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RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE LAST TEN YEARS, 
 
 PASSED IN OCCASIONAL RESIDENCES AND JOURNEYINGS 
 IN THE 
 
 VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI, 
 
 FROM 
 
 ■t 
 
 PITTSBURG AND THE MISSOURI TO THE GULF OF MEXICO, AND 
 FROM FLORIDA TO THE SPANISH FRONTIER; 
 
 IN 
 
 A SERIES OF LETTERS 
 
 TO 
 
 THE REV. JAMES FLINT, OF SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 BY TIMOTHY FLINT, 
 
 PRINCIPAL OF THE SEMINARY OF RAPIDE, LOUISIANA. 
 
 Forsan haec olim meminisse juvabit. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 GUMMING!?, HILLRRD, AND COMPANY,- WASHINGTON STREET. 
 
 1826. 
 
DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, TO WIT s 
 
 District Clerk's Office. 
 
 Be it remembered, that on the tenth day of March, A. D. 1826, and in the fiftieth 
 year of the Independence of the United States of America, Cummings, Hilliard, Co. 
 of the said district, have deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof 
 they claim as proprietors, in the words following, to wit: — 
 
 " Recollections of the last ten years, passed in occasional Residences and Journeyings 
 in the Valley of the Mississippi, from Pittsburg and the Missouri, to the Gulf of Mexico, 
 and from Florida to the Spanish frontier; in a series of Letters to the Rev. James Flint, 
 of Salem, Massachusetts. By Timothy Flint, Principal of the Seminary of Rapide, 
 Louisiana. Forsan hgec olim meminisse juvabit." 
 
 In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, " An Act for 
 the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the 
 authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned :" and also 
 to an Act, entitled, " An Act supplementary to an Act, entitled, 1 An Act for the encour- 
 agement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors 
 and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned and extending the 
 benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other 
 prints." 
 
 JNO. W. DAVIS, 
 Clerk of the District of Massachusetts* 
 
TO THE 
 
 REV. JAMES FLINT, $k 
 
 Salem, Mass., Sept. 1825. 
 
 My Dear Friend, 
 
 These letters are addressed to you in testimony of 
 a friendship, which commenced with our boyhood, 
 w 7 ent with us to school, and followed us to the halls of 
 our Alma Mater — a friendship which was not less in- 
 tense, when our duties severed us wide from each oth- 
 er — a friendship which made itself felt beyond moun- 
 tains and 6 rivers unknown to song,' — a friendship 
 which has survived changes of every sort, the wither- 
 ing touch of time and disease, and the still more fatal 
 influence of differing opinion. 
 
 To your wishes, to your kindness, and that of your 
 excellent, townsman, endeared to me by the remem- 
 brance of kind offices of twenty-five years' standing, 
 they owe their birth. I may not be allowed here to 
 record his name. But in these days of refined selfish- 
 ness, I may speak of munificence and kindness, which 
 have sustained me in suffering and disease, and which, 
 unsought and unsolicited, pursued me to the remotest 
 regions of the West. You have also your " Man of 
 Ross," whose name need not be given. The wish of 
 such friends, that I should tell the story of what I have 
 seen and suffered, imposed obligations that were to 
 me as laws. I have made this humble attempt to ful- 
 fil your wishes. It is not an effort of book-making, 
 1 
 
2 
 
 that I now offer you. I have striven to depart from 
 the common fashion of emptying the contents of one 
 book into another, and serving them up to you in a 
 new form. Whether it will make for or against this 
 work, it, is not for me to say ; but I can assert, with 
 perfect confidence, that I have not consulted a book on 
 my subject, from the commencement to the close of it. 
 Bearing this in mind, and that I write from recollec- 
 tion only, you will find an excuse for unintentional 
 mistakes. To have given it the finish and the correct- 
 ness, which so strongly mark the productions of the day, 
 would have required vigor of health, leisure, and tran- 
 quillity ; and you well know, that 1 have had neither. 
 That it was written under the pressure of disease, 
 with a trembling hand and a sinking heart, will, at 
 least, disarm your criticism. Such as it is, I consign 
 it to you, and turn on my weary steps, and carry 
 back to my distant home, emotions that no words 
 could express, and a confident persuasion that the 
 friendship which has been so tried, and so uncommon, 
 will last as long as we shall last, and be renovated, 
 and rendered unchangeable, in a better existence. 
 
 Praying God to impart to friends so dear to me, all 
 good things for time and eternity, 
 
 I am, most affectionately, &c. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 % 
 
LETTERS 
 
 LETTER L 
 
 Alexandria, Red River, Oct. 1824 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 You are kind enough to suppose that some details 
 of what I have seen, enjoyed, and suffered, in the val- 
 ley of the Mississippi, during ten years' journeying, and 
 occasional residence in that region, might be of suffi- 
 cient interest for publication. I have been so much 
 accustomed to deference to your judgment, as to sup- 
 pose at times, that the capability, which you supposed, 
 must exist. Often I have taken up the task, and as 
 often it has fallen from my hands. There are such 
 showers of journals, and travels, and residences, and 
 geographies, and gazetteers ; and every person, who 
 can in any way fasten the members cf a sentence 
 together, after having travelled through a country, is 
 so sure to begin to scribble about it, that I have felt a 
 kind of awkward consciousness at the thought of 
 starting in the same beaten track. And yet I cannot 
 certainly be classed with those writers of travels, who 
 travel post, or are wafted through a country in a steam 
 boat, and assume, on the ground of having thus tra- 
 versed it, to know all about it. Nor can this be pro- 
 nounced an effort of book-making, in which the con- 
 tents of other books are served up in another form. It 
 will probably be my most obvious fault, to have con- 
 sulted no others' writings or opinions, and to have re- 
 lied too much for interest and instruction, on what I 
 
4 
 
 have myself seen and felt. I have, as you know, 
 drunk of every considerable stream that yields tribute 
 to the Mississippi, far from the parent channel ; have 
 traversed the country in all directions ; have resided a 
 considerable time in the northern, middle, and south- 
 ern divisions, and in the discharge of duties, which 
 necessarily brought me in contact with all classes of 
 the inhabitants ; r so that, as far as long and familiar 
 observation of the country can qualify one to describe 
 it, I am so qualified. I speak not of the vicissitudes of 
 disease and suffering which I have endured ; of the 
 trials and privations which I encountered. The re- 
 trospect is too gloomy for myself, and would, probably, 
 be neither of interest nor use to my readers. 
 „ Another discouragement has occurred, in thinking 
 of the task which you propose. Had I originally 
 contemplated such a work as this, I should have kept 
 a regular and detailed journal. The duties which I 
 assumed when I first visited this country, compelled 
 me to keep such a journal for some years. This 
 manuscript, together with many others, was blown 
 away in a hurricane which occurred on the Arkansas, 
 in which every part of the house where we resided 
 was penetrated by the wind and the rain ; and in 
 which the suffering and danger of a sick family pre- 
 cluded anxiety upon any other score. It was a detail, 
 too, of religious duties, and they are necessarily so 
 uniform, that a page or two will serve as a sample of 
 all the rest. I have felt the less regret at the loss of 
 these materials, from reflecting, that a traveller who 
 copies from a daily journal will hardly fail to copy 
 much that is trivial and uninteresting. But the inci- 
 dents that have remained fresh in my memory for the 
 period of ten years, must have excited a vivid impres- 
 
5 
 
 sion when they occurred, and must have had, in the 
 narrator at least, their share of interest. 
 
 On my return to my native country after so many 
 years of absence, you were aware how many acquaint- 
 ances were importuning me for some information of 
 this sort. And you are aware, how much the feeble- 
 ness and dejection of a constitution, broken down by 
 so much wandering, toil, and disease, endured in the 
 wilderness, and in those sickly climes, disqualified me 
 for such a task. Nor is this intended to disarm criti- 
 cism, but simply to account for deficiency either of 
 manner or matter. For the rest, if in the following 
 pages the feelings of the writer occupy too conspicu- 
 ous a place in the view of that severe ordeal, in which 
 the square and compass are applied to works of this 
 kind, let it be remembered, that these pages were chief- 
 ly intended for the eye of friends, to whom, it was well 
 known, such would be the most interesting parts of 
 the work. Let him that objects, too, be constituted in 
 any measure as I am, and let him have been placed 
 in the actual positions in which I have been placed, 
 and I would then hope, that my apology would be fur- 
 nished. 
 
 LETTER, II. 
 
 You are entirely informed of the circumstances, 
 which induced me, after a laborious but secluded min- 
 istry of fourteen years, to leave that asylum, and 
 direct my course to the West. You remember the 
 miserable state of my health, and the hopes I enter- 
 tained,- that in a milder climate and a new order of 
 
6 
 
 things, I might regain my health and cheerfulness. 
 I remember but too faithfully, the bitter spirit of politi- 
 cal rancour, that rendered the condition of so many 
 ministers at that time so unhappy. With many 
 prayers on my own part, and that of my friends, that 
 these evils might not follow me, my family left the 
 land of their fathers the fourth of October 1815. 
 Toward the latter part of the month, we began to as- 
 cend the Allegany hills. In our slow mode of travel- 
 ling, we had had them in view several days. With 
 their interminable blue outline, stretching hill beyond 
 hill, and interposing to the imagination of such travel- 
 lers as we were, a barrier to return almost as impassa- 
 ble as the grave, it may easily be imagined with what 
 interest we contemplated them. It is, I believe, gene- 
 rally conceded to the inhabitants of New England, 
 that, perhaps, with the exception of the Scotch, they 
 have more national feeling than any other people. 
 We had broken all the ties that render the place, 
 where we first drew breath, so dear. Occasional 
 samples of the people and the country beyond these 
 hills, not at all calculated to sooth our feelings, or to 
 throw pleasing associations over our contemplated 
 residence beyond them, had frequently met us. The 
 people on our route constantly designated them by 
 the appellation of u back-woodsmen," and we heard 
 these men themselves uniformly calling their baggage 
 " plunder." The wolf, the bear, and the bald eagle, 
 were the most frequent emblems in the tavern-signs, 
 near the acclivities of these mountains. The bald 
 eagle itself was soaring in the blue of the atmosphere, 
 high above the summits of the first ridge, and its shrill 
 and savage cries were sufficiently loud to reach our 
 ears. 
 
7 
 
 We had, too, many " compagnons de voyage," ex- 
 act samples of the general character of New England 
 emigrants ; poor, active, parsimonious, inquisitive, and 
 fully impressed that no country, in moral advantages, 
 could equal the country which they had left. They 
 felt, in common with us, their love for the dear homes 
 they had left, increasing as they receded from them. 
 In common with us, too, they calculated to have taken 
 a final farewell of those homes. When we had at last 
 reached the highest point of the first of the three par- 
 allel ridges, before we began to descend a declivity, 
 which we expected would forever shield the Atlantic 
 country from our view ; before we went " over the 
 hills and far away," it will readily be conceived, that a 
 family which had been reared in seclusion, such as ours, 
 would be likely to drop " some natural tears," and to 
 take a long and anxious look at the land, which contain- 
 ed all their ties and charities. We tried to comfort each 
 other, as we steadily contemplated the blue summits 
 that w r ere just before us, that we had a world in Which 
 " to choose our place of rest, and Providence our 
 guide." But we had already wandered far enough 
 from home, to admit the full truth of the exclama- 
 tion of Attala : " Happy they, who have not seen the 
 smoke of the stranger's fire." 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 We passed these hills on the common route from 
 Philadelphia to Pittsburg. The first ridge was not 
 very precipitous, and I should suppose, short of a thou- 
 sand feet above the level of its base. The grandeur 
 
8 
 
 of these mountains, so impressive when their blue out- 
 line just touches the horizon in the distance, diminish- 
 es when you reach their summits. They have not the 
 pathless precipices, nor the rushing torrents, of the 
 mountains of New Hampshire and Vermont. But 
 whatever they wanted in sublimity, at the time when 
 we passed them, they more than made up in the diffi- 
 culty and danger of crossing them. I have no wish, 
 however, to fatigue you with the recital of our exer- 
 tions in lifting the carriage up precipitous ascents, 
 washed by the rains, and the still greater exertions 
 necessary to let it down again. We passed hundreds 
 of Pittsburg waggons, in the crossing. Many of them 
 had broken axles and wheels, and in more than one 
 place it was pointed out to us, that teams had plunged 
 down the precipices and had perished. In descending 
 the ridges, a winding road, just wide enough to admit 
 one carriage, was carried round the verge of the de- 
 clivity, perhaps for more than a mile. In this case, if 
 two carnages met, there would be no alternative but 
 to retreat to the commencement of the narrow way. 
 To prevent this, it is necessary that the carriage, w T hich 
 is commencing the ascent or descent, give notice by 
 blowing a horn, or sending a messenger in advance. 
 
 These people, who drive teams between Philadel- 
 phia and Pittsburg, were to me, in their manners and 
 way of living, a new species, perfectly unique in their 
 appearance, language, and habits. They devote them- 
 selves to this mode of subsistence for years, and spend 
 their time continually on the road. They seemed to 
 me to be more rude, profane, and selfish, than either 
 sailors, boatmen, or hunters, to whose modes of living 
 theirs is the most assimilated. We found them addict- 
 ed to drunkenness, and very little disposed to assist 
 
9 
 
 each other. Such was the aspect they presented to us.. 
 We were told, there were honourable exceptions, and 
 even associations, who, like the sacred band of Thebes, 
 took a kind of oath to stand by, and befriend each 
 other. I often dropped among them, as by accident, 
 that impressive tract, the " Swearer's Prayer." I was 
 pleased to remark the result of their reflections, as they 
 read the tract, apart on their window-seats. In some 
 it seemed to produce a momentary thoughtfulness ; in 
 others a smile ; and again in others, a deep growl of 
 acquiescence, very like that which every one has heard, 
 who has attended a council of Indians, and heard them 
 express a kind of reluctant assent to terms proposed 
 to them. 
 
 In the valley, between the middle and the last of 
 the parallel ridges, we encountered a drove of more 
 than a thousand cattle and swine, from the interior of 
 Ohio ; a name which yet sounded in our ears like the 
 land of savages. The appearance of the swine and 
 cattle, in our eyes, had an unnatural shagginess, and 
 roughness, like wolves ; and such, you know, even 
 yet, are the impressions of multitudes of the Atlantic 
 people, with respect to that beautiful country. The 
 name of the country from which this drove came, add- 
 ed something, no doubt, to these associations. They 
 were from "Mad River." ,We were told that the 
 chief drover, a man as untamed and wild in appear- 
 ance, as Robinson's man, Friday, was taking them on 
 to Pennsylvania to fatten, previous to their being sold 
 in the Philadelphia market. 
 
 There is a considerable tract of table-land, before 
 you descend the last hill, and on this there was a pub- 
 lic house. Here we encountered a stage broken down. 
 The passengers had been drenched in rain. They 
 2 
 
10 
 
 were a company of tinners, going to establish them- 
 selves somewhere in the West, and a printer from 
 Connecticut, with his young and beautiful wife, about 
 to commence a printing-office for a gazette in Ken- 
 tucky. This fine young woman, who had suffered 
 her share with the rest, gave us an example of natural 
 equanimity and philosophy. She was cheerful and 
 conversable, while the other women were querulous, 
 in tears, and out of temper with every thing about 
 them, and full of all the tedious complaints with which 
 inexperienced travellers meet the incidental disasters of 
 their way. 
 
 Our journey from the beautiful Moravian settle- 
 ments in Pennsjdvania had been rendered sometimes 
 tedious, and sometimes amusing, by the company of 
 a German Lutheran minister and his family, who had 
 been sent out to some Lutheran settlements on the Big 
 Miami. He w T as recommended to us as an amiable 
 and exemplary man, and had been reared, I believe, in 
 Germany. A more singular specimen of a clergyman 
 could not well be presented to a New England min- 
 ister. He was a short, robust man, with a round and 
 ruddy face, with a singular expression, between cheer- 
 fulness and apathy. When travelling, he had con- 
 stantly in his mouth a pipe, in form much like that 
 musical instrument called a serpent, in which the 
 smoke circulated through many circumvolutions, and 
 finally reached his mouth through a silver mouth-piece. 
 He rode a huge Pennsylvania horse, apparently with 
 no consciousness of want of feeling for his wife and 
 children, who, for the most part, trudged along beside 
 their waggon on foot. When we arrived at the public 
 house, and were seated to the substantial and sump- 
 tuous fare that is furnished at the good houses in these 
 
11 
 
 regions, and this family at the same time ordered their 
 national diet, boiled potatoes, sour milk, and mush, we 
 could easily discover by the longing looks of the chil- 
 dren, that, all national preferences to the contrary, it 
 would have been easy to persuade them to exchange 
 their diet for ours. 
 
 I can scarcely hope to give you any impression 
 of our feelings when we began to descend the last 
 ridge, and the boundless valley of the Ohio began to 
 open upon our view. The finishing of the superb na- 
 tional road from Baltimore to Wheeling, and the pres- 
 ent ease and frequency of crossing the mountains, will 
 soon render it difficult to conceive what a new and 
 strange world opened at that time and place before the 
 imagination of an unpractised Atlantic traveller. In 
 such an unexplored and unlimited view of a country to 
 be our resting-place, and the field of our labours, where 
 there was no fixed point, no shelter for our hopes and 
 expectations, where all must necessarily be strange, a 
 country to which, in approaching, we had constantly 
 heard the term " back woods " applied, melancholy 
 thoughts and painful remembrances would naturally 
 arise in our minds. I fear that my family and myself 
 feel more bitterly and painfully than is the common lot 
 to feel, the gloomy and depressing sensation of experi- 
 encing ourselves strangers in a strange land. 
 
 There are some very handsome villages on the 
 slopes of the hills as you approach Pittsburg. Penn- 
 sylvania abounds with them, especially on the east of 
 the Allegany ridges. Some of these, the names of 
 which had only met us on an itinerary, astonished us 
 by their size and populousness. Others delighted us 
 with the beauty of their situations. East Pennsylva- 
 nia is a beautiful country in every point of view. I 
 
12 
 
 have no where seen an agriculture apparently so 
 rich as here. In the permanence of their spacious 
 stone mansions and barns, the Germans seem to 
 have thought more of posterity than themselves ; and, 
 with old Cato, to have done all with a view to " pos- 
 terity and the immortal Gods." To us, West Penn- 
 sylvania appeared to be peopled with a tall, hardy, 
 lank-looking race of men. The soil in many places 
 had the same hard and harsh features of rock and hil- 
 lock, which characterize our landscape. Except the 
 inhabitants in the immediate vicinity of Pittsburg, 01* 
 other manufacturing villages, they find indifferent mar- 
 kets for their produce, and their chances for making 
 money are very precarious. In healthiness, in the 
 difficulty of procuring the means of subsistence, in ab- 
 stemiousness, and in habits of rigid industry, we com- 
 pared them to our New England people. The inter- 
 mixture of Irish, Scotch, and Germans, has given them 
 a singular and rather ludicrous dialect, in w T hich the 
 peculiarities of language of these several races are 
 mixed. 
 
 I may remark in conclusion, that the only disaster 
 worth recording, in our long journey to Pittsburg, oc- 
 curred just before we left the town. On a slight de- 
 clivity, we came in contact with a carriage rapidly 
 driving from town, and were upset in a moment. But 
 we arose from under the pressure of boxes, bundles, 
 and trunks, alarmed, indeed, but with very little per- 
 sonal injury. 
 
13 
 
 LETTER IV.— PITTSBURG. 
 
 Many travellers and emigrants to this region, view 
 the first samples of the modes of travelling in the west- 
 ern world, on the Allegany at Oleanne point, or the 
 Monongahela at Brownsville. These are but the re- 
 tail specimens. At Pittsburg, where these rivers unite, 
 you have the thing in gross, and by wholesale. The 
 first thing that strikes a stranger from the Atlantic, 
 arrived at the boat-landing, is the singular, whimsical, 
 and amusing spectacle, of the varieties of water craft, 
 of all shapes and structures. There is the the stately 
 barge, of the size of a large Atlantic schooner, with its 
 raised and outlandish looking deck. This kind of 
 craft, however, which required twenty-five hands to 
 work it up stream, is almost gone into disuse, and 
 though so common ten years ago, is now scarcely seen. 
 Next there is the keel- boat, of a long, slender, and ele- 
 gant form, and generally carrying from fifteen to thirty- 
 tons. This boat is formed to be easily propelled over 
 shallow waters in the summer season, and in low stages 
 of the water is still much used, and runs on waters not 
 yet frequented by steam-boats. Next in order are the 
 Kentucky flats, or in the vernacular phrase, " broad- 
 horns," a species of ark, very nearly resembling a New 
 England pig-stye. They are fifteen feet wide, and 
 from forty to one hundred feet in length, and carry 
 from twenty to seventy tons. Some of them, that are 
 called family-boats, and used by families in descending 
 the river, are very large and roomy, and have comforta- 
 ble and separate apartments, fitted up with chairs, beds, 
 tables and stoves. It is no uncommon spectacle to see 
 a large family, old and young, servants, cattle, hogs, 
 horses, sheep, fowls, and animals of all kinds, bringing 
 
14 
 
 to recollection the cargo of the ancient ark, all embark- 
 ed, and floating down on the same bottom. Then there 
 are what the people call " covered sleds," or ferry- 
 flats, and Allegany-skifTs, carrying from eight to 
 twelve tons. In another place are pirogues of from 
 two to four tons burthen, hollowed sometimes from 
 one prodigious tree, or from the trunks of two trees 
 united, and a plank rim fitted to the upper part. 
 There are comaion skiffs, and other small craft, 
 named, from the manner of making them, " dug-outs," 
 and canoes hollowed from smaller trees. These boats 
 are in great numbers, and these names are specific* 
 and clearly define the boats to which they belong. 
 But besides these, in this land of freedom and inven- 
 tion, with a little aid perhaps, from the influence of 
 the moon, there are monstrous anomalies, reducible to 
 no specific class of boats, and only illustrating the 
 whimsical archetypes of things that have previouslo 
 existed in the brain of inventive men, who reject the 
 slavery of being obliged to build in any received form. 
 You can scarcely imagine an abstract form in which a 
 boat can be built, that in some part of the Ohio or 
 Mississippi you will not see, actually in motion. The 
 New York canal is beginning, indeed, to bring sam- 
 ples of this infinite variety of water-craft nearer to the 
 inspection of the Atlantic people. 
 
