with comfort, convenience, and common sense, if persons obliged to
travel during the intense cold of an American winter (in the Northern
States), were to clothe themselves according to the exigency of the
weather, and so do away with the present deleterious custom of warming
close and crowded carriages with sheet-iron stoves, heated with
anthracite coal. No words can describe the foulness of the atmosphere,
thus robbed of all vitality by the vicious properties of that dreadful
combustible, and tainted besides with the poison emitted at every
respiration from so many pairs of human lungs. These are facts which the
merest tyro in physiological science knows, and the utter disregard of
which on the part of the Americans renders them the amazement of every
traveler from countries where the preservation of health is considered
worth the care of a rational creature. I once traveled to Harrisburg in
a railroad car, fitted up to carry sixty-four persons, in the midst of
which glowed a large stove. The trip was certainly a delectable one. Nor
is there any remedy for this: an attempt to open a window is met by a
universal scowl and shudder; and indeed it is but incurring the risk of
one's death of cold, instead of one's death of heat. The windows, in
fact, form the walls on each side of the carriage, which looks like a
long green-house upon wheels; the seats, which each contain two persons
(a pretty tight fit too), are placed down the whole length of the
vehicle, one behind the other, leaving a species of aisle in the middle
for the uneasy (a large portion of the traveling community here) to
fidget up and down, for the tobacco-chewers to spit in, and for a whole
tribe of little itinerant fruit and cake-sellers to rush through,
distributing their wares at every place where the train stops. Of course
nobody can well sit immediately in the opening of a window when the
thermometer is twelve degrees below zero; yet this, or suffocation in
foul air, is the only alternative. I generally prefer being half frozen
to death to the latter mode of martyrdom.
Attached to the Baltimore cars was a separate apartment for women. It
was of comfortable dimensions, and without a stove; and here I betook
myself with my children, escaping from the pestilential atmosphere of
the other compartment, and performing our journey with ease enough. My
only trial here was one which I have to encounter in whatever direction
I travel in America, and which, though apparently a trivial matter in
itself, has caused me infinite trouble, and no little compassion for the
rising generation of the United States--I allude to the ignorant and
fatal practice of the women of stuffing their children from morning till
night with every species of trash which comes to hand.... I once took
the liberty of asking a young woman who was traveling in the same
carriage with me, and stuffing her child incessantly with heavy cakes,
which she also attempted to make mine eat, her reason for this
system,--she replied, it was to "keep her baby good." I looked at her
own sallow cheeks and rickety teeth, and could not forbear suggesting to
her how much she was injuring her poor child's health. She stared in
astonishment, and pursued the process, no doubt wondering what I meant,
and how I could be so cruel as not to allow pound-cake to my child.
Indeed, as may easily be supposed, it becomes a matter of no little
difficulty to enforce my own rigid discipline in the midst of the
various offers of dainties which tempt my poor little girl at every
turn; but I persevere, nevertheless, and am not seldom rewarded by the
admiration which her appearance of health and strength excites wherever
she goes.
I remember being excessively amused at the woeful condition of an
unfortunate gentleman on board one of the Philadelphia boats, whose
sickly-looking wife, exhausted with her vain attempts to quiet three
sickly-looking children, had in despair given them into his charge. The
miserable man furnished each of them with a lump of cake, and during the
temporary lull caused by this diversion, took occasion to make
acquaintance with my child, to whom he tendered the same indulgence.
Upon my refusing it for her, he exclaimed in astonishment--
"Why, madam, don't you allow the little girl cake?"
"No, sir."
"What does she eat, pray?" (as if people lived upon cake generally).
"Bread and milk, and bread and meat."
"What! no butter? no tea or coffee?"
"None whatever."
"Ah!" sighed the poor man, as the chorus of woe arose again from his own
progeny, the cake having disappeared down their throats, "I suppose
that's why she looks so healthy."
I supposed so, too, but did not inquire whether the gentleman extended
his inference.
