a creditable thing to
our country to have led the way in these salutary changes; and there are
many who have felt their patriotism more flattered by the visits of
persons from Europe sent out by their governments to study our systems
of prison discipline, than by many an event sounded through the trumpet
of national glory.
The Tappan Sea spreads its broad waters at this part of the Hudson,
looking, like all scenes of pure natural beauty, as if it was made for a
world in which there could neither exist crime nor pain. Yet there
stands a vast and crowded prison on its shores to remind us of the
first—and for the latter, who ever entered upon these waters without a
recollection of poor André? It may be doubted whether in the history of
our country the fate of an individual has ever excited more sympathy
than his. The rare accomplishments which he possessed, the natural
elegance of his mind, the unfitness of his open character for the
degrading circumstances under which he was taken, and his mild constancy
at the approach of his melancholy fate, endear him, without respect to
party, to the memories of all who read his story. André was taken on the
eastern shore of the river at Tarrytown, and executed on the opposite
side, at Tappan.
The story of Captain Hale has been regarded as parallel to that of Major
André. This young officer had received a university education, and had
but recently taken his degree when the war of the revolution commenced.
He possessed genius, taste, ardour, was a distinguished scholar, and to
all this was added, in an eminent degree, the winning address and native
grace of a gentleman. No young man of his years put forth a finer
promise of usefulness and celebrity.
Upon the first news of the battle of Lexington, he obtained a commission
in the army, and marched with his company to Cambridge, where his
promptness, activity, and assiduous attention to discipline, were early
observed. After considerable service, the theatre of action was changed,
and the army was removed to the southward. The battle of Long Island was
fought, and the American forces were drawn together in the city of New
York. At this moment it became extremely important for Washington to
know the situation of the British army on the heights of Brooklyn, its
numbers, and the indications as to its future movements. Having
expressed a wish to this effect, Colonel Knowlton called together the
younger officers, stated to them the wish of the General, and left it to
their reflections, without naming any individual for the service. The
undertaking was particularly hazardous; but it was immediately
determined upon by Hale, who resisted all opposition on the part of his
friends, and crossed over the river to the enemy’s ground. His disguise
was well contrived, and he had obtained all necessary information, when
he was arrested in the boat by which he was attempting to return. He was
taken before the British commander, was condemned as a spy, and hanged
the following morning. The circumstances of his death, however, were
widely different from those of André. The Provost-marshal was a refugee,
and behaved towards him in the most unfeeling manner, refusing him the
attendance of a clergyman, and the use of a Bible in his last moments,
and destroying the letters he had written to his mother and friends. In
the midst of these barbarities Hale was collected and calm. To the last
he displayed his native elevation of soul, and his dignity of
deportment.
“But,” says a distinguished writer of biography, “whatever may have been
the parallel between these two individuals while living, it ceased with
their death. A monument was raised and consecrated to the memory of
André by the bounty of a grateful sovereign. His ashes have been removed
from their obscure resting-place, transported across the ocean, and
deposited with the remains of the illustrious dead in Westminster Abbey.
Where is the memento of the virtues, the patriotic sacrifice, the early
fate of Hale?”
[Illustration]
WASHINGTON,
(FROM THE PRESIDENT’S HOUSE.)
* * * * *
Distance lends more enchantment to a view of Washington than to most
other views. Covering a good deal of ground, possessing two or three
very fine points in itself, and lying in the centre of a superb outer
circle of scenery, it has all the qualities which a draftsman could
desire for his sketch. Thus much was seen or anticipated by the
sagacious eye of the great patriot whose name it bears. Every one knows,
however, that the location of the President’s House was the result of
after speculation, or rather the result of a dispute between the owners
of estates, two miles distant from each other, each desirous of locating
all the public buildings on his own land, but who, like children
quarrelling for a sugar-toy, pulled the subject of dispute in two. The
Capitol was already placed on one elevation, and the President’s House
carried off two miles to another. The consequence is, that the town
itself, which, being a merely legislative metropolis, could never be
very large, stretches and straddles between these two distant points,
trying in vain to grow into compactness, and form the continuous and
close-built street of a city.
The common sagacity acquired by travel is of little use to the stranger
arriving for the first time in Washington. Visiting it during the
session of Congress, he thinks himself very safe in requesting to be set
down at the hotel nearest the Capitol, presuming, naturally, that this
must be the great centre of convenience, as well as of interest. He
accordingly takes a pigeon-hole at Gadsby’s Hotel, a vast white wooden
caravanserai, accommodating many hundreds of people; and on the first
day, walks half a mile to the Capitol, and wonders why the deuce the
hotel was not built on some of the waste lots immediately at the foot of
the hill. In a day or two, however, the secretaries and diplomatists
begin to call on him, and the party-giving inhabitants shower upon him
the “small rain” of pink billets. He sets apart a day for returning his
visits; and, inquiring the addresses of his friends, is told that it is
impossible to direct him, but _the hackney coachmen all know_. He calls
a carriage, and the first thing is a drive of two miles directly away
from the Capitol. He passes the President’s House, and getting off the
Macadamized road, begins to pitch and plunge through miry lanes and
waste lots, passing occasionally a house which lacks nothing of being in
the country but trees, garden, and fences. It looks as if it had rained
naked brick houses upon an open plain, and every man had made a street
with reference to his own front door. The much shaken and more
bewildered victim consumes his morning and his temper, and has made by
dinner-time but six out of forty calls, all imperatively due, and all to
be traced through the same irregular and ill-defined geography. He pays
a price for his hackney coach which would keep a chariot and two posters
for twice the time in London, and the next day moves into the disjointed
settlement on the other side of President’s Square, abandons the
Capitol, except on great occasions, and makes all visits by proxy that
are not for a dance, or a dinner.