 This variety of boats, so singular in form, and most 
 of them apparently so frail, is destined in many instan- 
 ces to voyages of from twelve hundred to three thou- 
 sand miles. Keel-boats, built at this place, start on 
 hunting expeditions for points on the Missouri, Arkan- 
 sas, and Red River, at such distances from Pittsburg 
 as these. Such are the inland voyages on these long 
 streams, and the terms of the navigation are as novel 
 
• 
 
 15 
 
 as are the forms of the boats. You hear of the dan- 
 ger of " riffles," meaning probably, ripples, and plant- 
 ers, and sawyers, and points, and bends, and shoots, 
 a corruption, I suppose, of the French " chute." You 
 hear the boatmen extolling their prowess in pushing a 
 pole, and you learn the received opinion, that a " Ken- 
 tuck " is the best man at a pole, and a Frenchman at 
 the oar. A firm push of the iron-pointed pole on a 
 fixed log, is termed a " reverend " set. You are told 
 when you embark, to bring your "plunder" aboard; 
 and you hear about moving " fernenst " the stream : 
 and you gradually become acquainted with a copious 
 vocabulary of this sort. The manners of the boatmen 
 are as strange as their language. Their peculiar way 
 of life has given origin not only to an appropriate dia 
 lect, but to new modes of enjoyment, riot, and fight- 
 ing. . Almost every boat, while it lies in the harbour 
 has one or more fiddles scraping continually aboard, 
 to which you often see the boatmen dancing. There 
 is no wonder that the way of life which the boatmen 
 lead, in turn extremely indolent, and extremely labori- 
 ous ; for days together requiring little or no effort, and 
 attended with no danger, and then on a sudden, labo- 
 rious and hazardous, beyond Atlantic navigation ; 
 generally plentiful as it respects food, and always so 
 as it regards whiskey, should always have seductions 
 that prove irresistible to the young people that live 
 near the banks of the river. The boats float by their 
 dwellings on beautiful spring mornings, when the 
 verdant forest, the mild and delicious temperature of 
 the air, the delightful azure of the sky of this country, 
 the fine bottom on the one hand, and the romantic 
 bluff on the other, the broad and smooth stream rolling 
 calmly dowu the forest, and floating the boat gently 
 
16 
 
 forward, — all these circumstances harmonize in the 
 excited youthful imagination. The boatmen are dan- 
 cing to the violin on the deck of their boat. They 
 scatter their wit among the girls on the shore who 
 come down to the water's edge to see the pageant 
 pass. The boat glides on until it disappears behind a 
 point of wood. At this moment perhaps, the bugle, 
 with which all the boats are provided, strikes up its 
 note in the distance over the water. These scenes, 
 and these notes, echoing from the bluffs of the beauti- 
 ful Ohio, have a charm for the imagination, which, 
 although I have heard a thousand times repeated, and 
 at all hours, and in all positions, is even to me always 
 new, and always delightful. No wonder that the 
 young, who are reared in these remote regions, with 
 that restless curiosity which is fostered by solitude 
 and silence, who witness scenes like this so fre- 
 quently, no wonder that the severe and unremitting 
 labours of agriculture, performed directly in the view 
 of such scenes, should become tasteless and irksome. 
 No wonder that the young along the banks of the 
 great streams, should detest the labours of the field, 
 and embrace every opportunity, either openly, or if 
 minors, covertly, to escape and devote themselves to 
 tile pernicious employment of boating. And in this 
 view we may account for the detestation of the inhab- 
 itants along these great streams towards steam-boats, 
 which are every day diminishing the number of small 
 boats and boatmen, and which have already withdrawn 
 from the western waters, probably ten thousand from 
 that employment. And yet with all these seductions 
 for the eye and the imagination, no life is so slavish, 
 none so precarious and dangerous. In no employment 
 do the hands so wear out. After the lapse of so very 
 
17 
 
 short a period since these waters have been, navigated 
 in this way, at every bend, and every high point of the 
 river, you are almost sure to see, as you slop for a mo- 
 ment, indications of the " narrow house the rude 
 monument, the coarse memorial; carved on an adjoin- 
 ing tree by a brother boatman, which marks that an 
 exhausted boatman there yielded his breath, and was 
 buried. 
 
 Pittsburg is a considerable town, generally built of 
 brick, and has been so often described as to render un- 
 interesting any new attempt of the kind. The site 
 is romantic and delightful. It is well known as a 
 manufacturing place, and once almost supplied the 
 lower country with a variety of the most necessary 
 and important manufactures. But the wealth, busi- 
 ness, and glory of this place are fast passing away, 
 transferred to Cincinnati, to Louisville, and other pla- 
 ces on the Ohio. Various causes have concurred to 
 this result ; but especially the multiplication of steam- 
 boats, and the consequent facility of communication 
 with the Atlantic ports by the Mississippi. There is lit- 
 tle prospect of the reverse of this order of things. The 
 national road, terminating at Wheeling, contributes to 
 this decay of Pittsburg. Her decline is not much re- 
 gretted, for she used to fatten on the spoils of the poor 
 emigrants that swarmed to this place. Accustomed 
 to scenes of parsimony, misery, and beggary, and to 
 transient and unprincipled men, occupied in the har- 
 dening pursuits of manufactures, she had been brought 
 to think all men rogues, misery the natural order of 
 things, and of course little entitled to commiseration, 
 and every way of getting money fair game. The 
 traveller was too apt to think of her as immersed in 
 " sin and sea-coal for the constant use of fossil coal, 
 
 BIB' 3 yh 
 
18 
 
 both for culinary and manufacturing purposes, has 
 given a sooty and funereal aspect even to the buildings 5 ; 
 of course much hospitality could not be expected 
 here. We were introduced, however, to the family of 
 a minister, whose stately mansion and fine furniture, 
 gave us an impression of the opulence, if not of the 
 hospitality of the owner. But a New England minis- 
 ter expects in vain, in these regions, the simple, unaf- 
 fected, and ample hospitality, which constitutes so de- 
 lightful a trait in the character of the clergymen of 
 that country. I need only add, that the charges of 
 the hotel where we lodged, were, as I believe, double 
 of what would have been charged for the same fare 
 at the same kind of house in Boston. It has been 
 said, that the decay of the business of this place has 
 been connected with its moral improvement, and that 
 in moral and humane institutions, and in the urbanity 
 and kindness of its manners, it now holds a respectable 
 competition with other places. That this order of 
 things may go on increasing is " a consummation de- 
 voutly to be wished." 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 Our first river voyage commenced in the early part 
 of November, on a beautiful autumnal afternoon. We 
 had waited a considerable time for the rising of the 
 river, for as yet no boat of any considerable draught 
 of water was able to descend. We had become im- 
 patient of remaining here, and embarked in a very 
 small flat-boat, laden with factory cottons and cutlery. 
 The owner was from Dorchester in Massachusetts, 
 and probably his whole capital was embarked on this 
 
19 
 
 bottom. He was as little experienced in this mode of 
 navigation as we were. Our notions of what we had 
 to expect on this voyage were formed from contem- 
 plating the gentle and equable current of this beautiful 
 river, and resulted in the persuasion, that the whole trip 
 would be an excursion of pleasure and entire safety. 
 Hundreds of emigrants from the eastern country com- 
 mence this descent equally inexperienced. 
 
 About one o'clock in the afternoon we began to 
 float down the Allegany, and in a few moments we 
 were moving on the broad bosom of the Ohio, at the 
 point of junction nearly a mile in width. The au- 
 tumns of every part of our country are beautiful, but 
 those of the western country are pre-eminently so. 
 Nothing resulting from beauty of sky, temperature of 
 air, and charm of scenery, can surpass what was now i 
 above us and around us. The bright sun, the mild 
 blue sky, a bland feeling of the atmosphere, the varie- 
 gated foliage of the huge sycamores which line the 
 banks of the Ohio, their leaves turning red and yel- 
 low, and finely contrasting with the brilliant white 
 of their branches, the unruffled stream, which reflect- 
 ed in its bosom the beautiful surrounding nature, — all 
 things conspired to give us very high anticipations from 
 being wafted down " la belle riviere." We were con- 
 gratulating each other, that this was indeed worth ail 
 the toils and privations, we had endured in arriving at. 
 the Ohio. But, alas for human calculations ! While 
 we were noticing every object on the banks with such 
 intense interest, while the owner was seated amidst his 
 goods and wares, indulging probably in golden dreams 
 of easy, certain, and great profits, while one of the 
 company that you know of, was completely given up 
 to reverie, at which you have so often smiled, — on a 
 
20 
 
 sudden the roar of the river admonished us that we 
 were near a ripple. We had with us that famous 
 book u The Navigator," as it is called. The boat be- 
 gan to exchange its gentle and imperceptible advance 
 for a furious progress. Soon after, it gave a violent 
 bounce against a rock on one side, which threatened 
 to capsize it. On recovering her level, she immedi- 
 diately bounced on the opposite side, and that in its 
 turn was keeled up. Instead of running to the oar, 
 we ran to look in the " Navigator." The owner was 
 pale. The children shrieked. The hard ware came 
 tumbling upon us from the shelves, and Mrs. F, was 
 almost literally buried amidst locks, latches, knives, 
 and pieces of domestic cotton. The gentle river had 
 not intended in this first alarm to swallow us up, but 
 only to give us timely warning, that too much tran- 
 quillity and enjoyment are not to be expected here. 
 We floated off from this ripple, which bore the omi- 
 nous name of " Dead Man's," into the smooth water, 
 with no other injury than the chaotic state of our 
 lading. But from that moment, adieu to our poetic 
 dreams of floating down the beautiful river in such 
 perfect safety. We were continually running to the 
 " Navigator," astonished to find how full the river was, 
 of chutes and ripples. 
 
 I might easily record a succession of disasters of a 
 like kind, sufficiently formidable to such fresh- water 
 sailors as we were, without a single pilot or waterman 
 on board. Sometimes we were jostling on the rocks 
 in the ripples. Sometimes we were driven furiously 
 along the chutes, and sometimes we stuck fast on the 
 sand-bars. One night we lay grounded on a rock in 
 the middle of the river, with the roar of a ripple in 
 hearing, just below us. Our fear was, that the river, 
 
21 
 
 which was rising, would float us over these dangerous 
 falls in the night ; and you will easily imagine, that for 
 this night we gave " no sleep to our eyes." 
 
 At Beaver in Pennsylvania we exchanged this dan- 
 gerous and tedious mode of conveyance, for one more 
 suited to the present stage of the water. We purchas- 
 ed a large skiff. It has the advantage of being able to 
 run in any stage of the water, without grounding, and 
 is perfectly safe. In fine weather it furnishes a very 
 pleasant way of descending the river. But we soon 
 found that we had exchanged one inconvenience for 
 another. We could look round us indeed ; we went 
 forward securely. But at one time the sun beat in- 
 tensely upon us. At another we suffered from fogs 
 and rains. At every landing, too, where we stopped 
 to spend the night, and find lodging, we were obliged 
 to remove every article of lading from the boat, and 
 not too well assured, that some of the numerous ad- 
 venturers would not take away our boat during the 
 night. 
 
 In this manner we floated by many thriving villa- 
 ges, that had just risen in the wilderness, and many 
 indications of commencing settlements, The Ohio 
 broadened evidently at every advancing bend. The 
 bottoms diverged farther from the shores, and the fer- 
 tility of the soil increased. We remarked a curious 
 but uniform circumstance, which applies equally to 
 the Mississippi, and all its tributaries. It is, that with 
 few exceptions, where the bluffs of the river rise im- 
 mediately from the shore on the one hand, the bottoms 
 broaden on the other ; and when the bluff commences 
 at the termination of the bottom, that commences on 
 the opposite shore. Thus they regularly alternate 
 with each other. 
 
22 
 
 At Steubenville, in Ohio, we remarked that the river 
 seemed to develope its character for broadness and 
 fertility. Here we first began to notice the pawpaw, 
 the persimon, and other new and beautiful shrubs and 
 plants, peculiar to this climate. Here, too, we saw 
 the most obvious proofs of the advance of this most 
 flourishing country, in population and improvement, 
 the more entire developement of which has been so 
 astonishing within the last ten years. Where we now 
 saw a large village, with the spires of churches, an 
 entire street of large brick buildings, manufactories, 
 a market-house, and the bustle of a busy town, only 
 eighteen years before, there had been a solid and corn- 
 pact forest of vast sycamores and beeches. They 
 numbered already in this town four thousand inhab- 
 itants. 
 
 We were almost daily passing the mouths of boat- 
 able streams, which furnish lateral canals, some of 
 them hundreds of miles in extent, into the interior, on 
 which every year new towns and villages were spring- 
 ing up, and pouring the products of cultivation into the 
 Ohio. You understand, that it is not my intention to 
 go into those details, which are best furnished by ge- 
 ographies and gazetteers. My object is simply to pre- 
 sent you the observations and reflections, which ob- 
 truded themselves upon me, from nature, and the gen- 
 eral aspect of things. In the systems of geology and 
 world-making, which have furnished so much amuse- 
 ment to the philosophers, or would-be philosophers of 
 the day, you are aware, that there have been various 
 ingenious contrivances for the formation of this river, 
 and the immense valley in which it runs. Among 
 these theories, that of Mr. Volney, according to my best 
 recollection, for it is many years since I read it, sup- 
 
23 **0* 
 
 poses that this valley was in former ages a vast lake. 
 The remains of the dike or barrier exist at present 
 at Louisville, and the falls of the Ohio. It is certain, 
 that the remains of river or lake formation exist, 
 wherever the earth is penetrated to any depth. I have 
 not seen in all this region a single block of granite. 
 The bluffs of the Ohio are carbonate of lime, mixed 
 often with the exuviae of marine animals. I have seen 
 cliffs, which contained millions of a small species of 
 muscle-shells, as distinct in the lime-stone, as if they 
 had been imbedded there but yesterday. I have pon- 
 dered and reflected much upon these remains of ma- 
 rine formation. But to relate the result of my conclu- 
 sions upon the subject, as it is not my object, so neither 
 would it, in my judgment, throw much light upon the 
 subject. I leave entirely to other writers to devise de- 
 vices, and to imagine causes, sufficient to form lakes 
 and drain them, and to account for these indications 
 of marine formation. I cannot, however, help observ- 
 ing, that the " conclusion of the whole matter," in my 
 mind, was, that the bible solution of the matter, was 
 not only as satisfactory, but as plausible as any other, 
 and to me the most philosophical. God made the 
 earth lo be inhabited. Such a river as the Ohio, such 
 lateral streams as pour into it, the mountains, whose 
 outer limits form the rim of the basin, the thousand 
 devious channels, by which the cascades and fountains, 
 that pour from these mountains, find their way to the 
 Ohio, are all necessary to the draining, the irrigation, 
 and the habitancy of the country. In this view, the 
 river and the valley must have been coeval, and formed 
 not only together, but adjusted the one to the other. 
 There is a conformation of physical feature in the 
 country every where, as you approach the Ohio, that 
 
24 
 
 indicates to every one the vicinity of the river. The 
 bluffs and bottoms, as I have remarked, almost invari- 
 ably alternate, and are still opposite each other ; and 
 beyond them there is generally a considerable tract of 
 country, in the south, denominated " hammock-land," 
 and in Ohio " second bottom ; " and beyond all this, 
 there are series of those singular hills, so unique in 
 their appearance and character, as to indicate to you, 
 at the distance of miles from the river, that you are 
 approaching it. Still, beyond all this, there is another 
 strip of country appropriate to the distance which it 
 occupies from the river. 
 
 I need not inform you, that the Ohio runs, a consid- 
 erable distance, wholly in Pennsylvania ; that after- 
 wards, the left shore in descending is the western limit 
 of Virginia, and the eastern of Ohio ; that afterwards, 
 Kentucky is bounded on the left and Ohio on the right 
 shore ; and that afterwards, first Indiana and then 
 Illinois bound on the right shore, and Kentucky oppo- 
 site on the left, until it enters the Mississippi. The 
 former and the latter river furnish excellent geographi- 
 cal limits to states on a scale corresponding to the 
 physical extent, grandeur, and ultimate moral destina- 
 tion of the country. 
 
 Jn descending we often met with boats loaded with 
 Kenhawa salt, an article extensively manufactured at 
 the salines on that river. There seems to have been, 
 at that time, a competition between the salines of 
 New York, and those of Kenhawa. Boats were then 
 ascending from the latter place to the highest boatable 
 waters of the Allegany. This region had formerly 
 been supplied with salt from the works in New York. 
 
 We found a new source of amusement in contem- 
 plating a set of twelve or fourteen hands, walking 
 
25 
 
 slowly forward, and half bent, with the shoulder firmly 
 fixed against the knob of a lon£ pole, whose iron point 
 was set in the bottom, and thus apparently with great 
 labour propelling the boat against the stream. As soon 
 as they have walked the length of the boat, they raise 
 their pole, walk forward in Indian file, and renew 
 their " set," as the phrase is, again. I shall, however, 
 more naturally remark upon the mode of pushing a 
 boat against the stream in another place. It is a very 
 laborious and slow process, very expensive and trouble- 
 some. Steam-boats, save one, were not in use at this 
 time. I was obliged to move in my excursions, in a 
 keel-boat. I was compelled to know, to my cost, all 
 about pushing a boat up stream with a pole. u Quee- 
 que ipse miserrima vidi." Justly to appreciate the 
 value of steam-boats on these waters, one must have 
 moved up them, as long, as dangerously, and as labo- 
 riously, as I have done. 
 
 Charlestown is a considerable, and growing town, 
 on the Virginia shore, before you arrive at Wheeling. 
 It has important manufactories of flour. At Wheeling, 
 the Ohio has received so many tributaries, as to be 
 navigable by keel-boats, and by steam-boats with a 
 small draught qf water, at all seasons of the year. 
 The town has many advantages for building boats 
 and small craft. It has abundance of fossil coal for 
 manufacturing, and other purposes. The great na- 
 tional road strikes the Ohio here. It has now large 
 piles of brick buildings, where eleven years since there 
 was but one miserable and straggling street ; and who- 
 ever looks upon the place, or even considers its posi- 
 tion on the map, will perceive at once, that it is des- 
 tined to become one of the largest towns on the Ohio. 
 When we were there, its taverns were literally crovvd- 
 4 
 
26 
 
 od with emigrants to the West, from every part of the 
 Union. We were all arrested here by the influenza, 
 which was then a most distressing epidemic on the 
 western waters. The house where we put up was 
 filled with the sick, with lamenting and mourning the 
 determination that had brought the patients to that dis- 
 tant and strange land. The objects of misery were so 
 multiplied, that there seemed little feeling or concern, 
 on the part of the people about them. My family had 
 their share of neglect, of homesickness, and of gloom. 
 Imagine a sickness of heart, more disheartening still 
 than the influenza ; imagine our expenses, and the little 
 attention paid to us in a house crowded with sick ; im- 
 agine a state of mind, in which the very mention of 
 our late home would fill the eyes of my children with 
 tears, — and you will have some idea of the character 
 of our long and sad sojourn at Wheeling. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 It was now the middle of November. The weath- 
 er up to this time had been, with the exception of a 
 couple of days of fog and rain, delightful. The sky 
 has a milder and lighter azure than that of the north- 
 ern states. The wide, clean sand-bars stretching for 
 miles together, and now and then a flock of wild 
 geese, swans, or sand-hill cranes, and pelicans, stalking 
 alone on them ; the infinite varieties of form of the 
 towering bluffs ; the new tribes of shrubs and plants on 
 the shores ; the exuberant fertility of the soil, evidenc- 
 ing itself in the natural as well as cultivated vegetation, 
 in the height and size of the corn, of itself alone a 
 
27 
 
 matter of astonishment to an inhabitant of the northern 
 states, in the thrifty aspect of the young orchards, lit- 
 erally bending under their fruit, the surprising size 
 and rankness of the weeds, and, in the enclosures where 
 cultivation had been for a while suspended, the matted 
 abundance of every kind of vegetation that ensued,— 
 all these circumstances united to give a novelty and 
 freshness to the scenery. The bottom forests every- 
 where display the huge sycamore, the king of the 
 western forest, in all places an interesting tree, but 
 particularly so here, and in autumn, when you see its 
 white and long branches among its red and yeilovv* 
 fading leaves. You may add, that in all the trees that 
 have been stripped of their leaves, you see them 
 crowned with verdant tufts of the viseus or misletoe, 
 with its beautiful white berries, and their trunks en- 
 twined with grape-vines, some of them in size not 
 much short of the human body. To ad J to this union 
 of pleasant circumstances, there is a delightful tempe- 
 rature of the air, more easily felt than described. In 
 New England, when the sky was partially covered 
 with fleecy clouds, and the wind blew very gently from 
 the southwest, I have sometimes had the same sensa- 
 tions from the temperature there. A slight degree of 
 languor ensues ; and the irritability that is caused by 
 the rougher and more bracing air of the north, and 
 which is more favourable to physical strength and ac- 
 tivity than enjoyment, gives place to a tranquillity 
 highly propitious to meditation. There is something, 
 too, in the gentle and almost imperceptible motion, as 
 you sit on the deck of the boat, and see tire trees ap- 
 parently moving by you, and new groups of scenery 
 still opening upon your eye, together with the view of 
 these ancient and magnificent forests, which the axe 
 
28 
 
 has not jet despoiled, the broad and beautiful river, the 
 earth and the sky, which render such a trip at this sea- 
 son the very element, of poetry. Let him that has 
 within him the " bona indoles," the poetic mania, as yet 
 unwhjpt of justice, not think to sail down the Ohio un- 
 der such circumstances, without venting to the genius 
 of the river, the rocks and the woods, the swans, and 
 perchance his distant beloved, his dolorous notes. 
 
 You have often given me ironical praise for my fan- 
 cied sympathy with nature. It is very true, that I 
 ought under no circumstances to need flappers to re- 
 mind me of the stern calls of duty, to be, as the boat- 
 men here express it, " wide awake and duly sober." 
 But during every fine day on this excursion, I as nat- 
 urally gave myself up to that kind of dreaming exist- 
 ence, called reverie, as a man exhausted with toil at 
 night yields himself up to sleep. Sometimes, too, the 
 opening of a view, of more imposing and inspiriting 
 character, exalted the soul to " solemn thought and 
 heavenly musing." Let me be thankful for all that I 
 have enjoyed ; and the recollections of this descent are 
 recollections of novel and almost unmixed enjoyment, 
 and are indelibly engraven on my memory. 
 
 The climate of this country is admitted not to be 
 so favourable to physical energy and activity as the 
 keen northwest breeze of your climate. I see that 
 the emigrants from that country have lost something 
 of their native activity. There is something, also, to 
 me almost appalling in this prodigious power of vege- 
 tation. For there is with me, in some manner, an as- 
 sociation of this thing with the idea of sickness. In- 
 deed 1 have now and then seen a person yawning and 
 stretching, apparently almost incapable of motion, and 
 with a peculiar, cadaverous countenance, who has, 
 
29 
 
 they tell me, the fever and ague. But all this not- 
 withstanding, I have never seen a country to appear- 
 ance more fruitful in men, as well as corn. From the 
 cabins and houses tumble out, as you approach the 
 shore, a whole posse of big and little -boys and girls; 
 and the white-headed urchins, with their matted locks, 
 and their culottes gaping with many a dismal rent, 
 stare at you as you pass. I have seen no where else 
 such hosts of children. The process of doubling pop- 
 ulation, without Malthus, and without theory, without 
 artficial or natural wants, goes on, I am sure, on the 
 banks of the Ohio as rapidly as anywhere in the 
 world. Why should it not ? The climate is mild, 
 the cattle need little care or housing, arid multiply 
 rapidly. Grain requires little labour in the cultivation, 
 and the children only need a pone of corn bread, and 
 a bowl of milk. 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 We landed at Marietta, just above the mouth of the 
 Muskingum. It is a considerable village. In the 
 forms of the houses and the arrangements about them, 
 you discover that this is an establishment from New 
 England. A number of well informed and respectable 
 emigrants from that country had preceded us, and had 
 just arrived in the village. Mr. R., a pious and amia- 
 ble man, who has since deceased, was minister there. 
 I had letters to the venerable General Putnam, the 
 patriarch of this colony. We were here once more 
 in the society of those who had breathed the same 
 air, had contemplated the same scenery, and been 
 
30 
 
 reared amidst the same institutions with ourselves* 
 You ean imagine the rapidity of discourse, the at- 
 tempt of two or three to narrate their adventures at 
 the same time, and the many pleasant circumstances 
 attending the renewal of a long suspended intercourse i 
 with congenial society. 
 
 There is something very pleasant and rich in the 
 aspect of the wide and level bottom here. There is a 
 fine steam* mill, built of stone, across the Muskingum, 
 spouting up its column of vapour, and the accompani- 
 ment of boat-building and mechanic labours gives the 
 place an aspect of business and cheerfulness. The 
 place has however suffered more than once from in- 
 undation, which has much retarded the advancement 
 of its growth. We hear much of the flourishing and 
 populous settlement up the Muskingum, a river whose 
 banks are said to be pleasant and healthful. The riv- 
 er, which here falls into the Ohio, is broad, shallow, 
 and considerably rapid. The Ohio, as the phrase is, 
 backs it up, at times, to a considerable distance ; a 
 circumstance which occurs in all the rivers of the Ohio 
 and Mississippi, and results from the general levelness 
 of the face of the country. A laughable incident is 
 said to have occurred on this river, frem this cause 
 During the thick fogs that often happen here, it is well 
 nigh impossible for the boatmen to judge of directions, 
 or ascertain which way is up, or which way down the 
 river. In such circumstances, a boat came down the 
 Ohio near the Muskingum shore, was drawn into the 
 mouth of the river by the current that was backing it 
 up, and was proceeding to ascend it in the fog. When 
 the hands had made some miles up the river, they 
 were hailed, and the usual questions, which by the 
 way are very tedious, and very impertinent, were ask- 
 
31 
 
 ed : viz. Where from ? How laden ? Who was the 
 captain ? And where bound ? To this last question 
 the reply was, To New Orleans, and they were with 
 difficulty convinced, that they were making head-way 
 up the Muskingum. In effect, no commander of a 
 seventy-four is more punctiliously greeted with all this 
 kind of questioning than a flat or keel-boat, descend- 
 ing the Ohio. The boatmen relate, that it so happen- 
 ed, that a descending boat was able to answer truly to 
 these interrogatories in the following manner. Where 
 are you from? Redstone. What's your lading? 
 Millstones. What 's the captain's name ? Whetstone. 
 Where are you bound ? To Limestone. 
 