We pursued our way from Wilmington to Havre de Grace on the railroad,
and crossed one or two inlets from the Chesapeake, of considerable
width, upon bridges of a most perilous construction, and which, indeed,
have given way once or twice in various parts already. They consist
merely of wooden piles driven into the river, across which the iron
rails are laid, only just raising the train above the level of the
water. To traverse with an immense train, at full steam-speed, one of
these creeks, nearly a mile in width, is far from agreeable, let one be
never so little nervous; and it was with infinite cordiality each time
that I greeted the first bush that hung over the water, indicating our
approach to _terra firma_. At Havre de Grace we crossed the Susquehanna
in a steamboat, which cut its way through the ice an inch in thickness
with marvelous ease and swiftness, and landed us on the other side,
where we again entered the railroad carriages to pursue our road.
We arrived in Baltimore at about half-past two, and went immediately on
board the Alabama steamboat, which was to convey us to Portsmouth, and
which started about three-quarters of an hour after, carrying us down
the Chesapeake Bay to the shores of Virginia. We obtained an
unutterably hard beefsteak for our dinner, having had nothing on the
road, but found ourselves but little fortified by the sight of what we
really could not swallow. Between six and seven, however, occurred that
most comprehensive repast, a steamboat tea; after which, and the
ceremony of choosing our berths, I betook myself to the reading of
"Oliver Twist" till half-past eleven at night. I wonder if Mr. Dickens
had any sensible perception of the benedictions which flew to him from
the bosom of the broad Chesapeake as I closed his book; I am afraid not.
Helen says, "'tis pity well-wishing has no body," so it is that
gratitude, admiration, and moral approbation have none, for the sake of
such a writer, and yet he might, peradventure, be smothered. I had a
comical squabble with the stewardess,--a dirty, funny, good-humored old
negress, who was driven almost wild by my exorbitant demands for towels,
of which she assured me one was a quite ample allowance. Mine, alas!
were deep down in my trunk, beyond all possibility of getting at, even
if I could have got at the trunk, which I very much doubt. Now I counted
no less than _seven_ handsome looking-glasses on board of this
steamboat, where one towel was considered all that was requisite, not
even for each individual, but for each washing-room. This addiction to
ornament, and neglect of comfort and convenience, is a strong
characteristic of Americans at present, luxuries often abounding where
decencies cannot be procured. 'Tis the necessary result of a young
civilization, and reminds me a little of Rosamond's purple jar, or Sir
Joshua Reynolds's charming picture of the naked child, with a court cap
full of flowers and feathers stuck on her head.
After a very wretched night on board the boat, we landed about nine
o'clock, at Portsmouth, Virginia. I must not omit to mention that my
morning ablutions were as much excepted to by the old negress as those
of the preceding evening. Indeed, she seemed perfectly indignant at the
forbearance of one lady, who withdrew from the dressing-room on finding
me there, exclaiming--
"Go in, go in, I tell you; they always washes two at a time in them
rooms."
At Portsmouth there is a fine dry dock and navy yard, as I was
informed.... The appearance of the place in general was mean and
unpicturesque. Here I encountered the first slaves I ever saw, and the
sight of them in no way tended to alter my previous opinions upon this
subject. They were poorly clothed; looked horribly dirty, and had a lazy
recklessness in their air and manner as they sauntered along, which
naturally belongs to creatures without one of the responsibilities
which are the honorable burthen of rational humanity.
Our next stopping-place was a small town called Suffolk. Here the
negroes gathered in admiring crowds round the railroad carriages. They
seem full of idle merriment and unmeaning glee, and regard with an
intensity of curiosity perfectly ludicrous the appearance and
proceedings of such whites as they easily perceive are strangers in
their part of the country. As my child leaned from the carriage-window,
her brilliant complexion drew forth sundry exclamations of delight from
the sooty circle below, and one woman, grinning from ear to ear, and
displaying a most dazzling set of grinders, drew forward a little
mahogany-colored imp, her grandchild, and offered her to the little
"Missis" for her waiting-maid. I told her the little missis waited upon
herself; whereupon she set up a most incredulous giggle, and reiterated
her proffers, in the midst of which our kettle started off, and we left
her.