 I may here remark, that this kind of questioning of- 
 ten gives occasion to that rencontre of wit, that is 
 commonly called blackguarding. I have more than 
 once been compelled to smile, at the readiness or 
 whimsicality of the retorts in these trials of vulgarity, 
 between the people on shore and the boatmen. But 
 I have much oftener been disgusted with the obscenity, 
 abuse, and blasphemy, which usually terminate the 
 contest. We are told, that this proceeds sometimes to 
 the length of exchanging musket shots. Such an 
 event recently occurred. A boatman in this way as- 
 sailed a man on the shore. The landsman proved 
 the more adroit blackguard of the two. In this keen 
 encounter of wits, whenever the man on the shore had 
 the best reply, as generally happened, he was cheered 
 by the hands on the boat, and their companion ridi- 
 culed. The boatman at length, exasperated beyond 
 all patience, seized a rifle and levelled at his antago- 
 nist on the shore, who with every mark of terror, 
 instantly sprang behind a tree. Nothing is so ludi- 
 crous, or so quickly disarms resentment in a boatman, 
 
52 
 
 as any expression of terror and cowardice. EJe ex- 
 claimed, that he had treed the game, and bursting into 
 laughter, he let his rifle fall. 
 
 Though this is in some sense a Yankee region, and 
 Ohio is called, on the opposite shore, the Yankee state, 
 you do not the less hear at all these towns, and every 
 where in this state, fine stories about Yankee tricks, 
 and Yankee finesse, and wooden nutmegs, and pit-coal 
 indigo, and gin made by putting pinetops in the whis- 
 key. The poor Irish have not had more stories in- 
 vented and put into their mouths. I might relate a 
 score of Yankee tricks, that different people assured 
 us had been played off upon them. I will only 
 remark, that wherever w 7 e stopped at night and re- 
 quested lodgings, we were constantly asked if we 
 were Yankees ; and when we answered that we were, 
 w 7 e constantly saw a lengthening of visage ensue, but 
 were generally complimented in the end with granting 
 our request, and assurances that our appearance and 
 my profession answered for us. We were then com- 
 pelled to hear of impositions and petty tricks, and 
 small thefts, and more than all, departure without pay- 
 ing off bills, which, they alleged, had been practised 
 upon them by Yankees. The emigrants upon whom 
 these charges are fixed, which are probably magnified, 
 both in number and enormity, are as often other 
 people, as Yankees. But as these last eminently 
 possess the power of talking, and inspire a sort of 
 terror by their superior acuteness, and as that terror 
 procures a certain degree of respect, many a block- 
 head from the southern and middle states has wished 
 to shine his hour, as a- wise man, and has assumed 
 this terrific name ; and thus the impression has finally 
 been established, that almost all the emigrants who 
 
33 
 
 pass down the river, are Yankees. The common reply 
 of the boat-men to those who ask them what is their 
 lading, is, " Pit-coal indigo, wooden nutmegs, straw 
 baskets, and Yankee notions." 
 
 To return to Marietta. General Putnam was a vet- 
 eran of the revolution, an inhabitant of Marietta, one 
 of the first purchasers and settlers in the country. He 
 had moved here, when it was one compact and bound- 
 less forest, vocal only with the cry of owls, the growl 
 of bears, and the death-song of the savages. He had 
 seen that forest fall under the axe, — had seen commo- 
 dious, and after that, splendid dwellings rise around 
 him. He had seen the settlement sustain an inunda- 
 tion, which wafted away the dwellings, and in some 
 instances the inhabitants in them. The cattle and all 
 the improvements of cultivation were swept away. 
 He had seen the country suffer all the accumulated 
 horrors of an Indian war. He had seen its exhaustless 
 fertility and its natural advantages triumph over ail. 
 He had seen Marietta make advances towards acquaint- 
 ing itself with the gulf of Mexico, by floating off from 
 its banks a number of sea vessels built there. He had 
 seen the prodigious invention of steain-boais experi- 
 mented on the Ohio, and heard their first thunder, as 
 they swept by his dwelling. He had survived to see 
 them become so common, as to be no more objects of 
 curiosity. He had witnessed a hundred boats, laden 
 for New Orleans, pass by in the compass of a few 
 hours. He had surrounded his modest, but commo- 
 dious dwelling with fruit-trees of his own planting ; and 
 finer, or more loaded orchards than his, no country 
 could offer. In the midst of rural plenty, and endear- 
 ed friends, who had grown up around him, — far from 
 the display of wealth, the bustle of ambition and in- 
 5 
 
34 
 
 trigue, the father of the colony, hospitable and kind 
 without ostentation and without effort, he displayed 
 in these remote regions, the grandeur, real and intrin- 
 sic, of those immortal men, who achieved our revolu- 
 tion. Of these great men, most of whom, and Gene- 
 ral Putnam among the rest, have passed away, there 
 seems to have arisen a more just and a more respect- 
 ful estimate. Greater and more unambitious men, no 
 age or country has reared. Cato's seems to have been 
 their motto — u esse quam videri." 
 
 At the close of November we departed from Ma- 
 rietta. The days were still delightful. But the 
 earth in the morning was whitened with frost. The 
 advanced season admonished us, that we could no 
 longer go on safely or commodiouslj, in an open 
 boat. We purchased a Kentucky flat, of forty tons 
 burthen, subject however to the incumbrance of a fam- 
 ily, who had been already insured a passage in it. A 
 few hours before sunset we went on board with a num- 
 ber of passengers, beside my family, and I introduced 
 my family to the one that was already on board. He 
 proved to be a fine, healthy-looking Kentuckian, with a 
 young and pretty wife, two or three negro-servants, and 
 two small children. He was a fair specimen of the 
 rough and frank Kentucky character of men of his 
 class; an independent farmer, who had swarmed from 
 the old homestead hive in Kentucky. Land, there, he 
 said, had already become too scarce and dear. He 
 wanted elbow-room, did not wish to have a neighbour 
 within three miles of him, and was moving to the upper 
 Mississippi, for range. It had become too dark on 
 board for him to distinguish my family or profession. 
 " So," said he, " I find 1 am chartered on a rail-splitting 
 Yankee," adding an epithet that I omit. Some one 
 
35 
 
 politely mentioned to him my profession. His wife 
 observed in the phrase of the country, " My husband 
 swears hard. His father and mine are both religious. 
 I should be forever thankful to you, if you would cure 
 him of the habit of swearing." I remarked, that since 
 we were thrown together, and were under the neces- 
 sity of occupying the same boat for some days, it 
 would be extremely gratifying to me if he would de- 
 sist from the habit, at least while we were together. 
 The usual remarks were added, on the folly and 
 vulgarity of swearing, and its utter want of temptation. 
 He replied, that it was not his habit to swear in the 
 presence of ministers, or gentlemen, to whom he knew 
 it was offensive. He continued, in an earnest tone, to 
 slate that all his relatives were religious, and that he 
 w r as almost the single stray sheep from the flock ; he had 
 often tried to " get religion," as the phrase is here ; he 
 had laboured as hard for it, as he ever had at rolling 
 logs, and that whatever was the reason, do all he could, 
 to him it would never come ; and now, if it would come 
 to him of itself, good ; but if not, that he meant to try 
 for it no more. He pledged himself, in conclusion, that 
 he would abstain from swearing while with me, as far 
 as he could remember to abstain, and he faithfully re- 
 deemed his pledge. He proved an excellent steersman 
 for the boat, and a kind and friendly, if not a pleasant 
 companion. He had been many years a boatman on 
 the Ohio, the Mississippi, and its waters ; and had a 
 great fund of interesting narrative appertaining to his 
 numerous voyages. 
 
 He became very much amused in stirring up the 
 national feeling in my children, by speaking against 
 New England and ridiculing Yankees. He had serv- 
 ed in the late w r ar, on the Canada frontier, and had 
 
36 
 
 many pleasant stories about their ingenious knaveries. 
 He generally concluded these details with a song, the 
 burden or chorus of which was, 
 
 w They wiil put pine-tops in their whiskey, 
 
 And then they will call it gin." 
 
 This song he would extend to a number of stanzas, 
 singing them with the utmost extent of his voice. One 
 of the children of nine years, whose patriotic blood 
 had become too warm to bear all this, assailed him 
 in the most earnest manner, palliating or denying 
 every charge. In the height of the argument, we had 
 drifted near the Ohio shore. "Oh !" said he to my 
 daughter, " look there now, at the cruelty of the Yan- 
 kees ! There is a man ploughing w r ith two cows. At 
 night, after working them all day, he will turn them 
 out and milk them. Do you think it is in the heart of 
 a Kentuckian to be so cruel and avaricious ? " Our 
 child appealed to me, if the team in question were 
 cows. Indeed, at the distance of the field, the oxen 
 had the appearance of cows, and to keep up the spirit 
 of the argument, I admitted that they appeared to be 
 cows. 
 
 The next morning our daughter had her revenge 
 upon Kentucky. We were floating by a large stone 
 house on the Kentucky shore. The master was 
 lounging in the piazza. The usual salutation pass- 
 ed: — " Halloo, the boat ! 99 To which the reply was, 
 " Halloo, the house ! Have you any potatoes to sell 
 to our boat ? " " None. Have you any whiskey 
 aboard that boat ? " " Plenty," answered our captain, 
 although in fact we had none. "Well, I will trade 
 some potatoes for whiskey." " What do you ask for 
 your potatoes ? " " A. dollar a bushel." That is to 
 say, he asked three times a fair price. The answer 
 
31 
 
 was, that it was too high a price. 66 Well, I will let 
 you have a bushel of potatoes for a gallon of whis- 
 key ! 55 The whiskey would have been worth thirty- 
 three cents. He continued to bawl out, that he would 
 let us have a bushel for half a gallon, and finally for a 
 quart. We took occasion to remind our captain, that if 
 the Kentuckians did not work their cows, and then milk 
 them for beverage, they seemed to have no small fond- 
 ness for beverage of another sort. 
 
 Nothing very material occurred to us on our way 
 to Cincinnati, except that we encountered, while float- 
 ing by night, a severe thunderstorm, always an im- 
 pressive scene by night, and particularly so in one of 
 these frail boats, which lies like a log amidst the 
 waves, in profound darkness, and a stream a mile in 
 width. Besides the unpleasant sensations to my fam- 
 ily, to whom this was a new scene, the rain that pour- 
 ed in torrents, drenched every part of the boat, so that 
 with the roar of thunder and the dashing of the waves 
 without, and the terrors of my children within, we 
 passed a very uncomfortable night. 
 
 LETTER VIII . — CINCINNA TI. 
 
 Eleven years since, this was the only place that 
 could properly be called a town, on the course of the 
 Ohio and Mississippi, from Steubenville to Natchez, 
 a distance of fifteen hundred miles. It is far olherwise 
 now. But even then you cast your eye upon a large 
 and compact town, and extended your view over the 
 river to the fine buildings rising on the slope of the 
 opposite shore, and contemplated the steam-manufac- 
 tories, darting their columns of smoke aloft. All this 
 
38 
 
 moving picture of wealth, populousness, and activity, 
 has been won from the wilderness within forty years. 
 In 1815-16 it contained between eight and nine 
 thousand inhabitants, handsome streets, a number of 
 churches, one a very large one, — a very spacious 
 building for a Lancastrian school, and other public 
 buildings, and two commodious market-houses. On 
 the opposite shore rose a considerable village ; an ar- 
 senal of brick, some handsome mansions, and one or 
 two country-seats, that rose still farther in the dis- 
 tance. The buildings on each side were placed in po- 
 sitions, that displayed them to the best possible advan- 
 tage, on gentle slopes rising gradually from the shores 
 of the river. While I am writing, it is supposed to 
 contain between sixteen and tw T enty thousand inhabit- 
 ants, with the increase of every appendage to city 
 comfort, beauty, and opulence, in more than a com- 
 mensurate proportion with its increasing population. 
 It. is a fund for proud anticipation, to minds that sym- 
 pathize with the welfare of their country and of man. 
 This great state, which was, within my memory, an 
 unbroken wilderness, is now, at farthest, only the 
 fourth state in the union in point of numbers. There 
 are not, probably, on the earth seven hundred thousand 
 human beings, who in the mass are more comfortably 
 fed and clothed, than the population of this state. J 
 looked upon this fresh and flourishing city, outstretched 
 under my eye, and compared in thought its progress 
 with that of the imperial Petersburg, — where a great 
 and intelligent despot said, "Let there be a city," and a 
 city arose upon a Golgotha, upon piles of human bones 
 and skulls, that gave consistency to a morass. The 
 awe of a numberless soldiery, the concentered resour- 
 ces of thirty millions of slaves, the will of the sovereign, 
 
39 
 
 who made the same use of men that the mason does 
 of bricks and mortar, must all conspire to form a city 
 in that place. Droves of peasants are transplanted 
 from the extremities of Asia to people it. Imperial 
 treasures are lavished to furnish inducements to entice 
 the noblesse to build and reside there. A despotic 
 court displays there Asiatic magnificence, and squan- 
 ders the means of ministering to its caprices and its 
 pleasures. The result of all these concurring causes 
 is the erection of one splendid city in the midst of a 
 desert ; and more human beings, probably, perished in 
 this unnatural forcing of a city, than inhabit it at this 
 day. 
 
 How different are the fostering efforts of liberty. 
 Sixteen hundred miles from the sea, in half an age, this 
 flourishing and beautiful town has emerged from the 
 woods, and when as old as Petersburg now is, will prob- 
 ably, in* wealth and population, emulate the imperial 
 city. No troops are stationed, no public money lav- 
 ished here. It is not even the state metropolis. The 
 people build and multiply imperceptibly and in silence. 
 Nothing is forced. This magnificent result is only the 
 developement of our free and noble institutions, upon 
 a fertile soil. Nor is this place the solitary point, 
 where the genius of our institutions is working this 
 result. Numerous cities and towns, over an extent of 
 two thousands of miles, are emulating the growth of 
 this place. The banks of the Ohio are destined short- 
 ly to become almost a continued village. Eleven years 
 have produced an astonishing change in this respect ; 
 for at that distance of time, by far the greater propor- 
 tion of the course of the Ohio was through a forest. 
 When you saw this cky, apparently lifting its head 
 from surrounding woods, you found yourself at a loss 
 
40 
 
 to imagine whence so many people could be fur- 
 nished with supplies. In the fine weather, at the com- 
 mencement of winter, it is only necessary to go to the 
 market of this town, and see its exuberant supplies of 
 every article for consumption, in the finest order, and 
 of the best quality ; to see the lines of wagons and 
 the astonishing quantities of every kind of produce, to 
 realize, at once, all that you have read about the 
 growth of Ohio. 
 
 In one place you see lines of wagons in the Pennsyl- 
 vania style. In another place the Tunkers, with their 
 long and flowing beards, have brought up their teams 
 with their fat mutton and fine flour. Fowls, domes- 
 tic and wild turkeys, venison, those fine birds which 
 are here called partridges, and which we call quails, 
 all sorts of fruits and vegetables, equally excellent and 
 cheap, — in short, all that you see in Boston market, with 
 the exception of the same variety of fish, and all these 
 things in the greatest abundance, are here. In one 
 quarter there are wild animals that have been taken 
 in the woods ; cages of red -birds and parroquets ; and 
 in another, old ladies, with roots, herbs, nuts, mittens, 
 stockings, and what they call "Yankee notions." 
 My judgment goes with the general assertion here, 
 that no place, in proportion to its size, has a richer or 
 more abundant market than Cincinnati. 
 
 I found in this town great numbers of emigrants, 
 most of them from the north*. They were but too 
 often wretchedly furnished with money, and the com- 
 forts almost indispensable to a long journey. It seem- 
 ed to have been their impression, that if once they 
 could arrive at the land of milk and honey, supplies 
 would come of course. The autumn had been unu- 
 sually sickly. The emigrants had endured great ex- 
 
41 
 
 posure in arriving here. Families were crowded into 
 a single, and often in a small and uncomfortable apart- 
 ment. Many suffered, died, and were buried by char- 
 ity. Numerous instances of unrecorded suffering, of 
 the most exquisite degree, and with every agonizing 
 circumstance, occurred. The parties often w r ere 
 friendless, moneyless, orphans, infants, widows, in a 
 strange land, in a large town, as humane as might be 
 expected, but to which, unfortunately, such scenes of 
 suffering had become so frequent and familiar, as to 
 have lost their natural tendency to produce sympathy 
 and commiseration. The first house which I en- 
 tered in this town, was a house into one room of 
 which was crowded a numerous family from Maine. 
 The husband and father was dying, and expired while 
 I was there. The wife was sick in the same bed, and 
 either from terror or exhaustion, uttered not a word 
 during the whole scene. Three children were sick of 
 fevers. If you add that they were in the house of a 
 poor man, and had spent their last dollar, you can fill 
 out the picture of their misery. It is gloomy to reflect 
 that the cheering results of the settlement of our new 
 states and territories, are not obtained without num- 
 berless accompaniments of wretchedness like this. 
 No charitable associations are more needed than so- 
 cieties to aid emigrants in cases like this, to be located 
 at the great resorts of departure and embarkation. 
 Perhaps our government, whose charities are in general 
 so considerate and efficient, ought to interpose, and 
 see that the emigrating family have means, in the or- 
 dinary course of things, to carry them to their point of 
 destination, and if they have not, either to aid them, 
 or prevent the heads from exposing children, and per- 
 sons unconscious of their exposure, to certain misery. 
 6 
 
42 
 
 As I contemplated residing here until the ensuing 
 spring, I took a house, and began to make excursions 
 in the vicinity, and to inspect the town. The position 
 is a pleasant one, and the adjoining country very fer- 
 tile. An astonishing growth of weeds, and tangled 
 vegetation in the enclosed lots and fields, attest the 
 qualities of the soil. There are a great many hand- 
 some gardens, neatly laid out, and ornamented with 
 the most vigorous and luxuriant growth of vines, orna- 
 mental shrubs, and fruit-trees. As you recede from 
 town and the Ohio bottom, the country becomes 
 agreeably uneven, and undulating, though apparently 
 as rich as the bottom. These elevations are so abrupt 
 and considerable, that you have seldom many houses 
 in view from the same point. Some of the sites for 
 the farms, in the vicinity of the town, are delightfully 
 romantic. The experiment has abundantly verified, 
 that speculation and wealth, without natural advan- 
 tages, in the United States, cannot force a town. Eve- 
 ry thing, with us, must be free, even to the advance- 
 ment of a town. Nothing will grow vigorously in 
 our land from artificial cultivation, nor unless nature 
 works at the root. If speculation, as is said, founded 
 this flourishing town, it happened for once to select 
 the place, where nature and the actual position of 
 things called for one. It is intermediate between the 
 two Miamies, in the centre of a very rich region of coun- 
 try, where points of river and road communication, 
 from the most fertile districts and remotest sections of 
 the state, terminate. The result demonstrates, that the 
 wonderful improvement of the town only keeps pace 
 with the advancement and cultivation of the country.' 
 
 The great state, of which this town is the natural, 
 though not the political metropolis, spreads from the 
 
43 
 
 lakes on the north, to the Ohio on the south, on 
 which it fronts for many hundred miles. In the north- 
 west, where it joins Indiana ; on Mad river, and 
 on the Scioto, it evidences its proximity to the prairie 
 region of the west. These prairies are but diminutive, 
 though fertile copies of the more western ones. The far 
 greater proportion of this state is thickly timbered with 
 a heavy and deep forest, the classes of whose trees 
 and shrubs have been often described, and are well 
 known. One remark may convey some general idea 
 of the forest. There are very few evergreen^ or tere . 
 binthine trees, if we except some few cypress trees, <v V \d 
 all the trees are deciduous. With the exception, per- 
 haps, of Illinois, this state affords the greatest bodies 
 of good land in America. On its whole wide surface 
 there is scarcely any land so hilly, sterile, or marshy, 
 as with moderate labor may not be subdued, dr% e d, 
 and cultivated. Toward the north there are incited, 
 extensive tracts of marshy country ; but, when drained 
 as they will easily be, they will bu-wm. a.v, « H)St p r0 _ 
 ductive lands. Besides this tract there are no 
 morasses, no extensive inundated swamps, no sterile 
 mountains, or barren plains. The whole region seems 
 to have invited that hardy and numerous body of free- 
 holders, that inhabit it, to select themselves moderate, 
 and nearly equal-sized farms, and to dot and intersperse 
 them over its surface. And in respect of the smallness 
 of the farms, the number and equality of them, and 
 the compactness of its population, not confined, as is 
 the case farther west, to the water-courses, but diffused 
 over the whole state, it compares very accurately 
 with its parent, New-England. 
 
 To an eye, however, that could contemplate the 
 whole region from an elevated point, it would, even 
 
44 
 
 vet, exhibit a great proportion of unbroken forest, only 
 here and there chequered with farms. And yet in the 
 country-towns, and in the better settled districts, any 
 spectacle that collects the multitude, a training, an ordi- 
 nation, an election, the commencement of any great pub- 
 lic work, causes a rush from the woods and the forests, 
 which, like the tenanted trees of the poets, in the olden 
 time, seem to have given birth to crowds of men, women, 
 and children, pouring towards the point of attraction. 
 The greater part of the land, in the settled districts, is 
 taken up- ine phrase is. But the population has 
 vcf, by no means, advanced towards the density of 
 which it is capable. The gigantic strides, by which 
 this state has swept by most of those that witnessed its 
 birth, jeem to justify all the proud anticipations of the 
 most sanguine patriots, and even the turgid predic- 
 tion/ of fourth of July orators. If its progress for the 
 fimxe should correspond with that of the past, in one 
 century it will probably compare with the most popu- 
 lous and atcd regions of Europe. 
 
 U is generally denominated in the western country 
 the Yankee state. Although I should not suppose, 
 from my means of observation, that the greater propor- 
 tion of its inhabitants were actual emigrants from 
 New England, it is clearly the last region, in advan- 
 cing west, where the institutions of that country seem 
 to have struggled for the ascendency. The prevalent 
 modes of living , of society, of instruction, of associa- 
 ting for any public object, of thinking, and enjoying, 
 among the middling classes, struck me, generally, to 
 be copies of the New England pattern. There is 
 a more familiar, and seemingly a more cheerful inter- 
 tercourse between the two sexes, than in the other 
 western states. The people more naturally unite them- 
 
45 
 
 selves into corporate unions, and concentre their 
 strength for public works and purposes. They have 
 the same desire for keeping up schools, for cultivating 
 psalmody, for settling ministers, and attending upon 
 religious worship; and unfortunately the same disposi- 
 tion to dogmatize, to settle, not only their own faith, 
 but that of their neighbour, and to stand resolutely, 
 and dispute fiercely, for the slightest shade of difference 
 of religious opinion. In short, in the tone of conversa- 
 tion, the ways of thinking and expressing thought up- 
 on all subjects, in the strong exercise of social inclina- 
 . tion, expressing itself in habits of neighbourhood, to 
 form villages, and live in them, in preference to that 
 sequestered and isolated condition, which a Kentuck- 
 ian, under the name of 44 range," considers as one of 
 the desirable circumstances of existence ; in the thou- 
 sand slight shades of manner, the union of which so 
 strongly marks one people from another, and the de- 
 tails of which are too minute to be described, by most 
 of these things, this is properly designated " the Yan- 
 kee state." 
 
 The people of Cincinnati evince a laudable desire to 
 belong to some religious society. When I arrived 
 there the methodists appeared to be the prevailing de- 
 nomination. They are strongly marked with the pe- 
 culiarities of their sect. They had a number of lay- 
 preachers, some of them among the most wealthy peo- 
 ple in the town. Unhappily this community of preach- 
 ers produced its natural effect, in creating partisans 
 for the favourite preacher. One good result flowed 
 from their union of wealth and zeal. Among the em- 
 igrants that were in distress, they sought out those of 
 their own denomination, and relieved them. It would 
 be a desirable thing, that the religious of other denom- 
 
46 
 
 inations had more of this " esprit du corps," and felt 
 that their community of profession, imposed obliga- 
 tions of this sort towards their suffering brethren in a 
 strange land. It was painful to observe, that they, 
 but too often, brought this strong fellow-feeling in aid 
 of political, and other projects, that had been previ- 
 ously marked out in conclave by their leaders. 
 