To describe to you the tract of country through which we now passed
would be impossible, so forlorn a region it never entered my imagination
to conceive. Dismal by nature, indeed, as well as by name, is that vast
swamp, of which we now skirted the northern edge, looking into its
endless pools of black water, where the melancholy cypress and
juniper-trees alone overshadowed the thick-looking surface, their roots
all globular, like huge bulbous plants, and their dark branches woven
together with a hideous matting of giant creepers, which clung round
their stems, and hung about the dreary forest like a drapery of withered
snakes.
It looked like some blasted region lying under an enchanter's ban, such
as one reads of in old stories. Nothing lived or moved throughout the
loathsome solitude, and the sunbeams themselves seemed to sicken and
grow pale as they glided like ghosts through these watery woods. Into
this wilderness it seems impossible that the hand of human industry, or
the foot of human wayfaring should ever penetrate; no wholesome growth
can take root in its slimy depths; a wild jungle chokes up parts of it
with a reedy, rattling covert for venomous reptiles; the rest is a
succession of black ponds, sweltering under black cypress boughs,--a
place forbid.
The wood which is cut upon its borders is obliged to be felled in
winter, for the summer, which clothes other regions with flowers, makes
this pestilential waste alive with rattlesnakes, so that none dare
venture within its bounds, and I should even apprehend that, traveling
as rapidly as one does on the railroad, and only skirting this district
of dismay, one might not escape the fetid breathings it sends forth when
the warm season has quickened its stagnant waters and poisonous
vegetation.
After passing this place, we entered upon a country little more cheerful
in its aspect, though the absence of the dark swamp water was something
in its favor,--apparently endless tracts of pine-forest, well called by
the natives, Pine-Barrens. The soil is pure sand; and, though the holly,
with its coral berries, and the wild myrtle grow in considerable
abundance, mingled with the pines, these preponderate, and the whole
land presents one wearisome extent of arid soil and gloomy vegetation.
Not a single decent dwelling did we pass: here and there, at rare
intervals, a few miserable negro huts squatting round a mean framed
building, with brick chimneys built on the outside, the residence of the
owner of the land and his squalid serfs, were the only evidences of
human existence in this forlorn country.
Towards four o'clock, as we approached the Roanoke, the appearance of
the land improved; there was a good deal of fine soil well farmed, and
the river, where we crossed it, although in all the naked unadornment of
wintry banks, looked very picturesque and refreshing as it gushed along,
broken by rocks and small islands into rapid reaches and currents.
Immediately after crossing it, we stopped at a small knot of houses,
which, although christened Weldon, and therefore pretending to be a
place, was rather the place where a place was intended to be. Two or
three rough-pine warerooms, or station-houses, belonging to the
railroad; a few miserable dwellings, which might be either not half
built up, or not quite fallen down, on the banks of a large mill-pond;
one exceedingly dirty-looking old wooden house, whither we directed our
steps as to the inn; but we did not take our ease in it, though we tried
as much as we could.
However, one thing I will say for North Carolina--it has the best
material for fire, and the noblest liberality in the use of it, of any
place in the world. Such a spectacle as one of those rousing pine-wood
chimneyfuls is not to be described, nor the revivification it engenders
even in the absence of every other comfort or necessary of life. They
are enough to make one turn Gheber,--such noble piles of fire and flame,
such hearty, brilliant life--full altars of light and warmth. These
greeted us upon our entrance into this miserable inn, and seemed to rest
and feed, as well as warm us. We (the women) were shown up a filthy
flight of wooden stairs into a dilapidated room, the plastered walls of
which were all smeared and discolored, the windows begrimed and darkened
with dirt. Upon the three beds, which nearly filled up this wretched
apartment, lay tattered articles of male and female apparel; and here we
drew round the pine-wood fire, which blazed up the chimney, sending a
ruddy glow of comfort and cheerfulness even through this disgusting den.