 This town begins already to emulate the parent coun- 
 try in the bitterness of contest about ministers. There 
 were hot disputes in the Presbyterian church. I attend- 
 ed the session of a Presbytery, assembled professedly 
 to heal these divisions. The ministers took the atti- 
 tude, and made the long speeches of lawyers, in dis- 
 cussing the dispute before this tribunal. They availed 
 themselves of the same vehement action, and pouring 
 out a great deal of rather vapid declamation, proceeded 
 to settle points, that seemed to me of very little impor- 
 tance. The whole scene presented, it may be, a suffi- 
 cient modicum of talent for the bar, but manifested 
 much want of the appropriate temper, so strongly re- 
 commended by St. John the divine. I opened one of 
 the polemical pamphlets of religious controversy, 
 with which the press began to teem, in this town ; 
 and if memory serves me, the first remark in the 
 pamphlet was, " It beats the devil." The mode of ex- 
 pressing it may not be so coarse, but it is humiliating 
 to consider, that a like spirit is apt to infuse itself into 
 all religious disputes. 
 
 Some of the ministers whom I heard preach here, 
 were men of considerable talent and readiness. They 
 were uniformly in the habit of extemporaneous preach- 
 ing, a custom which, in my judgment, gives a certain 
 degree of effect even to ordinary matter. Their man- 
 ner had evidently been formed to the character of the 
 
47 
 
 people, and indicated their prevailing taste ; and had 
 taken its colouring from the preponderance of the 
 Methodists, and the more sensitive character of the 
 people of the south. They did not much affect dis- 
 cussion, but ran at once into the declamatory. Some- 
 times these flights were elevated, but much oftener not 
 well sustained. For the speaking, the whole was, for 
 the most part, moulded in one form. They commen- 
 ced the paragraph in a moderate tone, gradually ele- 
 vating the voice with each period, and closing it with 
 the greatest exertion, and the highest pitch of the voice. 
 They then affected, or it seemed like affectation, to 
 let the voice down to the original modulation, in order 
 to run it up to the same pitch again. 
 
 I learned with great pleasure that they were gene- 
 rally men of enlightened zeal, and entire sanctity of 
 general character. The morals of this place, too, con- 
 sidering its age, and the materials, and the manner of 
 its formation, are astonishingly regular and correct. 
 Few places have a more strict police, more efficient 
 regulations for the enforcement of rules and good 
 order. There were many institutions that had com- 
 menced, and many that were contemplated, whose ob- 
 ject was the diffusion of religious knowledge, instruct 
 tion, and charity. The ladies had formed a bible and 
 charitable society. The members were highly re- 
 spectable, and the society was in efficient and useful 
 operation. Genuine benevolence and unostentatious 
 charity marked their exertions. What developement 
 the lapse of ten years may have given to the embryo 
 projects of humane institutions, which were now in 
 discussion, I am not informed to say. But the town 
 has a character for seriousness, good order, public 
 spirit, and christian kindness, corresponding to its im- 
 provement in other respects. 
 
48 
 
 The state was doing, and has done much for the 
 interests of literature in general, and for the establish- 
 ment of free schools. There is an university at Athens. 
 I am not informed of its present state. It is well 
 known, that most of. the institutions in the west, that 
 are dignified with the name of colleges, are little more 
 than primary schools. Even these are of immense 
 importance. There is a general and anxious con- 
 sciousness, on the part of parents, that their children 
 must be instructed. The provision, which the general 
 government has made for the establishment of schools, 
 is well known ; and in Ohio, it ought to be productive. 
 It is matter of regret, that this provision, which looks 
 so noble in the enactment, has as yet been almost 
 wholly inefficient. 
 
 Efforts to promote polite literature have already 
 been made in this town. If its only rival, Lexington, 
 be, as she contends, the Athens of the west, this place 
 is struggling to become its Corinth. There were, 
 eleven years since, two gazettes, and two booksellers' 
 shops, although unhappily novels were the most salea- 
 ble article. The rudiments of general taste, were,, 
 however, as yet but crude and unformed. The prev- 
 alent models of grandeur, beauty, and taste, in com- 
 position and style, were those that characterized 
 fourth of July orations, in the first years of our Inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 You would, perhaps, wish to hear something of the 
 distinguished men, with whom I met in this place, and 
 its vicinity. This kind of personal delineation, how- 
 ever fashion may have rendered it common, and al- 
 though it be generally the most acceptable article in 
 the narrative of a traveller, is not only in general an 
 invidious, but a very difficult task. You meet in this 
 
49 
 
 place with many well informed people, from all the 
 different states, and even regions of the old world. 
 The collisions of minds, that bring together different 
 opinions, that have been swayed by different preju- 
 dices, and have been compelled by comparing them 
 with other prejudices, which have become obvious to 
 them when seen in another, to lay them aside ; the re- 
 sults of different modes of education and thinking com- 
 pared together ; — all these things tend to form a soci- 
 ety, when it becomes new moulded and constituted in 
 such a state of things, more free from prejudices, and 
 in some respects more pleasant, than in those older 
 countries, where the population, manners, opinions, 
 and prejudices, are more generally of one class. Ar- 
 dent and powerful minds are more generally allured to 
 the scene of speculation and adventure, which these 
 new countries offer. If such minds are common here, 
 as they evidently are, it will be asked, why there is so 
 much bad taste visible in the literary productions of 
 this region and time. One reason probably is, that 
 the most incompetent are commonly the most forward, 
 and their efforts the most prominent and visible. We 
 observe, too, in such cases, that an unwarrantable dis- 
 dain keeps back the better informed and more power- 
 ful minds from displaying themselves. That the false 
 taste, which was prevalent in the newspapers, in the 
 pulpit, the bar, and the legislative hall, was the result, 
 neither of the want of talents nor taste, was sufficient- 
 ly obvious in all the private circles. 
 
 My duties and my travels occupied me in such a 
 manner, as to allow me few opportunities for taking 
 individual estimates of character. Chance brought me 
 in contact, and afterwards into considerable intimacy, 
 with a gentleman, of whom very different portraits 
 7 
 
50 
 
 have been drawn, General H. Of his urbanity, and 
 general hospitality and kindness, I entertain the most 
 grateful recollections. I could desire no attentions, 
 no facilities for discharging my duty, which he did 
 not constantly proffer me. His house was opened for 
 public worship. He kept an open table, to which 
 every visiter was welcomed. The table was loaded 
 with abundance, and with substantial good cheer, es- 
 pecially with the different kinds of game. In these 
 respects his house strongly reminded me of the pic- 
 tures, which my reading had presented me, of old Eng- 
 lish hospitality. He is a small, and rather sallow- 
 looking man, who does not exactly meet the associa- 
 tions that connect themselves with the name of gene- 
 ral. But he growls upon the eye, and upon more inti- 
 mate acquaintance. There is something imposing in 
 the dignified simplicity of his manners. In the utter 
 want of all show, and insignia, and trappings, there is 
 something, which finely comports with the severe 
 plainness of republicanism. On a fine farm, in the 
 midst of the woods, his house was open to all the 
 neighbours, who entered without ceremony, and were 
 admitted to assume a footing of entire equality. His 
 eye is brilliant. There is a great deal of ardour and 
 vivacity in his manner. He has a copious fund of 
 that eloquence which is fitted for the camp and for 
 gaining partisans. As a commander, you know in 
 what different lights he has been viewed. Having no 
 capacity to form an adequate judgment upon this 
 point, I can only say, that my impression was, that his 
 merits in this respect had not been sufficiently appre- 
 ciated. 
 
 At the bar, I heard forcible reasonings, and just con- 
 ceptions, and discovered much of that cleverness and 
 
51 
 
 dexterity in management, which are so common in the 
 American bar in general. There is here, as elsewhere, 
 in the profession, a strong appetite to get business and 
 money. I understood, that it was popular in the 
 courts to be very democratic ; and while in the oppo- 
 site state a lawyer is generally a dandy, he here affects 
 meauness and sloveuliness in his dress. The lan- 
 guage of the bar was in many instances an amusing 
 compound of Yankee dialect, southern peculiarity, and 
 Irish blarney. " Him w and " me," said this or that, 
 u I done it," and various phrases of this sort, and images 
 drawn from the measuring and location of land pur- 
 chases ; and figures drawn from boating and river 
 navigation, were often served up, as the garnish of 
 their speeches. You will readily perceive, that all 
 this has vanished before, the improvements, the in- 
 creasing lights, and the higher models, which have 
 arisen in the period ihat has elapsed between that 
 time and this. 
 
 Dr. D., a man, I am told, like Franklin, originally 
 self-taught, has made very laudable efforts for the pro- 
 motion of science. He is himself a scientific physi- 
 cian, a respectable scholar, and natural-historian. He 
 has written very accurate and detailed " Sketches of 
 Cincinnati," and the region in its vicinity. His book 
 conveys very exact and specific information upon the 
 subjects, on which it professes to treat. I would re- 
 fer you to it for more detailed and exact geographi- 
 cal and statistical information about this region. 
 
 There was a circle of ladies here, 10 whom I have 
 before referred, of superior information and respecta- 
 bility, of dignity of deportment, and affectionate kind- 
 ness of character, of which we experienced such af- 
 fecting demonstrations as are well remembered; even 
 
52 
 
 after this interval of time. The elegance of the houses, 
 the parade of servants, the display of furniture, and 
 more than all, the luxury of their overloaded tables, 
 would compare with the better houses in the Atlantic 
 cities. If there be any difference, it is that in these 
 new towns, there is a gaudiness and glitter, the result 
 of too great a desire to produce a striking effect upon 
 the eye, which betray a want of just taste. 
 
 Every new inspection of the town, and every ex- 
 cursion in its vicinity, gave me more imposing views 
 of its resources and anticipations. Improvements are 
 rising every day. Carpenters, masons, boat-builders, 
 mechanics of all descriptions were numerous, and 
 found ample occupation, and there were daily calls for 
 more. 
 
 In making remoter journies from the town, beside 
 the rivulets, and in the little bottoms, not yet in culti- 
 vation, I discerned the smoke rising in the woods, and 
 heard the strokes of the axe, the tinkling of bells, and 
 the baying of dogs, and saw the newly arrived emi- 
 grant either rearing his log cabin, or just entered into 
 possession. It has afforded me more pleasing reflec- 
 tions, a happier train of associations, to contemplate 
 these beginnings of social toil in the wide wilderness, 
 than, in our more cultivated regions, to come in view 
 of the most sumptuous mansion. Nothing can be 
 more beautiful than these little bottoms, upon which 
 these emigrants, if I may so say, deposite their house- 
 hold gods. Springs burst forth in the intervals be- 
 tween the high and low grounds. The trees and 
 shrubs are of the most beautiful kind. The brilliant 
 red-bird is seen flitting among the shrubs, or, perched 
 on a tree, seems welcoming, in her mellow notes, the 
 emigrant to his abode. Flocks of parroquets are glit- 
 
53 
 
 tering among the trees, and grey squirrels are skipping 
 from branch to branch. In the midst of these primeval 
 scenes, the patient and laborious father fixes his family. 
 In a few weeks they have reared a comfortable cabin, 
 and other out buildings. Pass this place in two years, 
 and you will see extensive fields of corn and wheat ; a 
 young and thrifty orchard, fruit-trees of ali kinds, the 
 guaranty of present abundant subsistence, and ol future 
 luxury. Pass it in ten years, and the log buildings will 
 have disappeared. The shrubs and forest trees will 
 be gone. The Arcadian aspect of humble and retired 
 abundance and comfort, will have given place to a 
 brick house, with accompaniments like those that at- 
 tend the same kind of house, in the olcer countries. 
 By this time, the occupant, who came there with, per- 
 haps, a small sum of money and moderate expectations, 
 from humble life, and with no more than a common 
 school education, has been made, in succession, mem- 
 ber of the assembly, justice of the peace, and finally, 
 county judge. He has long been in the habit of 
 thinking of a select society, and of founding a family. 
 I admit, that the first residence among the trees affords 
 the most agreeable picture to my mind ; and that 
 there is an inexpressible charm in the pastoral simpli- 
 city of those years, before pride and self-consequence 
 have banished the repose of their Eden, and when you 
 witness the first struggles of social toil with the barren 
 luxuriance of nature. 
 
 To the eye of a Kentuckian, the lofty skeletons of 
 dead trees, the huge stumps that remain after cultiva- 
 tion has commenced, are pleasant circumstances in 
 this picture. They are, doubtless, associated in his 
 mind with remembrances of his own country, and 
 with the virgin freshness and exuberance of the soil. 
 
54 
 
 To me, however, these are the most disagreeable ap- 
 pendage of a new farm, in the timbered region ; and it 
 is for this reason, that I am so much more pleased 
 With the prairie regions farther west; where there are 
 no dead trees, nor stumps, but a clear stage, kt tabula 
 rasa," and the first aspect of cultivation is as smooth, 
 as soft, as beautiful, as ,t will be, alter the lapse of a 
 century. The configuration of the face of the coun- 
 try, its gentle undulations, and occasionally its deep 
 vallies, and that beautiful variety, by which nature 
 produces such an infinite diversity in its landscapes, 
 will render this a delightful country, when sufficient 
 time shall have elapsed, to consume all these trees, 
 stumps, and logs. At present, the prairie regions 
 of Ohio, on the Scioto and Mad River, and the coun- 
 try between the two Miamies, are the most beautiful- 
 arid populous in the state. The whole course of the 
 Scioto is through a rich and highly cultivated re- 
 gion. On its banks is situated the very neat and 
 handsome town of Chilicothe. Still higher on this 
 river is Columbus, the seat of government. It is pre- 
 dicted, that this river, united with lake Erie by a 
 canal, will unite the lakes with the Onio. 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 Having exhausted the immediate interest of the 
 most prominent objects of curiosity in Cincinnati and 
 its vicinity, at the commencement of March, I set out 
 on a proposed tour through the state of Indiana, on 
 its front upon Ohio, and then crossing the Ohio, to 
 return to my family, through the state of Kentucky. 
 The weather was mild, and the buds of the trees and 
 
55 
 
 shrubs were beginning to swell. The previous weath 
 er, from the tenth of December, had been more than 
 usually severe. The mercury had frequently fallen 
 below cy pher. The people had a way of accounting for 
 this as they had for many other calamities, by saying, 
 that the hard winter had been imported by the Yan- 
 kees, of whom unusual numbers had arrived the pre- 
 ceding autumn and winter. The Big Miami was the 
 limit on the front, between the state of Ohio, and the 
 then territory of Indiana. General Harrison's fine 
 plantation is in the delta, which this river makes with 
 the Ohio. Having crossed this river into Indiana, I 
 found myself on the vast and fertile bottom made by 
 the two rivers. I descended this bottom to Lawrence- 
 burg, at this time one of the principal villages in the 
 territory. The soil here, and for a considerable dis- 
 tance on all sides, is highly fertile, but exposed to in- 
 undation, which, together with its having a character 
 for unhealthiness, has hitherto kept this place in the 
 back ground. The position evidently calls for a con- 
 siderable town. 
 
 I here obtained letters of introduction through the 
 territory, and the next morning I plunged into the 
 deep forest below this town. I remember well the 
 brightness and beauty of the morning. A white frost 
 had covered the earth the preceding night. Dense 
 white banks of fog, brilliantly illuminated by a cloud- 
 less sun, hung over the Ohio. The beautiful red-bird, 
 that raises its finest song on a morning like this, was 
 raising its mellow whistle among the copses. Columns 
 of smoke rose from the cabins amidst the trees into 
 the higher regions of the atmosphere. A cheerful 
 accompaniment to all similar scenery, and which has 
 impressed me, in its echoes ringing and dying away 
 
56 
 
 in the distant forests, as having a very peculiar effect 
 in the deep bottoms of the Ohio and Mississippi, is the 
 loud and continued barking of the numerous packs of 
 dogs that are kept there. They evidently feel animat- 
 ed by the chetring influence of such a morning, 
 feel that these vast forests are their proper range ; 
 and by these continued barkings that echo through 
 the woods, they seem to invite their masters to the 
 hunt and the chase. 
 
 On the margin of a considerable stream, whose 
 name, I think, is the Hogan, a sufficiently barbarous 
 name, I encountered the first bear that I had met in 
 the woods. He seemed as little disposed to make ac- 
 quaintance with me, as I with him. 
 
 In this whole day's ride, I was continually coming 
 in view of new cabins, or wagons, the inmates of 
 which had not yet sheltered themselves in cabins. 
 Whenever my course led me from the bottoms of the 
 Ohio, I found the bluffs, which invariably skirt the 
 bottoms, very ridgy, and the soil but indifferent, and 
 of what is here classed as second rate, and covered gen- 
 erally with a species of oak, called post oak, indica- 
 ting a cold, spungy, and wet soil ; into which, softened 
 as it was by the frost coming out of it, my horse 
 sunk at every step up to the fetlocks ; yet in this com- 
 paratively poor and ridgy soil, I could hear on all 
 sides the settler's axe resounding, and the dogs bark- 
 ing, — snre indications, that the land had been, as the 
 phrase is, w taken up/' 
 
 Few incidents, that occur to me as matters of in- 
 terest, remain on my memory of this long trip on the 
 Indiana shore. Most of the newly arrived settlers 
 that I addressed, were from Yankee land. As usual, 
 I refer you to books, that treat professedly upon that 
 
57 
 
 subject for precise geographical information. The in- 
 habitants tell me, that, notwithstanding I see so much 
 ordinary land in this extent upon the Ohio, there are 
 vast bodies of the richest land in it, particularly up 
 the Wabash and its waters, where the prairies in the 
 vicinity of Fort Harrison are said to vie with the 
 richest and most beautiful of the Illinois and Missouri. 
 The greater portion of the fertile lands was as yet un- 
 redeemed from the Indians. The country was evi- 
 dently settling with great rapidity. The tide of emi- 
 gration from the northeast was setting farther west. 
 Ohio had already received its first tide and the wave 
 was rolling onward. The southern portion of the emi- 
 gration seemed to entertain no small apprehension, 
 that this also would be a Yankee state. Indeed the 
 population was very far from being in a state of mind, 
 of sentiment, and affectionate mutual confidence, fa- 
 vourable to commencing their lonely condition in the 
 woods in harmonious intercourse. They were form- 
 ing a state government. The question in all its 
 magnitude, whether it should be a slave-holding state 
 or not, was just now agitating. I was often compel- 
 led to hear the question debated by those in opposite 
 interests, with no small degree of asperity. Many 
 fierce spirits talked, as the clamorous and passion te 
 are accustomed to talk, in such eases, about opposi- 
 tion and u resistance unto blood." But the preponder- 
 ance of more sober and reflecting views, those habits 
 of order and quietness, that aversion to shedding blood, 
 which so generally and so honorably appertain to the 
 American character and institutions, operated in these 
 wildernesses, among these inflamed and bitter spirits, 
 with all their positiveness, ignorance, and clashing 
 feeling, and with all their destitution of courts, and 
 - 8 
 
58 
 
 the regular course of settled laws to keep them from 
 open violence. The question was not long after 
 finally settled in peace. 
 
 From the observations, which I made, which were 
 however partial, and confined to the southern front 
 of the state, I should have placed this state, in point 
 of qualities of soil, behind Ohio, Illinois, or Missouri. 
 But it is here a general impression, that this state has 
 large districts of the most fertile character. These 
 tracts are admitted, as a melancholy drawback, ap- 
 pended to this great advantage, to be sickly. At the 
 time I am writing, this state is supposed to contain 
 nearly three hundred thousand inhabitants, a rate of 
 increase considerably more rapid, than that of the 
 states still farther west. It has a very extended front 
 on the Ohio, extends back to the lakes, and its cen- 
 tral outlet is the Wabash, a river highly favourable 
 to boat navigation. At a considerable distance up 
 this river is Vincennes, which, when I was there, was 
 the principal village in the state. It is situated pleas- 
 antly on the Wabash, surrounded by a beautiful and 
 extensive prairie. This place is now surpassed by 
 Vevay, which has grown to be a considerable town. It 
 possesses circumstances of peculiar interest. W T hen I 
 was there, the village had just commenced. I was 
 lodged in the house of a respectable Swiss gentleman, 
 who had married a wife from Kentucky. Such are the 
 unions that result from bringing together the mountain- 
 eers of Switzerland, and the native daughters of the 
 west. The people were prompt and general in at- 
 tending divine service. The next evening, there was a 
 warned meeting of the inhabitants, and the object was 
 to locate the town-house, a market, and first, second, 
 and third, streets. I attended the meeting. The 
 
59 
 
 night was dark and rainy. The deep and rich bottom, 
 the trees of which had but just been cut down, was so 
 muddy, that my feet sunk at every rtep in the mud. 
 Huge beech and sycamore trunks of trees so impeded 
 these avenues and streets, that were to be, that I doubt 
 if a chaise could have made its way, by day light and 
 the most careful driving, amidst the logs. When you 
 hear about market- houses, and seminaries, and streets 
 No. 1, 2, and 3, in the midst of a wilderness or fall- 
 en logs, you will have some idea of the language ap- 
 propriate to a kind of speculation, almost peculiar to 
 this country, that is to say, town-making. You will 
 infer from this, too, what magnificent ideas these 
 people have with respect to the future. I learned in 
 recently ascending the Ohio, that these splendid an- 
 ticipations are now realized, that the town-house, 
 market, and streets actually exist, and that instead 
 of huge sycamore trunks, they have now 7 blocks of 
 brick buildings. Its relative position, with respect to 
 the state, and to Cincinnati and Louisville, is favoura- 
 ble to its future advancement. 
 
 But what gave peculiar interest to this place was, 
 that it was the resort of a flourishing colony from 
 Vevay in Switzerland. Although this people could 
 not bring here their glaciers and their Alps, in affec- 
 tionate remembrance of their ancient home, they have 
 brought hither their vines, their "simulatam Tro- 
 jam," their Vevay on the Ohio in the midst of Ameri- 
 can forests. I had seen vineyards in Kentucky on a 
 small scale. But this experiment on such a noble 
 scale, so novel in America, was to me a most inter- 
 esting spectacle. I was delighted with the frank and 
 amiable character of the inhabitants, giving me back 
 the images and recollections of them, from early rea- 
 
60 
 
 ding. At that time they principally cultivated a 
 bine grape, which, I think, they called the "cape 
 grape. 99 The wine from that grape was not pleasant 
 to me, though connoisseurs assured me, that it only 
 wanted age to be a rich wine. A position more un- 
 like that, in which they had cultivated the wine in 
 their own country, could scarcely be found. There 
 they reared it on sharp declivities of gravelly soil, 
 levelled in terraces. It was here on a bottom of a 
 loamy and extremely rich soil, on a surface perfectly 
 level, and at the foot of a high bluff. The vine grows 
 here, indeed, in the rankest luxuriance, and needs 
 severe pruning. It overloads itself with an exube- 
 rance of clusters, which still want the high and racy 
 flavour of the grape of the hills of Switzerland. But 
 they are introducing other vines, particularly the 
 sweet water-grape of Madeira. The cultivation is 
 understood at this time to be in a very prosperou 
 state. From what I have seen, I believe it would 
 prosper still more, if they should cultivate a grape, 
 more indigenous to the soil; the u pine woods" 
 grape of Louisiana, or the rich grape of Texas. 
 
 At a small town at the mouth of Kentucky river, 
 I crossed into that state. I had for some part of the 
 day's ride, for a companion, a very interesting young 
 man from Suabia in Germany. Highly gifted and 
 educated, he entertained and expressed very differ- 
 ent views of this country from those of most of the 
 European travellers of this class, that we find here. 
 Neither given to indiscriminate praise nor censure, 
 he saw and admitted how different an asylum these 
 free and fertile regions offered to his poor country- 
 men, from the overpeopled and oppressed countries 
 of Europe. 
 