We were to wait here for the arrival of the cars from a branch railroad,
to continue our route; and in the mean time a so-called dinner was
provided for us, to which we were presently summoned. Of the horrible
dirt of everything at this meal, from the eatables themselves to the
table-cloth, and the clothes of the negroes who waited upon us, it would
be impossible to give any idea. The poultry, which formed here, as it
does all through the South, the chief animal part of the repast (except
the consumers, always understood), were so tough that I should think
they must have been alive when we came into the house, and certainly
died very hard. They were swimming in black grease, and stuffed with
some black ingredient that was doubt and dismay to us uninitiated; but,
however, knowledge would probably have been more terrible in this case
than ignorance. We had no bread but lumps of hot dough, which reminded
me forcibly of certain juvenile creations of my brothers, yclept dumps.
I should think they would have eaten very much alike.
I was amused to observe that while our tea was poured out, and handed to
us by a black girl of most disgustingly dirty appearance, no sooner did
the engine drivers, and persons connected with the railroads and
coaches, sit down to their meal, than the landlady herself, a portly
dame, with a most dignified carriage, took the head of the table, and
did the honors with all the grace of a most accomplished hostess. Our
male fellow-travelers no sooner had dispatched their dinner than they
withdrew in a body to the other end of the apartment, and large rattling
folding-doors being drawn across the room, the separation of men and
women, so rigidly observed by all traveling Americans, took place. This
is a most peculiar and amusing custom, though sometimes I have been not
a little inclined to quarrel with it, inasmuch as it effectually
deprives one of the assistance of the men under whose protection one is
traveling, as well as all the advantages or pleasure of their society.
Twice during this southward trip of ours my companion has been most
peremptorily ordered to withdraw from the apartment where he was
conversing with me, by colored cabin-girls, who told him it was against
the rules for any gentleman to come into the ladies' room. This making
rules by which ladies and gentlemen are to observe the principles of
decorum and good-breeding may be very necessary, for aught I can tell,
but it seems rather sarcastical, I think, to have them enforced by
servant-girls.
The gentlemen, on their side, are intrenched in a similar manner; and
if a woman has occasion to speak to the person with whom she is
traveling, her entrance into the male den, if she has the courage to
venture there, is the signal for a universal stare and whisper. But, for
the most part, the convenient result of this arrangement is, that such
men as have female companions with them pass their time in prowling
about the precincts of the "ladies' apartment"; while their respective
ladies pop their heads first out of one door and then out of another,
watching in decorous discomfort the time when "their man" shall come to
pass. Our sole resource on the present occasion was to retire again to
the horrible hole above stairs, where we had at first taken refuge and
here we remained until summoned down again by the arrival of the
expected train. My poor little children, overcome with fatigue and
sleep, were carried, and we walked from the _hotel_ at Weldon to the
railroad, and by good fortune obtained a compartment to ourselves.
It was now between eight and nine o'clock, and perfectly dark. The
carriages were furnished with lamps, however, and, by the rapid glance
they cast upon the objects which we passed, I endeavored in vain to
guess at the nature of the country through which we were traveling; but,
except the tall shafts of the everlasting pine trees, which still
pursued us, I could descry nothing, and resigned myself to the amusing
contemplation of the attitudes of my companions, who were all fast
asleep. Between twelve and one o'clock the engine stopped, and it was
announced to us that we had traveled as far upon the railroad as it was
yet completed, and that we must transfer ourselves to stage-coaches; so
in the dead middle of the night we crept out of the train, and taking
our children in our arms, walked a few yards into an open space in the
woods, where three four-horse coaches stood waiting to receive us. A
crowd of men, principally negroes, were collected here round a huge fire
of pine-wood, which, together with the pine-torches, whose resinous
glare streamed brilliantly into the darkness of the woods, created a
ruddy blaze, by the light of which we reached our vehicles in safety,
and, while they were adjusting the luggage, had leisure to admire our
jetty torch-bearers, who lounged round in a state of tattered undress,
highly picturesque,--the staring whites of their eyes, and glittering
ranges of dazzling teeth exhibited to perfection by the expression of
grinning amusement in their countenances, shining in the darkness almost
as brightly as the lights which they reflected. We had especially
requested that we might have a coach to ourselves, and had been assured
that there would be one for the use of our party. It appeared, however,
that the outside seat of this had been appropriated by some one, for our
coachman, who was traveling with us, was obliged to take a seat inside
with us; and though it then contained five grown persons and two
children, it seems that the coach was by no means considered full. The
horrors of that night's journey I shall not easily forget. The road lay
almost the whole way through swamps, and was frequently itself under
water. It was made of logs of wood (a corduroy road), and so dreadfully
rough and unequal, that the drawing a coach over it at all seemed
perfectly miraculous. I expected every moment that we must be overturned
into the marsh, through which we splashed, with hardly any intermission,
the whole night long. Their drivers in this part of the country deserve
infinite praise both for skill and care; but the road-makers, I think,
are beyond all praise for their noble confidence in what skill and care
can accomplish.