61 
 
 In ascending the Kentucky, I was profoundly im- 
 pressed with that spectacle, which has been so often, 
 described, the stupendous height of its limestone 
 banks, from which you look down upon the waters 
 rolling darkly below, as in a subterranean cavern. I 
 was struck, also, with the immense numbers of those 
 carrion birds, called turkey buzzards, which I saw on 
 the trees, oa the banks of this river. There were 
 also great numbers of parroquets, and other birds. 
 Kentucky has a great many handsome villages. Eve- 
 ry county in the fertile districts has at least one such. 
 On the banks of the Ohio, which are exposed to 
 fever and ague, the inhabitants have a pale and sal- 
 low cast of countenance. As soon as you depart 
 from the Ohio, and find yourself in the region of hills 
 and springs, you will nowhere see fairer and fresher 
 complexions, or fuller and finer forms, than you see 
 in the young men and women, who are generally ex- 
 empted from the necessity of labour. They have a 
 mild and temperate climate, a country producing the 
 greatest abundance, and sufficiently old to have pos- 
 sessed itself of all the comforts of life. The people 
 live easily and plentifully, and on the u finest of the 
 wheat." The circumstances,, under which they are 
 born, tend to give them the most perfect develope- 
 ment of person and form. It struck me, that the 
 young native Kentuckians were, in general, the larg- 
 est race that I had seen. There was obvious, at 
 on -e, a considerable difference of manners between 
 the people of this and the opposite states, that do not 
 possess slaves. The villages are full of people, that 
 seem to have plenty of leisure. The bell of the court- 
 house — for their villages were generally destitute of a 
 church — would, on a half hour's previous notice, gen- 
 
6£ 
 
 erally assemble a full audience, to what is here tech- 
 nically called (i a preaching." It was easy to see, in 
 the complexion, manner, and dress of the audience, 
 a greater exemption from personal labour, than I had 
 witnessed elsewhere. Striking marks of rustic opu- 
 lence appear impressed upon every thing here. 
 There is a great difference in the manners of the tav- 
 erns here, from those of the Atlantic towns. The 
 public houses assemble a great number of well-dressed 
 boarders, townsmen, and strangers. The meals are 
 served up with no small degree of display and splen- 
 dour. The lady hostess is conducted by some dandy 
 to her chair, at the head of the table, which seems to 
 be considered a post of no small honour, and which 
 she fills with a suitable degree of dignity. 
 
 I felt grieved to see so many fine young men ex- 
 empted from labour, having no liberal studies and 
 pursuits to fill up their time, and falling, almost of 
 course, into the prevailing vices of the West — gam- 
 bling and intemperance. I endeavoured, more than 
 once,, as opportunity offered, gently to start the dis- 
 course in the strain of remonstrance and admonition. 
 The parents lamented the fact, and the children were 
 ready more frankly to confess the charge, than to re- 
 form. They spoke of their failing with the tone of 
 penitents, who confess, deplore, but mean to sin 
 again. 
 
 On an evening, when I performed divine service, a 
 young man had misbehaved, through intoxication. 
 His minister, a Baptist, reproved him in the morning. 
 He did not palliate or deny the charge; admitted 
 that it was shameful ; but said, that being a prodigal 
 in a good and respectable family, he was subject in 
 consequence to bitter reflections, and that, particular- 
 
63 
 
 ly, the evening before, he had felt a painful sinking 
 before he went to hear the word, and had found it 
 necessary to take a little of the cheering juice of the 
 gra»pe ; and that his optics, as he had often felt before, 
 had been so disordered, that he saw things double. 
 He ended by saying, that the minister, whom he had 
 often seen in the same predicament, must know how 
 to make his excuse. 
 
 The ease and opulence, that are so visible in the 
 appearance of the people, are equally so in the 
 houses, their appendages, and furniture. Travelling 
 through the villages in this fertile region, where the 
 roads are perfectly good, and where every elevation 
 brings you in view of a noble farm-house, in the midst 
 of its orchards, and sheltered by its fine groves of 
 forest and sugar-maple trees, you would scarcely re- 
 alize, that the first settlers of the country, and they 
 men of mature age when they settled it, were, some 
 of them, still living. Every thing is young or old 
 only by comparison. The inhabitants, who are more 
 enthusiastic and national than the other western 
 people, and look with a proud disdain upon the 
 younger states, designate their own state, with the 
 veneration due to age, by the name of 66 Old Ken- 
 tucky." To them it is the home of all that is good, 
 fertile, happy, and great. As the English are said 
 to go to battle with a song extolling their roast beef, 
 instead of saying their prayers, so the Kentuckian, 
 when about to encounter danger, rushes upon it, cry- 
 ing, w Hurra for old Kentucky." Every one in the 
 western country has heard the anecdote, that a Meth- 
 odist preacher from this state, in another state, was 
 preaching, and expatiating upon the happiness of 
 heaven. Having gradually advanced towards the 
 
64 
 
 cap of his climax, ki In short," said he, " my brethren, 
 to say all in one word, heaven is a Kentuck of a 
 place." 
 
 At this time the people were in the height of their 
 sugar-making, a kind of Saturnalia, like the time of 
 vintage in France. The cheerful fires in the groves, 
 the respectable looking ladies, who were present with 
 their servants, superintending the operations, es- 
 pecially when seen by the bright glare which th ir 
 fires cast upon every object by night, rendered it a 
 very interesting spectacle. 
 
 In advancing towards Frankfort, I generally per- 
 formed divine service every night, and found it ne- 
 cessary only to give the usual half hour's notice, to 
 assemble a large audience — a sufficient proof, that 
 the people have abundance of leisure, and that they 
 have the usual portion of curiosity. New England 
 has every where at the south the reputation of being 
 the land of troublesome inquisitivenesss ; but it strikes 
 me, that this people possess the spirit at least in an 
 equal degree. A stranger, if understood to be such, 
 is exposed to being annoyed with questions by the 
 country people, and especially to be invited to " swap 
 horses," as the phrase is. Horse trading, indeed, 
 seems to be a favourite and universal amusement 
 through the country. 
 
 I entered Frankfort in a violent shower of rain. 
 The town, seen through such a medium, did not show 
 to advantage. Contemplated by the bright sun of 
 the next day, it seemed not a large, but a neat town, 
 having many houses that showed taste and opulence. 
 Having been some time the metropolis, it was of 
 course a growing place. The inhabitants, male and 
 female, were remarkable for their display in their 
 
65 
 
 dress. I performed divine service in the capitoh 
 The audience was numerous, and gaily dressed. A 
 gentleman preached in the afternoon, who was a 
 judge, had been a member of congress, and was a 
 preacher in the Baptist profession. I had never yet 
 seen a man, discharging the duties of a christian min- 
 ister, so splendidly dressed. He delivered an eloquent 
 and impressive sermon, garnished, however, with 
 some tricks of oratory, probably learned at Washing- 
 ton, that might have been spared. The venerable 
 governor, to whom I had letters, was not in town. 
 You have read, that he distinguished himself in the 
 late frontier war. He is remarkable for his attention 
 to the institutions of religion, for his excellent moral 
 character, and for the simplicity and plainness of his 
 habits. Having seen all that struck me as matter of 
 interest in this town and vicinity, after two days' 
 stay I took the road to Lexington. It is a fine road, 
 and I remarked the same series of good houses, pleas- 
 ant farms, and by night the bright fires of the sugar- 
 camps, which had struck me before, in travelling 
 through the country. Vegetation is just beginning to 
 unfold. The aspect of the landscape is fertile and 
 pleasant. The air is soft. I scarcely recollect to 
 have had a more pleasant ride, than that from Frank- 
 fort to Lexington. 
 
 LETTER X.— LEXINGTON. 
 
 Lexington is situated in the centre of what the 
 Kentuckians affirm to be the finest body of land in the 
 world. I believe no country can show finer upland ; 
 and for a great distance from the town, plantation ad- 
 
 9 
 
66 
 
 joins plantation, in all directions. The timber is of 
 that class that denotes the richest soil. The wheat 
 fields equal in beauty those of the far-famed county of 
 Lancaster, in Pennsylvania. I am now in the region 
 where the farmers designate their agriculture by the 
 term, " raising a crop." Where farmers, with a small 
 number of hands, turn their attention, equally, to all 
 the different articles raised in a country, this kind of 
 farming is not called " raising a crop." They do this, 
 when a planter, with a gang of negroes, turns his prin- 
 cipal attention to the stap'es of the country — hemp, 
 flour, and tobacco. The greater part of the boats from 
 this state are loaded with these articles. But the small 
 farmers, also, send to market quantities of the same 
 assortment of products, as are carried from Ohio. 
 Many of these articles are now faithfully inspected, 
 and bear a respectable competition with the same arti- 
 cles in the market, from the Atlantic states. The 
 country is not, to be sure, the same paradise that the 
 " Mountain Muse," and other pastoral poems, and 
 w Histories of Kentucky," have represented it. There 
 is a balance of inconveniences -and defects, appended 
 to all earthly paradises. But when the first emigrants 
 entered this country, in its surface so gently waving, 
 with such easy undulations, so many clear limestone 
 springs and branches, so thickly covered with cane, 
 with pawpaw, and a hundred species of flowering 
 trees and shrubs, among which fed innumerable herds 
 of deer, and buffaloes, and other game, as well as wild 
 turkeys and other wild fowl, and this delightful as- 
 pect of the country directly contrasted with the sterile 
 regions of North Carolina) which they had left, no 
 wonder that it appeared to them a paradise. I was 
 •much amused to see the countenances of some of the 
 
67 
 
 hoary patriarchs of this country, with whom I staid, 
 brighten instantly, as they began to paint the aspect of 
 this land of flowers and game, as they saw it when 
 they first arrived here. Enthusiasm and strong ex- 
 citement naturally inspire eloquence, and these people 
 become eloquent in relating their early remembrances 
 of the beauty of this country. Indeed, the first settle- 
 ment of the country, the delightful scenes, which it 
 opened, the singular character of the first adventurers, 
 who seem to have been a compound of the hero, the 
 philosopher, the farmer, and the savage ; the fierce 
 struggle, which the savages made to retain this de- 
 lightful domain, and which, before that struggle was 
 settled, gave it the name of " the bloody ground," — 
 these circumstances, conspire to designate this country, 
 as the theatre, and the time of its settlement, as the 
 period, of romance. The adventures of Daniel Boon 
 would make no mean show beside those of other he- 
 roes and adventurers. But although much has been 
 said in prose, and sung in verse, about Daniel Boon, 
 this Achilles of the West wants a Homer, worthily to 
 celebrate his exploits. 
 
 Lexington is a singularly neat and pleasant town, 
 on a little stream that meanders through it. It is not 
 so large and flourishing as Cincinnati, but has an air of 
 leisure and opulence, that distinguishes it from the 
 busy bustle and occupation of that town. In the cir- 
 cles where I visited, literature was most commonly the 
 topic of conversation. The window-seats presented 
 the blank covers of the new and most interesting pub- 
 lications. The best modern works had been generally 
 read. The university, which has since become so 
 famous, was, even then, taking a higher standing, than 
 the other seminaries in the western country. There 
 
68 
 
 was generally an air oi ease and politeness in the social 
 intercourse of the inhabitants of this town, which evinc- 
 ed the cultivation of taste and good feeling. In effect, 
 Lexington has taken the tone of a literary place, and 
 may be fitly called the Athens of the West. One un- 
 pleasant circumstance accompanied this prevalence of 
 literary conversation. Smatterers, who mixed in these 
 circles, without reading and without reflection, caught 
 from conversation a few loose ideas of the systems and 
 discussions of the day. Chemistry, geology, religion, 
 — all subjects, profane and sacred, passed in review 
 before them. Each subject, in its turn, furnished ma- 
 terials for doubting, theorizing, and finally settling the 
 question. In such minds, such an order of things 
 would naturally excite a most active fermentation. 
 Hence, the conversation was apt to take the form of 
 dogmatism and disputation. 
 
 Dr. B. at this time presided over the university, 
 with great diligence and effect. The several classes in 
 the institution were engaged in the same studies with 
 the pupils of the eastern colleges. Classical literature 
 had been, as yet, but a matter of secondary considera- 
 tion. The institution at this time has high fame as a 
 seminary, and the number of students, especially med- 
 ical ones, is respectable. A bitter feud seems to have 
 been excited in respect to the religious principles, sup- 
 posed to be inculcated there. A very great majority 
 of the ministers of the state, of all denominations, are 
 in opposition to those supposed opinions. It is to be 
 regretted, that the interests of literature should in this 
 way be associated with religion. 
 
 In all the churches of this town, I observed full and 
 attentive audiences, and a greater resemblance to 
 the regular addictedness to attending public worship ? 
 
63 
 
 which prevails in New England, than I had seen since 
 I left it. To all the objects of christian charity, that 
 began about that time to be started at the North, they 
 gave a prompt and liberal attention. A revolution 
 seems about this time to have taken place in the taste 
 of the people, in respect to the requisites for pulpit elo- 
 quence. It had been the custom to prefer that kind 
 of speaking, to which allusion has been made, when 
 speaking upon the same subject in regard to Cincin- 
 nati. Great power of voice seems to have been the 
 first attribute, and to have occupied, in their estima- 
 tion, as great a space in good speaking, as delivery did 
 in the judgment of Demosthenes. They had the same 
 way of running a tune from low and moderate tones, 
 up to the highest pitch of the voice; and then gradu- 
 ally to subside to low and temperate modulation. 
 Two or three young clergymen from the North, 
 of educated and disciplined minds, and accomplished 
 speakers, had passed through the state, had preached 
 frequently, and been highly popular. The people had 
 heard piety and good sense expressed in a calm and 
 equable manner. These men had been above the 
 spasmodic tricks of oratory. The more gentle forms 
 of pulpit elocution that prevail at the North, had in 
 this way obtained the ascendancy. It will be readily 
 conceived by those who have heard the late most ac- 
 complished and pious Mr. L., whose sudden decease at 
 New Orleans was so much regretted, what effect his 
 thrilling addresses would have upon so ardent and en- 
 thusiastic a people, as those of Kentucky. 
 
 It is well known, that a jealousy, almost a hatred 
 of Yankees, prevailed among the mass of this people, 
 during the late war. This feeling, which had been 
 fostered for years, seemed to be now dying away. 
 
70 
 
 The popularity of these ministers had doubtless con 5 - 
 tributed to extinguish it. A respectable traveller 
 from New England, was sure to receive every de- 
 served courtesy. Indeed, the natural progress of 
 literature and philosophy, which are diffusing their 
 lights on all sides, is to do away these bitter and bane- 
 ful jealousies. Fatal will it be to the several members 
 of this great confederation, if the better informed, and 
 those who give tone to public feeling and sentiment, 
 do not feel the necessity of attempting to eradicate 
 every fibre of this root of bitterness from our soil. 
 In times of danger and excitement, which may come 
 even to us, nothing is so terrible as this feeling, excit- 
 ing distrust and destructive suspicion in the cabinet 
 and in the field. There is but too much of this feel- 
 ing yet existing, as I shall have occasion to remark 
 elsewhere. A native of the North has no conception 
 of the nature and extent of this feeling, until he finds 
 himself in the South and West. I have felt grieved to 
 see, that too many of our books of travels, and most 
 of the accounts of the West, carried to the East, tend 
 to foster this spirit toward these regions, on our part. 
 The manner in which the slave question is agitated, 
 keeps the embers glowing under the ashes. 
 
 In my whole tour through this state, I experienc- 
 ed a frank and cordial hospitality. I entered it with 
 a share of those prejudices, which I had probably fos- 
 tered unconsciously. I was aware how strongly they 
 , existed in the minds of the people, with regard to the 
 inhabitants of the North. The general kindness with 
 which I was every where received, impressed me so 
 much the more forcibly, for being unexpected. The 
 Kentuckians, it must be admitted, are a high minded 
 people, and possess the stamina of a noble character. 
 
It 
 
 It cannot be said correctly, as is said in journals and 
 geographies, that they are too recent and too various 
 in their descent and manners, to have a distinct char- 
 acter as a people. They are generally of one descent, 
 and are scions from a noble stock — the descendants 
 from affluent and respectable planters from Virginia 
 and North Carolina. They are in that condition in 
 life, which is, perhaps, best calculated to develope 
 high-mindedness, and self-respect. We aim not in 
 these remarks at eulogy, but to pay tribute, where 
 tribute is due. It is granted, there are ignorant, sav- 
 age, and abandoned men, among the lower classes in 
 Kentucky. Where are there not such ? There is a 
 distinct and striking moral physiognomy to this 
 people ; an enthusiasm, a vivacity, and ardour of char- 
 acter, courage, frankness, generosity, that have been 
 developed with the peculiar circumstances under which 
 they have been placed. These are the incitements to 
 all that is noble in a people. Happy for them, if they 
 leam to temper and moderate their enthusiasm, by re- 
 flection and good sense. " O fortunatos nimium, sua 
 si bona norint." Happy for them, if they more 
 strongly felt the necessity of training their numerous 
 and ardent youth to virtue and industry. Possessed 
 of such physical and moral capabilities, and from their 
 imperfect education, their habits of idleness, extrava- 
 gance, and gambling, but too likely to turn their per- 
 verted and misapplied powers against themselves and 
 their country, every thing depends upon the restrain- 
 ing influence of right views, on the part of the parents. 
 There is a loud call for the stern exercise of parental 
 monition and authority. No single effort could have 
 such an immense bearing upon the future destinies of 
 this state, as an effort to repress gambling and dissipa- 
 
n 
 
 tion, and to render those who practise these vices, con- 
 temptible in the eyes of the young. A more alarming 
 prospect cannot be opened to a country, than to have 
 a great many active, intelligent, and high-spirited 
 young men, without object or pursuit, let loose with 
 all their passions, and all their ambition, to prey upon 
 society. In individual cases this impression has 
 doubtless been felt, for great exertions are making, by 
 individuals to educate their children. Private tutors 
 are employed. New seminaries are started. But still 
 the villages are but too much filled with idle and dis- 
 sipated young men, whose downward course inspires 
 so much the more regret, from their possessing fine 
 forms, great health and energy of body, and activity 
 and capacity of mind. 
 
 Upon none of the western states is the obligation to 
 labour for the disciplining, purifying, and, if I may so 
 say, of redeeming the young, so solemnly imposed, as 
 upon this. The fathers of the young men, in many 
 instances, had high standing and influence in the state 
 from which they emigrated. Not a few of them 
 obtained fame, in the war of the revolution. Their 
 children inherit their fame, and that confident and 
 uncontrolled spirit, which is so often observed to be- 
 long to the Virginia character. They seem to feel 
 that they have an hereditary claim to command, place, 
 and observance. This perfect repose of self-confi- 
 dence is in fact their good star. I have often seen one 
 of these young men, in the new states farther west, 
 with no other qualifications than that ease and perfect 
 command of all that they knew, which result from 
 self-satisfaction, step down into the 44 moving water," 
 before the tardy, bashful, and self-criticising young man 
 from the North had made up his mind to attempt t© 
 
73 
 
 avail himself of the opportunity. 11 Sua dextra " is the 
 constant motto, self-repose the guardian genius of the 
 Kt>ntuckian, which often stand him in stead of better 
 talents and qualifications. It is at last discovered, that 
 in our country, the confident and bustling take place 
 and office by violence. 
 
 Besides, Kentucky is proudly exalted, as a common 
 mother of the western states. It seems to be general- 
 ly understood, that birth and rearing in that state, 
 constitute a kind of prescriptive claim upon office, as 
 formerly birth in Old Spain did, to office in her colo- 
 nies. Hence, from the falls of St. Anthony to the 
 gulph of Mexico, and from the Allegany hills to the 
 Rocky Mountains, the character of this state has a 
 certain preponderance. Her modes of thinking and 
 action dictate the fashion to the rest. The peculiar 
 hardihood, energy, and enthusiasm of her character, 
 will tend long to perpetuate this empire. It is only 
 necessary to have been as deeply familiar as I have 
 been, with the language and feelings of the people of 
 all walks, in these immense regions, to have seen the 
 traces of this preponderance of her character ; to have 
 seen her stamp marked upon the prevalent fashions. 
 No one, at this time of the day, can fail to have fore- 
 seen, what this vast valley is one day to become. 
 The sober and thinking men of this state, aware of 
 their bearing upon its future character, will feel how 
 earnestly they are bound to watch over a rising gen- 
 eration, which will possess such an influence. 
 
 Their enthusiasm of character is very observable, in 
 the ardour with which all classes of the people express 
 themselves, in respect to their favourite views and 
 opinions. The feelings of the people naturally tend 
 to extremes. Hear them rate their favourite preacher. 
 10 
 
74 
 
 He is the most pious and powerful preacher in the 
 country. Their orators and their statesmen, in elo- 
 quence and abilities surpass all others. The village 
 politicians have an undoubting and plenary faith, that 
 whatever measures the Kentucky delegation espouse 
 in Congress, not only ought to prevail, but will pre- 
 vail. The long line of superlatives, the possession of 
 the best horse, dog, gun, wife, statesman, and country, 
 are felt to belong to them in course ; and an ardent 
 healthy race of young men, not enough travelled to 
 have become the victims of a fastidious and self-criti- 
 cizing spirit, not afflicted, as is common with the un- 
 travelied, with bash fulness, and yet possessing the 
 crude rudiments and first principles of all kinds of 
 knowledge, — such are qualified, according to their 
 early habits and the impulses given them, to become 
 the blessings or the scourge of their country. So long 
 as Kentucky aspires to stamp the impress of her char- 
 acter and institutions upon the country that is growing 
 up in the valley of the Mississippi, and so long as she 
 has this aptitude for doing it, so long ought all her 
 • ? good and true men," to overlook these young men, 
 that she sends abroad, to form the character and fill 
 the offices of the other western states. 
 
 The Kentucky planters assert, that whatever article 
 Old Kentucky turns her chief attention to raising, is 
 sure to glut the market for that year. It would be 
 remarked, perhaps, that flour, hemp, or tobacco, were 
 low in the market. They immediately find a solution 
 in the fact that the Kentucky crop has arrived. In 
 truth, the astonishing productiveness of their good 
 lands, and the great extent of their cultivation, almost 
 justify such conclusions. 
 
75 
 
 I should be glad to give you some general ideas of the 
 state of religion and morals. But a journey of a few 
 weeks, would enable me to convey but very loose and 
 general ideas upon the subject. I had much conversa- 
 tion with the ministers and members of the different 
 denominations. Their estimates were apt to be grad- 
 uated to their denomination, and to vary as I consult- 
 ed different ones. There is a considerable number of 
 permanent societies. The Baptists and Presbyterians 
 seemed to be the prevailing sects ; though the Meth- 
 odists were labouring with their usual zeal and suc- 
 cess. They find considerable impediment to their 
 progress, in their general and decided opposition to 
 slavery ; a point upon which this people is peculiarly 
 sensitive. This and the neighbouring state of Tennes- 
 see have given origin to a new sect, called " Cumber- 
 land Presbyterians." I am not sufficiently informed of 
 their tenets, to be able to give you an idea of the shades 
 of difference between them and the Presbyterians from 
 whom they seceded. They describe themselves, in 
 point of speculation, to agree with the Arminians. In 
 their manner of preaching, and especially in their vo- 
 ciferousness, they copy the Methodists, but outdo their 
 model. They seem to possess the juvenile ardour and 
 confidence, that appertain to most of the new sects, 
 and have the same zeal to make proselytes. Those 
 that I heard preach were more deficient in literature 
 and discipline than the Methodists. They are making 
 great exertions to establish a seminary, where the 
 rough timber, which they work into the sanctuary, 
 may be hewed witli the " axe of the prophets." 
 
 The, people are eag&P'to attend public worship,, es- 
 pecially when performed by strangers. This insatia- 
 ble curiosity, this eagerness for novelty, which is so 
 
76 
 
 discouraging to the settled clergy, and which so strong- 
 ly marks the American people generally, is a passion in 
 this state. The people have an excitability and viva- 
 city, like the French. Unhappily enthusiasm is likely 
 to be fickle. Feelings that are so easily and highly 
 excited, are apt soon to subside. It is melancholy to 
 consider, that the ancient character for permanence, 
 which our societies used to have, is passing away in 
 all directions. The tie between minister and people, 
 which used to be considered like the matrimonial, is 
 now easily dissolved, and the divorce is granted for 
 trifling causes. It is eminently so here. 
 