You will readily imagine how thankfully I saw the first whitening of
daylight in the sky. I do not know that any morning was ever more
welcome to me than that which found us still surrounded by the
pine-swamps of North Carolina, which, brightened by the morning sun, and
breathed through by the morning air, lost something of their dreary
desolateness to my senses....
Not long after daybreak we arrived at a place called Stantonsborough. I
do not know whether that is the name of the district, or what; for I saw
no village,--nothing but the one lonely house in the wood at which we
stopped. I should have mentioned that the unfortunate individual who
took our coachman's place outside, towards daybreak became so perished
with cold, that an exchange was effected between them, and thus the
privacy (if such it could be called) of our carriage was invaded, in
spite of the promise which we had received to the contrary. As I am
nursing my own baby, and have been compelled to travel all day and all
night, of course this was a circumstance of no small annoyance; but as
our company was again increased some time after, and subsequently I had
to travel in a railroad carriage that held upwards of twenty people, I
had to resign myself to this, among the other miseries of this most
miserable journey.
As we alighted from our coach, we encountered the comical spectacle of
the two coach-loads of gentlemen who had traveled the same route as
ourselves, with wrist-bands and coat-cuffs turned back, performing their
morning ablutions all together at a long wooden dresser in the open air,
though the morning was piercing cold. Their toilet accommodations were
quite of the most primitive order imaginable, as indeed were ours. We
(the women) were all shown into one small room, the whole furniture of
which consisted of a chair and wooden bench: upon the latter stood one
basin, one ewer, and a relic of soap, apparently of great antiquity.
Before, however, we could avail ourselves of these ample means of
cleanliness, we were summoned down to breakfast; but as we had traveled
all night, and all the previous day, and were to travel all the ensuing
day and night, I preferred washing to eating, and determined, if I could
not do both, at least to accomplish the first. There was neither towel,
nor glass for one's teeth, nor hostess or chambermaid to appeal to. I
ran through all the rooms on the floor, of which the doors were open;
but though in one I found a magnificent veneered chest of drawers, and
large looking-glass, neither of the above articles were discoverable.
Again the savage passion for ornament occurred to me as I looked at this
piece of furniture, which might have adorned the most luxurious bedroom
of the wealthiest citizen in New York--here in this wilderness, in a
house which seemed but just cut out of the trees, where a tin pan was
brought to me for a basin, and where the only kitchen, of which the
window of our room, to our sorrow, commanded an uninterrupted prospect,
was an open shed, not fit to stable a well-kept horse in. As I found
nothing that I could take possession of in the shape of towel or
tumbler, I was obliged to wait on the stairs, and catch one of the dirty
black girls who were running to and fro serving the breakfast-room. Upon
asking one of these nymphs for a towel, she held up to me a horrible
cloth, which, but for the evidence to the contrary which its filthy
surface presented, I should have supposed had been used to clean the
floors. Upon my objecting to this, she flounced away, disgusted, I
presume, with my fastidiousness, and appeared no more. As I leaned over
the bannisters in a state of considerable despondency, I espied a man
who appeared to be the host himself and to him I ventured to prefer my
humble petition for a clean towel. He immediately snatched from the
dresser, where the gentlemen had been washing themselves, a wet and
dirty towel, which lay by one of the basins, and offered it to me. Upon
my suggesting that that was not a _clean_ towel, he looked at me from
head to foot with ineffable amazement, but at length desired one of the
negroes to fetch me the unusual luxury.