 I shall have occasion elsewhere, to remark upon 
 the moving or migratory character of the western 
 people generally, and of this state in particular. 
 Though they have generally good houses, they might 
 almost as well, like the Tartars, dwell in tents. Every 
 thing shifts under your eye. The present occupants 
 sell, pack up, depart. Strangers replace them. Be- 
 fore they have gained the confidence of their neigh- 
 bours, they hear of a better place, pack up, and follow 
 their precursors. This circumstance adds to the insta- 
 bility of connexions, and more especially the ministe- 
 rial one, which requires such a length of time to ac- 
 quire its proper strength. Although I universally 
 heard religion spoken of with respect, — although they 
 seem to admit, that in some form, it is necessary to 
 the peace and order of society, yet they think much 
 less of the necessity of a minister, than the people at 
 the North. A marked proof of it is, that it is by no 
 means universal, or considered indispensable, to have a 
 minister attend at funerals. You know with what 
 horror it would be regarded at the North, the carry- 
 ing off the dead without the voice of prayer. It is a 
 common omission here. 
 
77 
 
 Of their statesmen and public speakers, except their 
 ministers, I cannot speak from personal knowledge. 
 They have one star, at least in the estimation of every 
 genuine son of the West, of the first magnitr.de. When 
 I was at Lexington, he had just returned from Ghent, 
 had been fatigued v\ ith receiving company, and I of 
 course did not desire an introduction. It would, 
 therefore, be assuming too much to speak of him. It 
 seems to be generally conceded, that as an orator, he 
 received his diploma from nature. In the depth and 
 sweetness of his voice, it is said he has no compeers ; 
 aud in the gracefulness of his enunciation and manner, 
 few equals. Although he was not publicly educated, 
 yet it is far from being true, that he is not a scholar, 
 and that he is not possessed of classical taste and dis- 
 cernment. But, because the report has gone abroad, 
 that he is an orator nature-taught, there are hundreds 
 of idle and arrogant young men in the West, who 
 draw a most preposterous conclusion against classical 
 learning, and especially Latin and Greek. They de- 
 cry colleges of course, and the long and patient dis- 
 cipline and training of these institutions. Even were 
 it true, that the gentleman in question is not a classi- 
 cal scholar himself, a great and intellectual man he 
 undoubtedly is, and he shows his estimate of the im- 
 portance of these studies, by engaging and employing 
 the best classical scholars for the instruction of his 
 children. Were it otherwise, it w r ould be absurd to 
 infer from one brilliant specimen of success without 
 training, that it is unnecessary. For the one prize so 
 obtained, there would be a thousand blanks. Brilliant 
 and successful as he may be, it does by no means ap- 
 pear, that he would not have been more so, had he 
 added to native vigour, feeling, eloquence, tone, and 
 
78 
 
 manner, the high finish, polish, and discipline of clas- 
 sical instruction. If he now thrills his audience at 
 Washington, what limits could have been assigned to 
 his success, had he grafted upon his own fine stock 
 the perennial scions of the Greeks and Romans. 
 
 The geography of Kentucky is generally known. 
 The great outlets are Maysville, at the upper part of 
 the state, and Louisville, just below the falls of Ohio, 
 in the lower division. Both are noted stations, espe- 
 cially the latter, for the shipment of Kentucky produce. 
 Louisville is more frequented by steam-boats, than 
 any other port on the Ohio. In New Orleans more 
 are up for that place than any other. It is seldom 
 that many days elapse in that city, without offering a 
 steam-boat conveyance to Louisville. This trip, 
 which in the ancient modes of boating, used to be 
 three times the length of a voyage across the Atlantic, 
 is now often performed in twelve days. Accustomed 
 to see the steam-boat with its prodigious and untiring 
 power, breasting the heavy current of the Mississippi, 
 the Kentuckian draws his ideas of power from this 
 source ; and when the warmth of whiskey in his 
 stomach is added to his natural energy, he becomes in 
 succession, horse, alligator, and steam-boat. Much of 
 his language is figurative and drawn from the power 
 of a steam-boat. To get ardent and zealous, is to 
 " raise the steam." To get angry, and give vent and 
 scope to these feelings, is to " let off the steam." To 
 encounter any disaster, or meet with a great catastro- 
 phe, is to " burst the boiler." The slave cheers his 
 oxen and horses by bidding them " go ahead." Two 
 black women were about to fight, and their beaux 
 cheered them to the combat with " Go ahead and buss 
 e boiler." 
 
79 
 
 As the climate of the southern front of Ohio, the 
 state of Kentucky in general, of Missouri and Illinois, 
 are nearly similar, I have reserved the remarks which 
 occurred to me upon this subject, that I might give a 
 general view of it, for another place. On this journey, 
 in the middle of March, turnip-greens were brought to 
 the table. Currant and gooseberry shrubs were in 
 half leaf. Early peach-trees in southern exposures 
 were in full flower. On clear days, after the sun had 
 ascended the sky, the temperature was delightful. 
 Early in the morning and evening, there was a chill 
 in the atmosphere, not unlike that produced on the 
 Atlantic shore by the northeast wind in clear days. 
 
 After a succession of visits and residences of a day 
 or two, in very amiable, hospitable, and kind families, 
 I returned, in the practice of the usual duties of 
 preaching in the villages in the evening, by the way 
 of Georgetown, North Bend, and General Harrison's 
 plantation, to my family in Cincinnati. 
 
 LETTER Xl.—CIJVCIJVJYATL 
 
 After reposing a few days, I found the spring suf- 
 ficiently advanced to render travelling in a boat pleas- 
 ant and comfortable. The roads through the country, 
 were yet scarcely passable. Steam-boats, except one 
 unwieldy, unsafe, and slow, there were none. I pur- 
 chased and fitted up a keel-boat, in which we pro- 
 posed to embark for St. Louis. One of the most 
 unpleasant circumstances attending the life, which I 
 lead, is that we naturally form intimacies, which are 
 extremely painful in the breaking. We find friends 
 
80 
 
 from whom we are loath to depart. We had unex- 
 pectedly found many friends. My family had been 
 intimate with many excellent ladies, " mothers in Is- 
 rael," the advocates of " eve ru good work." We 
 found so much pain in the parting from these excel- 
 lent people, who had lavished kindnesses upon us, and 
 whom we expected to see no more, that it in some 
 sense renewed the anguish of our original separation 
 from home. In effect, on returning to Cincinnati after 
 an absence of ten years, I find that the greater num- 
 ber have passed " the bourne." I have so long and 
 so often experienced the anguish of breaking off these 
 ties, which, however pleasant, are so transient and 
 frail, that I have ended by finding gloomy thoughts 
 connected with every effort to form a new acquaint- 
 ance. 
 
 When we embarked, our friends attended us to the 
 shore, where we found they had made many kind 
 provisions for our comfort on the voyage. We re- 
 ceived the last demonstrations of kindness, and em- 
 barked, the twelfth of April 1816. Our keel-boat was 
 between eighty and ninety feet in length, was fiited 
 up with a small but comfortable cabin, and carried 
 seventeen tons. It was an extremely sultry afternoon 
 when we embarked, such as often occurs in that re- 
 gion when the temperature is high summer heat. 
 Nothing could exceed the grandeur of the vegetable 
 kingdom on the banks of the broad and beautiful 
 Ohio. The magnificent beeches, cotton- trees, and 
 sycamores, had developed all the richness of their foli- 
 age. The shrubs and trees were enlivened with the 
 glittering plumage of their feathered tenants, and 
 were " prodigal of harmony." The river, full almost 
 to the summit of its banks, swept along an immense 
 
81 
 
 volume of water, and its aspect had nothing in com- 
 mon with the clean and broad sand-bars and shallow 
 waters of the channel down which we descended in 
 autumn. We found the current, too, had more than 
 twice the rapidity. We could not tire in extending our 
 sight to the farthest stretch of vision, over a surface of 
 forest, clothed with a depth of verdure, with a richness 
 of foliage, and a grandeur of size and height, that char- 
 acterize the forest bottoms at this point of the Ohio. 
 
 We commenced this trip, like that of our first em- 
 barkation on the Ohio, with the most cheering auspi- 
 ces. We experienced in a couple of hours, what has 
 so often been said and sung of all earthly enjoyments, 
 how near to each other are the limits of happiness and 
 trouble. Banks of thunder-clouds lowered in the 
 horizon, when we left Cincinnati. They gathered 
 over us, and a violent thunder-storm ensued. We 
 had not time to reach the shore before it burst upon 
 us, attended with strong gusts of wind. The gale was 
 too violent for us to think of landing on a bluff, and 
 rock-bound shore. We secured, as well as we could, 
 the open passage into midship, and made arrange- 
 ments for scooping out the water, which the boat took 
 in from the waves. We had some ladies passengers 
 on board, whose screams added to the uproar without. 
 I was exposed to the storm on the deck, ready occa- 
 sionally to assist the " patron," as he is called, of the 
 boat, whenever he found himself unable, from the 
 violence of the wind, to manage the helm. Tiie peals 
 of thunder were incessant, and the air was in a blaze 
 with the flashes of lightning. We frequently saw 
 them apparently dart into the river. The storm con- 
 tinued to rage with unremitting fury, for more than an 
 hour. Such storms, to a frail keel -boat, loaded like 
 11 
 
82 
 
 ours to the water's edge, are always dangerous, and 
 sometimes fatal. The patron, who had been tor many 
 years in this employment, and who had been, as he 
 said, boat- wrecked half a dozen times, kept, indeed, 
 perfectly cool. But his countenance manifested great 
 anxiety. We weathered the storm, however, with no 
 other inconvenience than getting drenched with rain, 
 and hearing the frequent and earnest assertions of our 
 passengers, that they would never expose themselves 
 to the danger of such a storm again. Indeed, had 
 my family been at all superstitious, as we had often 
 during the winter considered it our duty to return to 
 New England in the spring, we might have thought 
 so gloomy a commencement of a voyage still farther 
 west, and still farther from our country, as ominous of 
 the misfortunes which afterwards befel us in that re- 
 gion. But, as the atmosphere brightened, as happens 
 to beings so dependent upon external nature for the 
 tone of our minds, our thoughts began to brighten, 
 and our strength and courage for pursuing our journey 
 were renewed. We lauded in the evening, near the 
 mansion of General Harrison, and were most hospita- 
 bly received by him. 
 
 Next day the northwest wind, as happens with you, 
 after a violent thunder-storm in the spring, blew with 
 such violence, that w 7 e were obliged to lay by for 
 the day, not daring to encounter the waves of the 
 river. We passed the day pleasantly in receiving the 
 hospitalities of the general, and in hearing his children 
 examined by their private tutor. I was pleased to 
 find that their tutor was an accomplished scholar, and 
 that the children must have been faithfully disciplined. 
 Their proficiency in geometry, especially, had been 
 uncommon. Next day we left our passengers at 
 
83 
 
 Lawrenceburg, where we passed the night. At this 
 place, my daughter, in playing with some misses of 
 her years, that belonged to the village, in stepping on 
 board fell into the river. A gentleman who was prov- 
 identially there, plunged in, and rescued her, as she 
 rose, from drowning. A parent will need no informa- 
 tion, how I felt, in respect to that stranger, and the 
 providence that sent him to her release. 
 
 From this place to Shawnoe-town nothing occur- 
 red in our descent worth mentioning. This is an un- 
 pleasant looking village* that had but just emerged 
 from an inundation, before our arriving there. It has 
 a bank, and is a place of some importance from two 
 causes. The salt, that is made at the neighbouring 
 saline, is exported from it, and the outfits for keel- 
 boats, descending the Ohio, and purposing to ascend 
 the Mississippi, used to be made here. In our descent 
 to this town, we had been delighted with the singular 
 forms of the Ohio biuffs, which sometimes tower aloft 
 with an imposing magnificence. A remarkable cave 
 in the rock, in one of these bluffs, is rather a striking 
 curiosity. We see the usual desire of travellers to 
 perpetuate their names and exploits, in the carving of 
 names on the projections of this cave. There are 
 names here, engraven in the solid m ( stone, the letters 
 of which are of such a size and distinctness, as to be 
 capable of being read at a considerable distance. 
 
 At this town we made our final arrangements for 
 ascending the Mississippi. Nine hands would have 
 been considered the usual complement for carrying 
 such a boat as mine up the Mississippi. We descend- 
 ed to the mouth of the Ohio, without noting any oc- 
 currence except a thunder storm, for which we laid by. 
 The Ohio was so broad and safe, that we floated 
 
84 
 
 night and day, and were carried west nearly a hun- 
 dred miles in the twenty-four hours. We still had 
 often on one side bluff-banks; and the verdure of the 
 unknown herbage, the novelty and diversity of beauti- 
 ful flowers that we had never seen, that grew on these • 
 steep and deeply wooded slopes, were a source of un- 
 failing delight. My children contemplated with unsa- 
 ted curiosity the flocks of parroquets fluttering among 
 the trees, when we came near the shore. 
 
 As it respects our position, we have yet Kentucky 
 on the left shore, and above Shawnoe-town, Indiana 
 on the right, to the mouth of the Wabash, and from 
 that, Illinois to the mouth of the Ohio. Below Shaw- 
 noe-town, the beauty of the Ohio banks begins to dis- 
 appear. The bluffs subside. Cultivation becomes 
 more unfrequent. The country begins to exhibit the 
 sombre aspect of swamp and inundation, beyond the 
 reach of the eye. You look abroad on the right and 
 on the left, upon a vast forest of lofty trees, covered 
 with the largest and most verdant foliage, with a sur- 
 face of perfect regularity, raising the impression of a 
 vast green and level roof, formed by branches of huge 
 and living columns, in at rise out of the water. The 
 singularity of such a prospect excites a momentary 
 feeling of pleasure, from its freshness and grandeur. 
 But it soon becomes dreary to the eye, from its sad 
 monotony, and from mental associations with it, of 
 fever and ague, and musquitoes, and consignment to 
 perpetual destitution of human habitations. 
 
 Indeed there are solitary cabins of wood -cutters, 
 who fix their dwellings on piles or blocks, raised above 
 the inundation, who stay here to supply the steam- 
 boats with wood. In effect, to visit this very portion 
 of the river in the autumn after the subsiding of the 
 
85 
 
 spring-floods, to see its dry banks, its clean sand-bars? 
 and all traces of the inundation gone, except its marks 
 upon the trunks of the trees, one would have no sus- 
 picion of the existence of such swamp and overflow 
 as it now exhibits. 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 The twenty-eighth of April, 1816, we came in 
 sight of what had long been the subject of our conver- 
 sations, our inquiries, and curiosity, the far-famed 
 Mississippi. It is a view, which has left on my mind 
 a most deep and durable impression, marking a pe- 
 riod, from which commenced a new era in my ex- 
 istence. We had been looking forward to this place 
 as the pillars of Hercules. The country on this side 
 had still some unbroken associations with our native 
 land. This magnificent river, almost dividing the 
 continent, completely severed this chain. We were 
 now, also, to experience the novelty of propelling a 
 boat against the current of one of the mightiest and 
 most rapid rivers in the world. The junction of the 
 Ohio and Mississippi does not impress that idea of 
 physical grandeur, which fills up your anticipations. 
 But allow the fancy to range the boundless forests 
 and prairies, through which it brings down the sweep- 
 ing tribute, which it has collected from distant and 
 nameless mountains, and from a hundred shores, and 
 you will not contemplate this mighty stream without 
 an intense interest. A sharp point, almost at right 
 angles with either river, mingles their waters in the 
 midst of deep and ancient forests, where the eye ex- 
 
86 
 
 patiates over vast and swampy woods, perhaps fifty 
 miles in extent. Turn the point, and your eye catches 
 the vast Mississippi, rolling down his mass of turbid 
 waters, which seem, compared with the limpid and 
 greenish-coloured waters of the Ohio, to be of almost 
 a milky whiteness. They exactly resemble waters in 
 which white ashes have been mixed and remain sus- 
 pended. A speculation was get up, to form a great 
 city at the delta, and in fact they raised a few houses 
 upon piles of wood. The houses were inundated, and 
 when we were there, " they kept the town," as the 
 boatmen phrased it, in a vast flat boat, a hundred feet 
 in length, in which there were families, liquor-shops, 
 drunken men and women, and all the miserable appen- 
 dages to such a place. To render the solitude of the 
 pathless forest on the opposite shore more dismal, 
 there is one gloomy-looking house there. 
 
 Having turned the point, and made our boat fast to 
 the young willows, we reposed to give scope to our 
 own contemplations. Our hands demanded the usual 
 compliment, and having received it in moderation, pro- 
 nounced themselves sufficiently cheered to begin their 
 task. The margin of the stream is marked with a 
 beautiful growth of low willows and cotton-woods, 
 and the river, though it had overflowed the banks, 
 and was high among the trees, was, from twenty to 
 thirty feet from the shore, not very swift. We began 
 to pull the boat up the stream, by a process, which, in 
 the technics of the boatmen, is called 44 bush-whack- 
 ing." It consists, by commencing at the bow, to 
 seize a handful of bushes, or a single branch, and to 
 pull upon them and walk towards the stern, as the boat 
 ascends. The crew follow each oiher in this way in 
 succession to the stern, and walk round to the bow, 
 
87 
 
 on the opposite side. The banks slope so rapidly, 
 that the "setting pole" is not long enough, in the 
 general way, for use on the opposite side, and they 
 commonly put two hands to the oars. Whenever we 
 come to a point, and have to encounter the full force 
 of the current, we cross the river, in order to get into 
 the easier current upon the opposite shore. We shall 
 remark, elsewhere, upon the singular but almost uni- 
 form configuration of the western rivers, by which 
 they are scooped out into points and bends. When 
 the river is low, there is a sand-bar opposite the bend, 
 and the current is invariably much stronger in the 
 bend, than over the sand-bar. 
 
 We mark a very obvious difference between the 
 aspect of the Ohio and the Mississippi. The breadth 
 of the two rivers is nearly the same ; and they present 
 at their junction nearly the same appearances of swamp 
 and inundation. They have much the same growth 
 on their banks ; and yet they have a character very 
 unlike each other. The Ohio is calm and placid, and 
 except when full, its waters are limpid to a degree. 
 The face of the Mississippi is always turbid ; the cur- 
 rent every w 7 here sweeping and rapid ; and it is full of 
 singular boils, w here the water, for a quarter of an acre, 
 rises with a strong circular motion, and a kind of hiss- 
 ing noise, forming a convex mass of waters above the 
 common level, which roll down and are incessantly 
 renewed. The river seems always in wrath, tearing 
 away the banks on one hand with gigantic fury, with 
 all their woods, to deposite the spoils in another place. 
 
 To form any adequate ideas of our impressions of 
 this new scene which I am attempting to record, you 
 will naturally bear in remembrance what kind of fam- 
 ily it was, that was viewing it. We were not accus- 
 
38 
 
 tomed to travelling. We had been reared in stillness 
 and seclusion, where we had contemplated the world 
 rather in books than in reality. The Mississippi, too, 
 at that time was to the great proportion of the Ameri- 
 can people, as it was to us, the " ultima Thule" — a 
 limit almost to the range of thought. This stream, 
 instead of being ploughed by a hundred steam boats, 
 had seen but one. The astonishing facilities for trav- 
 elling, by which it is almost changed to flying, had 
 not been invented. The thousand travellers for mere 
 amusement, that we now see on the roads, canals, and 
 rivers, were then travelling only in books. The still- 
 ness of the forest had not been broken by the shouting 
 of turnpike-makers. The Mississippi forest had sel- 
 dom resounded, except with the cry of wild beasts, 
 the echo of thunder, or the crash of undermined trees, 
 falling into the flood. Our admiration, our unsated 
 curiosity at that time, would be matter of surprise at 
 the present, to the thousands of hacknied travellers on 
 this stream, to whom all this route, and all its circum- 
 stances, are as familiar as the path from the bed to the 
 fire. 
 
 For myself, I shall never forget my first impressions 
 upon beginning to ascend this river, on the banks of 
 which I have passed so many years, and suffered so 
 many misfortunes, — and at the period of life, too, 
 when time is most valuable, and impressions the deep- 
 est. The scene was entirely novel, and we beheld 
 every thing, as though the water, the plants, the trees 
 of the Mississippi, would be different from the same 
 things elsewhere. Our first advances on the stream 
 were well calculated to satisfy such expectations of 
 gratified curiosity, as we had formed. The day was 
 beautiful, the temperature soft and genial. The vege- 
 
39 
 
 table kingdom on the banks, had the peculiar grandeur 
 of its empire in thai region, which must be seen, and 
 not described, in order to be felt. Even the small 
 willows, which we grasped in our hands, as we were 
 drawing the boat up the stream, were full of flowers, 
 which when crushed, yielded out that fragrance which 
 is peculiar to them; a fragrance like the odour of 
 burning coffee, and a few other aromatics, raising the 
 ideas of nectar and ambrosia. 
 
 On the other side, the river had only so far over- 
 flowed its banks, as to leave the tall and verdant 
 meadow grass, and water plants of the most tender 
 green, above the water. Innumerable multitudes and 
 varieties of water-fowl, of different forms, and plu- 
 mage, and hues, were pattering in the water among 
 this grass ; or were raising their several cries, as we 
 frightened them from their retreat. We easily ob- 
 tained as many as we wished ; and when roused to the 
 wing by our guns, they soon settled down in another 
 place. Flocks of that species, called wood-ducks, 
 were continually flying between the river and the 
 woods, where, in the hollows of the trees, they were 
 rearing their young. The huge sized cotton-woods, 
 so regular and beautiful in their form, so bright in a 
 verdure surpassing that of northern trees, were in 
 themselves objects of curiosity. To us, under such 
 circumstances, this novel and fresh scene revived those 
 delightful images of youth, the spring-time of exist- 
 ence, which are most fondly cherished and longest 
 remembered. 
 
 In the excitement of this cheerful and new mode of 
 travelling, I forgot sickness and sorrow, and the appal- 
 ling prospect of carrying a young and helpless family, 
 without friends, and but slenderly provided with re- 
 12 
 
90 
 
 sources, to a new and an untried world. Perhaps the 
 first half day that we passed in ascending the river under 
 every favourable omen, was the happiest period that 
 we ever experienced, as it respects mere physical en- 
 joyment. Let those deride our excitement then, and 
 that which I now feel, only in the recollection of our 
 delight, who are not capable of entering into similar 
 feelings, and placing themselves in the position of a 
 family constituted like mine. Alas I neither we nor 
 any other will furnish but short and few occasions for 
 derision of this sort. This unnatural excitement soon 
 gave way. We soon found ascending the Mississippi, 
 in this way, calculated to excite any feelings, rather 
 than those of tranquil enjoyment. But for this day, 
 at least, we were happy. The illusion had not given 
 place to the sad reality. The first bluffs that we pass- 
 ed, so delightful in contrast with the long and dreary 
 region of swamp, that we had passed through, the 
 shrubbery on the declivities, the novelty and freshness 
 of every thing that we saw, were charming. Our first 
 encampment, where we lay by for the night ; the 
 cheerfulness of the boatmen, who had had their full ra- 
 tions, their bright fires on the shore, the careless and 
 satisfied manner in which they threw 7 themselves at 
 the foot of the trees for their repose ; a way of going 
 forward so entirely untried, and so pleasant, — were 
 adventitious circumstances of gaiety and enjoyment. 
 Since I have been two hundred days on the Mississippi 
 and its waters, associations of toil, of peril, and diffi- 
 culty of all descriptions in ihe ascent, intimate ac- 
 quaintance with all the objects and scenery, then 
 so new, have removed all this charm. I have been 
 astonished, at a subsequent passing this same portion 
 of the river, and then too under pleasant circum- 
 
91 
 
 stances, how much of the zest and enjoyment of such 
 scenes are taken away with their novelty. 
 
 No employment can be imagined more laborious, 
 and few more dangerous, than this of propelling a 
 boat against the current of such a river. It may not 
 be amiss to record some of the circumstances of labour 
 and peril ; for the growing disuse of all other but 
 steam-boats, will soon render these descriptions but 
 little more than matter of past history. At one time 
 you come to a place in the current, so swift that no 
 force of oars and poles can urge the boat through it. 
 You then have to apply, what is commonly called 
 here a " cordelle," which is a long rope fastened at 
 one end to the boat, thrown ashore, and seized by a 
 sufficient number of hands to drag or track the boat 
 up the stream. But, owing to the character of the 
 river, and the numberless impediments in it and on its 
 banks, this "cordelle" is continually entangling among 
 the snags and sawyers, between the boat and the 
 shore, and has often to be thrown over small trees, 
 and carried round larger ones. Of course it requires 
 great experience and dexterity to be a good leader of 
 a cordelle. The service is extremely well adapted to 
 the French boatmen. Sometimes you are impeded by 
 vast masses ol trees, that have lodged against sawyers. 
 At other times, you find a considerable portion of the 
 margin of the shore, including a surface of acres, that 
 has fallen into the river, with all its trees upon it. 
 Just on the edge of these trees, the current is so 
 heavy as to be almost impassable. It is beside the 
 question, to think of forcing the boat up against the 
 main current any where, except with an uncommon 
 number of hands. Therefore any impediments near 
 the shore, must either be surmounted, or the river 
 
92 
 
 crossed to avoid them. It not. unfrequently happens, 
 that the boat with no small labour, and falling down 
 the stream from the strength of the current, crosses 
 the river to avoid such difficulties, and finds equal ones 
 on the opposite shore. 
 
 Sometimes you are obliged to make your way 
 among the trunks of trees, and the water boiling 
 round your boat like that of a mill-race. Then, if the 
 boat " swings/ 5 as the phrase is, that is, loses her 
 direction, and exposes her side to the current, you are 
 instantly carried back, and perhaps strike the snags 
 below you, and your boat is snagged, or staved. We 
 were more than once, half a day, struggling with all 
 our own force, and all that we could raise on the 
 banks, to force the boat through a single rapid, or by 
 one difficult place. We were once in imminent peril, 
 not only of our boat, but, such was the situation of 
 the place, if we had been wrecked there, of our lives. 
 Severer fatigue, or harder struggling to carry a point, 
 I never saw endured, than in this case. 
 
 I would not wish to tire you, by attempting to enu- 
 merate all the difficulties and dangers of this sort, that 
 we encountered. Should I even attempt it, my mem- 
 ory would not reach them ; and a boatman only 
 would be able to describe them in the proper techui- 
 cals, which you of course would not understand. He 
 would enumerate difficulties, which depend for their 
 character upon the peculiar stage of the water, and 
 the manner in which the sand-bars and wreck-heaps 
 are situated. These wreck- heaps are immense piles 
 of trees, amassed by the waters, at points, and in dif- 
 ficult places. Let no deluded emigrant imagine, that 
 he can work a boat up this river, without great pa- 
 tience, expense, and labour, and after all, without dan- 
 
93 
 
 ger. The danger and fatigue, in this kind of boating, 
 are undoubtedly greater than those of sea navigation. 
 Let the emigrant, then, who ascends this river, make 
 the proper estimates of trouble, expense, and danger, 
 in advance ; and arm himself with the requisite pa- 
 tience and resources. Above all, let him have a full 
 complement of faithful and experienced hands. I do 
 not remember to have traversed this river in any con- 
 siderable trip, without having heard of some fatal 
 disaster to a boat, or having seen a dead body of some 
 boatman, recognised by the red flannel shirt, which 
 they generally wear. The multitudes of carcasses of 
 boats, lying at the points, or thrown up high and dry 
 on the wreck-heaps, demonstrate most palpably, how 
 many boats are lost on this wild, and, as the boatmen 
 always denominate it, " wicked river." 
 
 I am sure that it would seem tiresome repetition, if 
 I were to attempt the detail of our pleasures, our 
 " moving accidents," our " hair-breadth escapes," for 
 we had them ; and more than all, of our gratified cu- 
 riosity. The most retired regions of Hindostan, or 
 central Africa, could not have more keenly excited the 
 sense of novelty and freshness. Every stopping-place 
 opened upon us its little world of wonders. I had, as 
 you know, travelled in the northern parts of the Unit- 
 ed States, and had seen the Indians of Canada and 
 New York. But the Indians that we now saw, 
 though perfectly resembling the former, in form and 
 countenance, had, on closer examination, an untamed 
 savageness of countenance, a panther- like expression, 
 utterly unlike the tame and subdued countenance of 
 the northern Indians. At first view, my family con- 
 templated the Shawnoe Indians too much as objects 
 of terror, to receive much pleasure from the spectacle. 
 
94 
 
 But wild deer, frequently seen swimming the river, or 
 scouring the bluffs above us, not only gratified curiosi- 
 ty, but gave us strong impressions of the character of 
 the country we were visiting. When at night, after 
 having surmounted the difficulties and dangers of the 
 day, and after the point had been carefully considered, 
 which of the hands had laboured most, been most effi- 
 cient, or shown most courage and coolness, which had 
 been most willing to swim on shore with the cordelle in 
 his teeth, in short, which one had excelled in the points 
 of a boatman's excellence, — and these points of prece- 
 dence were often no easy matters to settle, — when 
 mutual congratulations had passed round, that we had 
 performed a good and a safe day's journey, after they 
 had had their rations, they would then throw them- 
 selves at the foot of a tree. They then begin in turn 
 to relate their adventures. Some of them had been to 
 the upper world on the Missouri, a thousand leagues 
 from the point we now occupied. Others had been 
 above the falls of St Anthony. Another had been in 
 the Spanish country, through which he had penetrat- 
 ed by the almost interminable courses of the Arkan- 
 sas and Red River. It will need no stretch of im- 
 agination to believe, that such trips, in such regions, 
 among Indians and bears, and that non-descript race 
 of men, Canadian and Spanish hunters, men in whose 
 veins, perhaps, the blood of three races is mixed, 
 must be fruitful in adventure. It would be incredible 
 to any one who had not seen such men, and had full 
 opportunities to become acquainted with their charac- 
 ter, the hardihood and endurance of which they are 
 capable. A hunt of months at the foot of the Rocky 
 Mountains, at an immense distance from civilized man, 
 without bread or salt, in constant dread of the Indians 
 
95 
 
 and white bears, — such is the lonely sojourn in the 
 pathless deserts, in which these men patiently pursue 
 their trapping, and contract a dexterity, a capacity to 
 avail themselves of circumstances to circumvent the 
 Indians and the game, an unshrinking spirit to suffer, 
 almost beyond humanity. When one was wearied 
 with his tale, another was instantly ready to renew 
 the theme. Sometimes we had details of their dusky 
 loves ; that no feature of romance might be wanting. 
 These stories, told by boatmen stretched at the foot of 
 a tree, just below which was the boat, and the wave 
 of the Mississippi, and interlarded with the jargon of 
 their peculiar phrase, or perhaps interrupted by the 
 droll comment, or the incredulous questioning of the 
 rest, had often to me no small degree of interest ; and 
 tricked out in the dress of modern description, would 
 have made very tolerable romances. 
 
 In advancing up the stream, at a great distance be- 
 fore us we see the " Grand Tower." This is an 
 object in the river, the more striking, from its being 
 the last in the line of precipices, between that point 
 and the gulf of Mexico. It is a noble and massive 
 pyramid of rock, rising perpendicularly out of the bed 
 of the river, in which it forms an island. Around it 
 the river foams and boils, throwing from its base a 
 kind of spiral current across the river. Opposite " the 
 Tower" is another bold bluff, on the Illinois shore, 
 called the " Devil's oven." This, too, throws off an- 
 other sweeping current, and between these currents 
 the passage is difficult, and at some stages of the wa- 
 ter, dangerous. The tower is stated to be one hun- 
 dred and fifty feet in height. On its summit are a 
 few solitary cedars. On the whole it is an imposing 
 spectacle. 
 
96 
 
 The first inhabited bottom, as you ascend from the 
 mouth of the Ohio, has the name of Tywapety, and 
 the next, "Bois Brule," or, as it is humorously called, 
 46 Bob Ruly." The Americans use, in this way, very 
 little ceremony with French names. For nearly forty 
 miles above the mouth of the Ohio, the shores of the 
 river are too often inundated, to be inhabited. The 
 first continued bluffs appear on the west side. They 
 are often of an astonishing regularity, and tower 
 more than two hundred f< et in perpendicular height. 
 They shoot out at their summits into pinnacles and 
 spires, as Mr. Jefferson remarked of them, not unlike 
 those of cities. The " Cornice rock 99 is so regular 
 in its curves, and marked at the top of the entabla- 
 ture with appearances at a little distance so like den* 
 tules, that it reminds us of the regularity with which 
 nature operates, in the smaller scale of crystalliza- 
 tion. On the summits of these cliffs, in the warm 
 weather, there are generally encountered more or 
 less snakes. In two instances the boatmen on the 
 tops of the cliffs, when cordelling the boat directly at 
 the base of these rocks, disengaged snakes from their 
 retreats, and they fell from an immense elevation on 
 to the deck of our boat. 
 
 We had a most severe trial in passing round the 
 most difficult place, that we had yet encountered, 
 called " the Sycamore root." At this stage of the 
 water, it was a formidable place. A heavy mass of 
 the river sweeps along through a kind of basin scoop- 
 ed out of the rock. Our boat was in this current, 
 and we struggled with all our force to get through it, 
 for some hours, without advancing a foot against the 
 impetuous current. The situation of my family, 
 that 1 had sent round the point by land, that they 
 
97 
 
 might avoid the danger, was scarcely less distressing 
 than ours. They were near enough to speak to us, 
 to see the bow of the boat, white with the foam of the 
 wave, and to be assured by the man who conducted 
 them, that if we "swung" back upon the rock, our 
 boat would be crushed like a potter's vessel. At 
 length, by applying a cable to a windlass on the 
 shore, with great labour, we escaped safely into the 
 calmer water. 
 
 We went safely through a very dangerous place, 
 only to encounter danger in a place and under cir- 
 cumstances where there was not the slightest indica- 
 tion of danger. We were ascending in a gentle cur- 
 rent a channel between an island and the main shore. 
 The bowsman was conversing with a barefooted 
 nymph on the shore. Too attentive to her ques- 
 tions, he neglected his boat. She struck a sawyer, 
 pointing down stream. It penetrated her bow, be- 
 tween wind and water, beating in a hole, large enough 
 to admit the body of a man. We stopped it as well 
 as we could, with blankets, and ran the boat immedi- 
 ately on shore, The boat was partially unloaded, 
 and at a distance of some miles, we found tools, mate- 
 rials, and a workman for repairing it. 
 
 The inhabitants on this portion of the river are 
 what the French call " petits paysans," or small 
 planters. They fix themselves on beautiful bottoms, 
 of a soil of extreme fertility. The weeds, the trees, 
 the vegetation generally, indicate a fertility still 
 greater than that of the Ohio bottoms. There is by 
 no means the same degree of industry and enter- 
 prise, as there. The inhabitants seem indolent, 
 yawning as if under the constant influence of fever 
 and ague ; which, in fact, they often have. Their 
 13 
 
98 
 
 young men, and too often their young women, are but 
 too ready to take passage in the ascending or de- 
 scending boat. They arrogate to themselves the 
 finish and the entireness of the Mississippi character, 
 of which they aver the Kentuckians have but a part. 
 They claim to be the genuine and original breed, 
 compounded of the horse, alligator, and snapping 
 turtle. In their new and " strange curses," you dis- 
 cover new features of atrocity ; a race of men placed 
 on the extreme limits of order and civilization. I 
 heard them on the bank, entering into the details of 
 their horrible battles, in which they talked with a 
 disgusting familiarity about mutilation, as a common 
 result of these combats. Indeed I saw more than one 
 man, who wanted an eye, and ascertained that I was 
 now in the region of " gouging." It is to be under- 
 stood, that it is a surgical operation, which they think 
 only proper to be practised upon black-guards, and 
 their equals. They assured us that no " gentleman" 
 ever got gouged. I heard them speaking of a tall, 
 profane, barbarous, and ruffian-like looking man, and 
 they emphatically pronounced him the" best " man 
 in the settlement. I perceived that according to 
 their definition, the question about the " best" man 
 had been reduced to actual demonstration. I found, 
 on farther inquiry, that the "best" man was under- 
 stood to be the best fighter, he who had beaten, or, 
 in the Kentucky phrase, had " whipped " all the 
 rest. 
 
 We pass, at this point of the river, a succession of 
 beautiful bottoms, alternated with bluffs, and in some 
 instances, we have seen the bluffs on both sides of the 
 river. We go on at the rate of about twelve miles a 
 day. We have thefsame regular succession of strug- 
 
99 
 
 gling with logs and sawyers, pressing through swift 
 places, of crossing the river from one point to anoth- 
 er, and occasionally lying by on account of the wind ; 
 for when it blows strong against the current of the 
 Mississippi, it raises waves too high to be encoun- 
 tered by a boat like ours. A circumstance much to 
 be dreaded, is the fastening a boat under a falling-in 
 bank or a tree, which, if the wind should rise by 
 night, might, in this tender and crumbly soil, uproot 
 the tree, and throw it upon the boat, bringing not only 
 instant and complete ruin to the boat, but destruc- 
 tion to them that are aboard. Many such tragic oc- 
 currences have happened. A number of people have 
 been instantly crushed to death. The catastrophe 
 occurs, it may be, far from the haunts of men, unno- 
 ticed and unrecorded. We often hear by night the 
 terrific crash of trees, undermined by the river, or 
 uprooted by the wind, as they fall into the flood. 
 
 Before we arrived at St. Genevieve, the first vil- 
 lage on the Mississippi, as you ascend it, we pass- 
 ed the mouths of a number of small creeks. We no- 
 ticed the Kaskaskias, a river which runs through the 
 central, and best inhabited parts of the state of Illi- 
 nois. It passes by a town of its own name, one of the 
 oldest French establishments, out of Canada, in 
 North America. It is said to be older than Phila- 
 delphia. It is a pleasant village, and was then the 
 seat of government, and issued a weekly paper. St. 
 Genevieve is also a considerable village, almost 
 wholly French, on the Missouri or west side of the 
 river, a mile up a small creek, called the Gabourie. 
 In this place we were introduced to amiable and pol- 
 ished people ; and saw a town evidencing the posses- 
 sion of a considerable degree of refinement. Here 
 
ioo 
 
 we first see the French mode of constructing houses*, 
 and forming a village. The greater proportion of 
 the houses have mud walls, whitened with lime, 
 which have much the most pleasant appearance at a 
 distance. Their modes of building, enclosing, and 
 managing, are very unlike those of the Americans. 
 Here the French is the predominant language. Tra- 
 ces, too, of their regard for their worship begin to be 
 seen. You see the Catholic church. On the ridges 
 of the houses, or over the gates, you frequently see 
 the wooden cross. 
 
 As I remained principally in the country of the Mis- 
 souri for six years, I propose to speak of that coun- 
 try with some particularity ; being that part of the 
 western country with w Inch I am best acquainted. I 
 shall not therefore enter into much detail of what we 
 saw between this and St. Louis. I shall only remark, 
 as a very prominent feature in the shore, opposite St. 
 Genevieve, that there commences below Kaskaskias a 
 very rich and wide bottom, called the " American bot- 
 tom." It has a skirt of wood two or three miles in 
 width. Still farther from the river, and beyond the 
 timbered land, is a most beautiful prairie of the richest 
 land, from two to four miles in width. Beyond this 
 are lofty and perpendicular stone bluffs, the bases of 
 which appear evidently to have been once worn with 
 running water. This charming skirt, partly timber- 
 ed, partly prairie, and every where limited by this 
 kind of bluff, extends from this point to a considerable 
 distance above St. Louis. On the western shore, it 
 is generally bluff ; and where there is a bottom, it is 
 very narrow. These bluffs, which are very lofty and 
 diversified, between St. Genevieve and Herculaneum, 
 slope from a very bold and commanding front on the 
 
101 
 
 viver to singular shaped hills, sometimes bounded at 
 the foot by a wall of a mile or two in extent, and from 
 four to six feet high, as smooth and regular as though 
 it had beeL faced by a mason. Near Herculaneum, on 
 the pinnacles of these bluffs, are erected shot-towers. 
 The lead in a state of fusion, falls three hundred feet 
 into water at the foot of the tower. The particles of 
 lead receive their division in passing through a sieve, 
 and acquire their circularity in falling. 
 
 Between Herculaneum and Carondelet, to which 
 the French have given the more familiar name of 
 " Vuide Poche," or Empty Pocket, we pass the mouth 
 of the Maramec. This is a considerable stream, 
 which traverses the mine district, and winds among 
 the hills two hundred miles, before it mingles its wa- 
 ters with the Mississippi. In arriving at Carondelet, 
 we had remarked two small villages on the opposite 
 shore, and we have here in view on th#t side, Caho- 
 kia, an ancient and considerable French village, w 7 itfi 
 a Catholic church. On the twenty-fourth of May, 
 we arrived at St. Louis on a very beautiful morning, 
 without any considerable accident, and all in good 
 health. 
 
 LETTER XIII. — ST LOUIS. 
 
 I am now near the central point of the great valley 
 of the Mississippi; the largest valley or basin drained 
 by one river, on the earth. From the Allegany ridges 
 eastward, to the dividing ridge of the Chepywan or 
 Rocky Mountains, from whose eastern declivities How 
 the waters of the Missouri, on the west, is supposed to 
 be twenty-five hundred miles in a right line, and 
 
102 
 
 double that distance, by the courses of the Ohio and 
 Missouri. From the eminences that divide the waters 
 of hed River of the north, Saskashawin and Slave 
 Lake from those of the upper Mississippi, to the 
 gulph of Mexico on the south, is more than three 
 thousand miles. In its width, in its narrowest dimen- 
 sions, where it converges toward the gulph, from the 
 sources of the Tennessee, to those of Red River of 
 the south, can scarcely be less than two thousand two 
 hundred miles. A keel-boat of forty tons burden can 
 take in its family and its load in the state of New 
 York, and by the Allegany, the Ohio, the Mississippi, 
 and Missouri, land them at the foot of the Stony 
 Mountains ; having made, in a continued course, a 
 voyage of greater length than the crossing the Atlan- 
 tic. It is stated that boats can ascend the " Roche 
 Jaune/' or Yellowstone of the Missouri, more than a 
 thousand miles. Boats ascend the Arkansas and Red 
 River, nearly two thousand miles. Boats come with 
 very short portages from Montreal to the upper Mis- 
 sissippi, and I have seen a Mackinaw 7 skiff, carrying 
 five tons, which came from the lakes into the Chicago 
 of Michigan, and from that over a morass, from one 
 end of which run the waters of the Chicago, and 
 from the other those of the Illinois, into the Missouri, 
 without any portage at all. The waters of the morass 
 were found sufficiently deep for her to make her way 
 from the river of the lake, to that of the Mississippi. 
 Boats pass New Madrid, some of which come down 
 the Wabash many hundred miles, before it reaches the 
 Ohio ; and others in an opposite direction, down the 
 Tennessee, much farther than the course of the Wa- 
 bash. 
 
103 
 
 In the spring, one hundred boats have been num- 
 bered, that landed in one day at the mouth of the 
 Bayan, at New Madrid. I have strolled to the point 
 on a spring evening, and seen them arriving in fleets. 
 The boisterous gaiety of the hands, the congratula- 
 tions, the moving picture of life on board the boats, in 
 the numerous animals, large and small, which they 
 carry, their different loads, the evidence of the increas- 
 ing agriculture of the country above, and more than 
 all, the immense distances which they have already 
 come, and those which they have still to go, afforded 
 to me copious sources of meditation. You can name 
 no point from the numerous rivers of the Ohio and 
 the Mississippi, from which some of these boats have 
 not come. In one place there are boats loaded with 
 planks, from the pine forests of the southwest of New 
 York. In another quarter there are the Yankee no- 
 tions of Ohio. From Kentucky, pork, flour, whiskey, 
 hemp, tobacco, bagging, and bale-rope. From Ten- 
 nessee there are the same articles, together with great 
 quantities of cotton. From Missouri and Illinois, cat- 
 tle and horses, the same articles generally as from 
 Ohio, together with peltry and lead from Missouri. 
 Some boats are loaded with corn in the ear and in 
 bulk ; others with barrels of apples and potatoes. 
 Some have loads of cider, and what they call " cider 
 royal," or cider that has been strengthened by boiling 
 or freezing. There are dried fruits, every kind of 
 spirits manufactured in these regions, and in short, the 
 products of the ingenuity and agriculture of the whole 
 upper country of the west. They have come from 
 regions, thousands of miles apart. They have floated 
 to a common point of union. The surfaces of the 
 boats cover some acres. Dunghill fowls are fluttering 
 
104 
 
 over the roofs, as an invariable appendage. The 
 chanticleer raises his piercing note. The swine utter 
 their cries. The cattle low. The horses trample, as 
 in their stables. There are boats fitted on purpose, 
 and loaded entirely with turkeys, that, having little 
 else to do, gobble most furiously. The hands travel 
 about from boat to boat, make inquiries, and acquaint- 
 ances, and form alliances to yield mutual assistance 
 to each other, on their descent from this to New 
 Orleans. After an hour or two passed in this way, 
 they spring on shore to raise the wind in town. It is 
 well for the people of the village, if they do not be- 
 come riotous in the course of the evening ; in which 
 case I have often seen the mcst summary and strong 
 measures taken. About midnight the uproar is all 
 hushed. The fleet unites once more at Natchez, or 
 New Orleans, and, although they live on the same 
 river, they may, perhaps, never meet each other again 
 on the earth. 
 
 Next morning at the first dawn, the bugles sound. 
 Every thing in and about the boats, that has life, is 
 in motion. The boats, in half an hour, are all under 
 way. In a little while they have all disappeared, and 
 nothing is seen, as before they came, but the regular 
 current of the river. In passing down the Mississippi, 
 we often see a number of boats lashed and floating 
 together. I was once on board a fleet of eight, that 
 were in this way moving on together. It was a con- 
 siderable walk, to travel over the roofs of this floating 
 town. On board of one boat they were killing swine. 
 In another they had apples, cider, nuts, and dried fruit. 
 One of the boats was a retail or dram shop. It seems 
 that the object in lashing so many boats, had been to 
 barter, and obtain supplies. These confederacies 
 
105 
 
 often commence in a frolic, and end in a quarrel, in 
 which case the aggrieved party dissolves the partner- 
 ship by unlashing, and managing his own boat in his 
 own way. While this fleet of boats is floating sepa- 
 rately, but each carried by the same current, nearly 
 at the same rate, visits take place from boat to boat in 
 skiffs. 
 
 While I was at New Madrid, a large tinner's estab- 
 lishment floated there in a boat. In it all the different 
 articles of tin-ware were manufactured and sold by 
 wholesale and retail. There were three large apart- 
 ments, where the different branches of the art were 
 carried on in this floating manufactory. When they 
 had mended all the tin, and vended all that they could 
 sell in one place, they floated on to another. A still 
 more extraordinary manufactory, we were told, was 
 floating down the Ohio, and shortly expected at New 
 Madrid. Aboard this were manufactured axes, scythes, 
 and all other iron tools of this description, and in it hors- 
 es were shod. In short it was a complete blacksmith's 
 shop of a higher order, and it is said that they jesting- 
 ly talked of having a trip-hammer worked by a horse 
 power on board. I have frequently seen in this re- 
 gion a dry goods shop in a boat, with its articles very 
 handsomely arranged on shelves. Nor would the del- 
 icate hands of the vender have disgraced the spruce 
 clerk behind our city counters. It is now common to 
 see flat-boats worked by a bucket wheel, and a horse 
 power, after the fashion of steam-boat movement. In- 
 deed, every spring brings forth new contrivances of 
 this sort, the result of the farmer's meditations over his 
 winter's fire. 
 
 St. Louis is a kind of central point, in this immense 
 valley. From this point, outfits are constantly mak- 
 14 
 
106 
 
 ing to the military posts, and to the remotest regions by 
 the hunters for furs. Boats are also constantly ascend- 
 ing to the lead-mine districts, on the upper Mississippi. 
 From our boat, as we lay in the harbour of St. Louis, 
 we could see " The Mandan/' as the name of a boat 
 bound far up the Missouri. Another was up for 
 " Prairie du Chien," and the Falls of St. Anthony ; 
 another for the highest points of the Illinois ; another 
 for the Arkansas ; and " The Gumbo," for Natchez 
 and New Orleans. 
 
 Consider that the lakes are wedded to the ocean by 
 the New York canal. The Illinois will shortly be 
 with Chicago and Michigan ; for it is, for a little 
 while in the spring, partially so by nature. The 
 union of the Ohio with the lakes, on the one hand, 
 and with the tide waters of Virginia, on the other, is 
 not only contemplated, but the labour to effect it is 
 commenced. When these contemplated canals are 
 completed, certainly no country in the world can 
 equal ours in the number, convenience, and extent of 
 its internal water communications. 
 
 The advantage of steam- boats, great as it is every 
 where, can no where be appreciated as in this country. 
 The distant points of the Ohio and Mississippi used to 
 be separated from New Orleans by an internal ob- 
 struction, far more formidable in the passing, than the 
 Atlantic. If I may use a hard word, they are now 
 brought into juxtaposition. To feel what an inven- 
 tion this is for these regions, one must have seen and 
 felt, as I have seen and felt, the difficulty and danger 
 of forcing a boat against tbe current of these mighty 
 rivers, on which a progress of ten miles in a day, is a 
 good one. Indeed those huge and unwieldy boats, 
 the barges in which a great proportion of the articles 
 
107 
 
 from New Orleans used to be transported to the up- 
 per country, required twenty or thirty hands to work 
 them. I have seen them day after day, on the lower 
 portions of the Mississippi, where there was no other 
 way of working them up, than carrying out a cable 
 half a mile in length, in advance of the barge, and fas- 
 tening it to a tree. The hands on board then draw it 
 up to the tree. While this is transacting, another 
 yawl, still in advance of that, has ascended to a high- 
 er tree, and made another cable fast to it, to be ready 
 to be drawn upon, as soon as the first is coiled. This 
 is the most dangerous and fatiguing way of all, and 
 six miles advance in a day, is good progress. 
 
 It is now refreshing, and imparts a feeling of energy 
 and power to the beholder, to see the large and beauti- 
 ful steam-boats scudding up the eddies, as though on 
 the wing ; and when they have run out the eddy, 
 strike the current. The foam bursts in a sheet quite 
 over the deck. She quivers for a moment with the 
 concussion ; and then, as though she had collected 
 her energy, and vanquished her enemy, she resumes 
 her stately march, and mounts against the current, five 
 or six miles an hour. I have travelled in this way for 
 days together, more than a hundred miles in a day, 
 against the current of the Mississippi. The difficulty 
 of ascending, used to be the only circumstance of a 
 voyage that was dreaded in the anticipation. This 
 difficulty now disappears. A family in Pittsburg 
 wishes to make a social visit to a kindred family on 
 Red River. The trip is but two thousand miles. 
 They all go together; servants, baggage or " plunder," 
 as the phrase is, to any amount. In twelve days they 
 reach the point proposed. Even the return is but a 
 short voyage. Surely the people of this country will 
 
108 
 
 have to resist strong temptations, if they do not be- 
 come a social people. You are invited to a breakfast, 
 at seventy miles' distance. You go on board the pass- 
 ing steam-boat and awake in the morning in season 
 for your appointment. The day will probably come, 
 when the inhabitants of the warm and sickly regions 
 of the lower points of the Mississippi, will take their 
 periodical migrations to the north, with the geese and 
 swans of the gulph, and with them return in the win- 
 ter. 
 
 A sea voyage, after all that can be said in its fa- 
 vour, is a very different thing from all this. The bar- 
 ren and boundless expanse of waters, soon tires upon 
 every eye but a seaman's. I say nothing of fasten- 
 ing tables, and holding fast to beds, or inability to 
 write or to cook. I leave out of sight sea-sickness, 
 and the danger of descending to those sea-green caves 
 of which poetry has so much to say. Here you are 
 always near the shore, always see the green earth, can 
 always eat, write, and sleep undisturbed. You can 
 always obtain cream, fowls, vegetables, fruit, wild 
 game; and in my mind there is no kind of comparison 
 between the comforts and discomforts of a sea and 
 river voyage. 
 
 A stranger to this mode of travelling, w r ould find it 
 difficult to describe his impressions upon first descending 
 the Mississippi in one of the better steam-boats. He 
 contemplates the prodigious establishment, with all its 
 fitting of deck common, and ladies' cabin apartments. 
 Over head, about him and below him, all is life and 
 movement. He sees its splendid cabin, richly carpet- 
 ed, its finishings of mahogany, its mirrors and fine 
 furniture, its bar-room, and sliding-tables, to which 
 eighty passengers can sit down with comfort. The 
 
109 
 
 fare is sumptuous, and every thing in a style of splen- 
 dour, order, quiet, and regularity, far exceeding that of 
 taverns in general. You read, you converse, you 
 walk, you sleep, as you choose ; for custom has pre- 
 scribed that every thing shall be " sans ceremonie." 
 The varied and verdant scenery shifts around you. 
 The trees, the green islands, have an appearance, as 
 by enchantment, of moving by you. The river-fowl, 
 with their white and extended lines, are wheeling 
 their flight above you. The sky is bright. The river 
 is dotted with boats above you, beside, and below you. 
 You hear the echo of their bugles reverberating from 
 the woods. Behind the wooded point, you see the 
 ascending column of smoke, rising above the trees, 
 which announces that another steam-boat is approach- 
 ing you. This moving pageant glides through a nar- 
 row passage between an island, thick set with young 
 cotton-woods, so even, so regular, and beautiful that 
 they seem to have been planted for a pleasure ground, 
 and the main shore. As you shoot out again into the 
 broad stream, you come in view of a plantation, with 
 all its busy and cheerful accompaniments. At other 
 times you are sweeping along for many leagues to- 
 gether, where either shore is a boundless and pathless 
 wilderness. And the contrast, which is thus so strong- 
 ly forced upon the mind, of the highest improvement 
 and the latest invention of art, with the most lonely as- 
 pect of a grand but desolate nature, — the most striking 
 and complete assemblage of splendour aud comfort, 
 the cheerfulness of a floating hotel, which carries, per- 
 haps, two hundred guests, with a wild and uninhabit- 
 ed forest, one hundred miles in width, the abode only 
 of owls, bears, and noxious animals, — this strong con- 
 trast produces, to me at least, something of the same. 
 
110 
 
 pleasant sensation that is produced by lying down to 
 sleep with the rain pouring on the roof, immediately 
 over head. 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 St. Louis, as you approach it, shows, like all the 
 other French towns in this region, to much the great- 
 est advantage at a distance. The French mode of 
 building, and the white coat of lime applied to the mud 
 or rough stone walls, give them a beauty at a distance, 
 which gives place to their native meanness, when you 
 inspect them from a nearer point of view. The town 
 shows to very great advantage, when seen from the op- 
 posite shore, in the American bottom. The site is nat- 
 urally a most beautiful one, rising gradually from the 
 shore to the summit of the bluff, like an amphitheatre. 
 It contains many handsome, and a few splendid build- 
 ings. The country about it is an open, pleasant, and 
 undulating kind of half prairie, half shrubbery. A 
 little beyond the town, there is considerable smooth 
 grass prairie. The forest, west and north of the 
 town, is only just discernible in the distance, and com- 
 mences eight miles from the town. Just beyond the 
 skirts of the town, are some old, white, stone forts, 
 built in Spanish times, as defences against the In- 
 dians, which have a romantic and beautiful appear- 
 ance. A little northeast of the town, you see a mound 
 of a conical form and considerable elevation, an inter- 
 esting relic of the olden time. As I propose a more 
 particular description of the town in another place, I 
 shall give you no more details of this sort here. 
 
Ill 
 
 Just above the point made by the junction of the 
 Missouri and Mississippi, is Belle-fontaine, formerly a 
 considerable military station, where a few companies 
 of soldiers used to be quartered in comfortable bar- 
 racks. There is a pleasant settlement along the 
 banks of this river, up to the cantonment. At Floris- 
 sant there is a delightful small prairie, which has the 
 appearance of having been in former days the bed df a 
 lake. The soil is of extreme fertility, and as black as 
 ink. Here are large tracts covered with hazel bushes, 
 prairie plumb, and crab apple trees. The beauty and 
 fertility of this place is indicated by the French name. 
 A delightful bottom here skirts the Missouri. This 
 place has a convent, a building of considerable size 
 and beauty. It contains a number of professed re- 
 |2n2 ligiof s. It has also a small Catholic church. All 
 the region, in this direction from St. Louis, is marked 
 at intervals with flourishing farms. On the western 
 direction from town, at eight miles distance, com- 
 mences the settlement of Bon-homme, extending to 
 the Missouri, which, notwithstanding its French name, 
 is almost entirely an American settlement. Below 
 the town, as 1 have remarked, is the French village of 
 Carondelet. These settlements, extending to the 
 Maramec and the Missouri, for nearly thirty miles' 
 distance, were among the first regions which 1 explor- 
 ed, as a missionary. 
 
 In these pursuits I was associated with another gen- 
 tleman, a missionary from Connecticut. We found 
 the country, as it respected our profession, destitute of 
 a single church or preacher. There had never been, 
 as far as I could learn, the celebration of a protest- 
 ant communion in St. Louis. I administered this 
 ordinance there. Many affecting circumstances ac- 
 
112 
 
 companied this communion, the narration of which 
 would, I suppose, more properly belong to a work ex- 
 clusively devoted to religious intelligence. One cir- 
 cumstance took from its pleasantness and comfort, and 
 rendered the duty perplexing. The members that 
 communed, were from different states and countries. 
 Each professor seemed pertinaciously to exact, that 
 the peculiar usages of his church should be adopted 
 on this occasion, and seemed not a little shocked, that 
 in order to meet the feelings of others, equally attach- 
 ed to their peculiar modes, something of medium and 
 compromise must be observed. The narrowness of 
 that spirit which stands as strongly for the " mint and 
 cummin," as the " weightier matters, 5 ' and the com- 
 pound of temper, pride, and self-will, that is so apt to 
 mix unperceived with our best actions, seldom have had 
 a fairer scope, and seldom showed themselves more 
 strongly than on this occasion. This blind attach- 
 ment to form was nobly contrasted with the simple 
 and striking devotion of a black servant of a Catholic 
 Frenchman, who offered himself for communion, was 
 carefully examined, and accepted. He would not be 
 dissuaded from making his small offering of money 
 with the rest. u God," said he, " has put it into my 
 heart to do something for his cause, and I hope you 
 will not refuse my offering." The difficulties in the 
 end. were happily adjusted, and we sat down in peace. 
 
 Here would be, perhaps, the place to examine the 
 manner, spirit, and success of my ministry for years in 
 Missouri. But besides that we have already exten- 
 sively communicated upon these subjects with each 
 other, you know that my present plan is not to go into 
 this kind of detail. A missionary in such a region, 
 with a family, feeble in health, and constituted in body 
 
113 
 
 and mind as I am, might expect, with the best and 
 most earnest intentions, to encounter numberless diffi- 
 culties. The region was just beginning to be peopled. 
 All the elements of religious combination were in a 
 state of chaos. People are apt every where to regard 
 the form, more than the substance of religion. In 
 new countries, composed of emigrants from different 
 regions, forms are almost the only thing remembered 
 and 'retained. A man of earnestness of mind, and of 
 strong feelings, is liable to be depressed and enfeebled 
 in the contemplation of such a field, in which he sees 
 the dark side of things, in the actual exemplification of 
 what passes for religion. It is the more discouraging, 
 from its having at first a very different aspect. Your 
 first reception is apparently cordial in the highest de- 
 gree. Mutual congratulations that you are come, are 
 interchanged, and all promises attention and harmony. 
 As you inspect things more intimately, and as the in- 
 nate principles of disunion begin to come in play, this 
 fair prospect becomes gradually overcast. The wor- 
 shippers split on trifling differences. The more tri- 
 fling, the more pertinaciously they cling to them, and 
 where but a few Sabbaths before all 'seemed union, 
 you soon find that all is discord. Who shall be the 
 preacher ? what modes of worship shall be adopted ? 
 and especially where shall the house, or place of wor- 
 ship, be located ? — these are themes, too often, of bit- 
 ter and disorganizing dispute. 
 
 In these new regions, too, of the most absolute in- 
 dependence, you see all the wanderings of human 
 thought, every shade of faith, every degree of the most 
 persevering attachment to preconceived opinions You 
 see, too, ail degrees of pretension in religion, followed 
 by unhappy manifestations of the holloWness of such 
 
 15 
 
114 
 
 pretension. You meet, it is true, with more cheering 
 circumstances, and we are sometimes able to see that 
 which we strongly wish to see. But the mission- 
 ary must prepare himself to encounter many difficul- 
 ties of the sort which I have enumerated. 
 
 At one point you meet with a respectable Method- 
 ist, and begin to feel an attachment to the profession. 
 He next meets you with harmony and co-operation on 
 his lips, and the next thing which you hear, is, 'that 
 you are charged with being a fierce Calvinist, and 
 that you have preached that 44 hell is paved with 
 infants' skulls." While, perhaps the society, with 
 which you are connected, hear from an opposite quar- 
 ter, and from a pretended friend, that in such a ser- 
 mon you departed from the dicta of the great master, 
 and are leading the people to the gulph of Arminian- 
 ism. The Baptists are as exclusive as in the older 
 regions. Even among our own brethren, it is well 
 known, that there is some feeling of a questionable 
 nature, some rivalry between the pupils, the doctors, 
 and schools, of Andover and Princeton. The Cum- 
 berland Presbyterians, with all the freshness of a new 
 sect, are not .found lacking in this order of things. 
 Lastly, there are the Catholics, abundantly more unit- 
 ed in faith, in spirit, and in purpose, than we are, — 
 who claim a kind of prescriptive right to the ground, 
 on the pretext of prior possession. We know that 
 they preach as a standing maxim, u Point de salut hors 
 de Peglise," that there is no salvation out of their 
 church. Add to these the followers of Elias Smith, 
 and multitudes of men who would be founders of new 
 sects, and who erect their own standard in the wilder- 
 ness, and you will have some idea of the sectarian feel- 
 ings that you will have to encounter. The Atlantic 
 
115 
 
 country has heard much, and too much, about their wil- 
 lingness to support preachers in these regions. There 
 may be a few exceptions that have not come to my 
 know ledge, widely as I have travelled ; but I feel too 
 well assured, all other representations to the contrary 
 notwithstanding, that the people think in general, that 
 attendance upon preaching, sufficiently compensates 
 the minister. No minister of any protestant denom- 
 ination, to my knowledge, has ever received a suffi- 
 cient living two years in succession. Take these cir- 
 cumstances together, and you will then have some 
 idea of a minister's prospect of worldly success and 
 comfort in these regions. 
 
 Have they not been useful ? Have they not had 
 success ? I would hope both. The precursors in 
 new regions have generally encountered such trials as 
 are recited above. But, I would hope, not in vain. 
 They have drawn sighs, that have only reached the 
 ear of Heaven. Not one good word or work has been 
 without its impression. The seed, which seems to 
 have been scattered in a sterile desert, may spring up ; 
 but, perhaps, not till a future and more favoured period. 
 Many faithful, laborious, and patient men, who have 
 been associated with me in these labours, have fallen 
 in tiiese wildernesses, after having encountered all these 
 difficulties. What is worse, they have fallen almost 
 unnoticed, and their labours and sufferings unrecorded. 
 For they toiled and died, though it may be eight hun- 
 dred leagues away, in an American desert ; and with 
 such a decease, there are connected no feelings of ro- 
 mance. But the missionary, who falls in a foreign 
 land, is lamented as a hero and a martyr. Provision 
 is made for his family, and the enthusiasm and regret 
 of romantic sensibility attach to his memory. 
 
116 
 
 If my plan admitted such narrative, I would at- 
 tempt, in my humble way, to rescue from oblivion, the 
 names of three young men whom I knew intimately, 
 and who died in the discharge of missionary duties in 
 these regions. I heard of the death of others, that I 
 knew not. But freed from earth and its toils, their 
 bones moulder in these remote prairies, as peacefully 
 as though their fall had been recorded, their names 
 and deeds eulogized. They were exemplary and de- 
 voted men, and their names are no doubt recorded on 
 more durable tablets, than the frail memorials of men. 
 
 Let not the inference be drawn, that I would de- 
 scribe the men of these countries as peculiarly bad, or 
 indisposed to religion. Truth and gratitude equally 
 forbid, that any thing should fall from my pen, intend- 
 ing to convey the conclusion that this is in any respect 
 a degenerate race of men. The evils do not belong 
 to them in particular, but to human nature placed in 
 such circumstances. I mean in another letter, as far 
 as honest acd earnest intentions will go, to vindicate a 
 class of people, who have been grossly misrepresented, 
 and misunderstood, — the western backwoodsmen. 
 
 But I am ready to believe that most of the mission- 
 aries, who have been long in these countries, could, if 
 they chose, deliver an unvarnished and uncoloured 
 statement of having found things much as I have de- 
 scribed them. For myself, I could easily fill a volume 
 with the details of trials, perplexities, and sufferings. 
 I have laboured much, not in the vain hope of obtain- 
 ing either much compensation or much fame. Should I 
 describe all that I was called to endure, from sickness, 
 opposition, and privation, and from causes unnecessary 
 to be named, the most sober account would seem like 
 the fictions of romance. I speak to one not ignorant 
 of the real state of things. 
 
117 
 
 As it respects the varieties of religious opinion in 
 that country, and in yours, of one thing I have long 
 been deeply convinced, — that religion is love, love 
 to God and to men ; that if there should ever be any 
 thing like assent to a common faith on the earth, it 
 will be to experimental religion, the religion of the 
 heart. Disputation and discussion, under the mistak- 
 en idea of enlightening the understanding, tend to 
 banish the small remains of religion from among us. 
 The heart, I believe, can be drawn out by a principle 
 of attraction to God, when there are great errors in 
 the understanding. When will people cease to dog- 
 matize, and define, and dispute, and place religion in 
 knowledge, and the settling of points ? The ethereal 
 essence evaporates in such a harsh process. The 
 world has had enough, and too much, of learned trea- 
 tises upon what is and what is not religion. The ten 
 thousand will never have very learned or philosophical 
 ideas upon the subject. But each one of them can 
 feel compunction, and pour out the soul before God. 
 Happy, and thrice happy, in my judgment, if men laid 
 less stress upon knowledge, and more upon experi- 
 mental acquaintance with the power of religion. You 
 have so much and so earnestly combated the idea of 
 an implicit faith, that I hardly dare advance my opin- 
 ion upon the subject here. But I have long been 
 firmly of the opinion, that the Catholics w r ere right, in 
 representing much questioning, and disputing of points, 
 as ruinous in their tendencies. The multitude never 
 had, have not now, and 1 judge will never have, an 
 influential faith, except it be an implicit one. 
 
 You and I think alike, about the monstrous absurdi- 
 ties of the Catholic faith ; but we differ about what if 
 would be, if these absurdities were laid aside, as I 
 
118 
 
 trust they gradually will be. There can be no ques- 
 tion about the revolting contradictions of the real pres- 
 ence, the infallibility of the pope or the church, and 
 other additions of the dark ages to their faith and cer- 
 emonial. But their reverential attachment to their 
 ministers, their disposition to regard their church and 
 their doctrine every where as one, their unwillingness 
 to dispute about the articles of their faith, their dispo- 
 sition to sacrifice personal interests to the common 
 cause, and the imposing forms of their worship, — might 
 not be regarded by protestants without utility. When 
 I have seen tranquillity settle on the expiring counte- 
 nance of the Catholic, after his minister has adminis- 
 tered extreme unction and said, " Depart, christian 
 soul," I have regretted the condition of those who 
 have always been perplexing themselves about points 
 , that human reason has no concern with, and who have 
 nothing but doubting for this last solemn hour. 
 
 You know that I suffered acute disease repeatedly, 
 and was more than once shaken over the grave. My 
 general health was feeble. I had a considerable fam- 
 ily. In the latter part of my ministry there, I was 
 unable to endure the fatigue incident to the duties of 
 a missionary. For two years I derived not support 
 enough from the people, — though I laboured " in sea- 
 son and out of season," — to defray the expenses of my 
 ferriage over the rivers. But I saw my happy times, 
 when the people seemed affected, and in earnest upon 
 the subject of religion. I had my hours, when debil- 
 ity, and concern for my family, and trials, and oppo- 
 sition, all vanished, and I saw nothing but God and 
 eternity. Still it will be to me, as it would to every 
 conscientious man, matter of grief and abasement of 
 spirit, that I can look back upon neglected opportuni- 
 
119 
 
 ties to do good, that can never return. On the other 
 hand, I look back with pleasure upon many instances 
 in which I was enabled to convey charity and relief to 
 the destitute stranger in sickness, and consolation to 
 the dying, and decent and christian burial to the dead. 
 I remember no people in that region more gratefully, 
 than those of whose bounty in such cases 1 was the 
 almoner. Though I have far more occasion for self- 
 rebuke than complacency, yet I am aware that the 
 effects of envy and misrepresentation, — and every in- 
 dependent man who has thought for himself, will have 
 to encounter them as I did, — have passed away. In 
 the memory of the. best, I have a humble conviction 
 that my poor services will survive. 
 
 If i could give you details from my daily journal, it 
 would only embrace frequent and distant journies, 
 the Grossing of rivers, forming new places of worship, 
 attempts to settle disputes as they arose, in short, such 
 labours as are severe, and bring, as the world counts 
 it, neither honour nor profit. In looking back upon 
 them, ftjom the immense distance where I write this, 
 they assume only the appearance of a long and labori- 
 ous dream. We certainly saw a very great change in 
 the moral aspect of the country. At St. Louis we 
 saw arise a considerable and a very serious and re- 
 spectable Presbyterian church. In St. Charles, where 
 there was not a professor of our form of religion when 
 I went there, we saw arise a large church, a small but 
 neat place of worship, various charitable societies, and 
 a very striking change in the manners of the people. 
 We counted, in various parts of the state, a number of 
 churches and ministers of our order, and when we 
 went there, they had not one. We had three efficient 
 bible societies, and many sunday schools and associa- 
 tions of a like character. 
 
120 
 
 In dividing my labours with the gentlemen, with 
 whom I was associated, it was deemed expedient that 
 I should locate myself at St. Charles, on the Missouri ; 
 a place central to the population of the state, and 
 which has since been the seat of government. Accor- 
 dingly, in the same keel-boat which brought us from 
 Cincinnati, we moved in September to St. Charles. 
 The tenth of that month, 1816, we saw the mouth of 
 the Missouri, the largest tributary stream in the world. 
 It strikes the upper Mississippi, which is a broad, 
 placid stream, a mile in width, nearly at right angles. 
 It pours along a narrow, but deep, rapid, and turbid 
 current, white with the amount of marly clay, with 
 which it is charged. It is impossible to contemplate, 
 without interest, a river which rises in vast and name- 
 less mountains, and runs at one time through deep 
 forests, and then through grassy plains, between three 
 and four thousand miles, before it arrives here. My 
 family ascended to St. Charles in the boat, and I went 
 up by land. 
 
 Having crossed a deep bottom of two miles in 
 width, 1 came out upon the first prairie of any great 
 size or beauty that I had seen. It was Sabbath, and 
 a fine September morning. Every object was brilliant 
 with a bright sun, and wet with a shower that had 
 fallen the preceding evening. The first time a stran- 
 ger comes in view of this prairie, take it all in all, the 
 most beautiful that I have ever seen, a scene strikes 
 him that will never be forgotten. The noble border of 
 Wood, that with its broad curve skirts this prairie, has 
 features peculiar to the Missouri bottom, and distinct 
 from that of the Mississippi. 1 observed the cotton 
 trees to be immensely tall, rising like Corinthian col- 
 umns, enwrapped with a luxuriant wreathing of ivy, 
 
121 
 
 and the bignonia radicans, with its splendid, trumpet- 
 shaped flowers, displayed them glittering in the sun, 
 quite on the summits of the trees. The prairie itself 
 was a most glorious spectacle. Such a sea of verdure, 
 in one direction extending beyond the reach of the 
 eye, and presenting millions of flowers of every scent 
 and hue, seemed an immense flower garden. The air 
 was soft and mild. The smoke streamed aloft from 
 the houses and cabins, which indented the prairie, just 
 in the edge of the wood. The best view of this prai- 
 rie is from the " Marnelles," which bound it on the 
 west. 
 
 There are evident indications, that these mighty 
 rivers, the Missouri and the upper Mississippi, once 
 united at the foot of the Mamelles. These are a suc- 
 cession of regular, cone-shaped bluffs, which the 
 French, — who are remarkable for giving names sig- 
 nificant of the fancied resemblance of the thing, — have 
 supposed to resemble the object whose name they bear. 
 From the declivity of these .beautiful eminences to the 
 present union of the rivers, is, by their meanders, 
 twenty-five miles. The prairie extends from them 
 more than half this distance towards the junction. To 
 the right, the Missouri converges towards the Missis- 
 sippi, by an easy curve, the limits of which are marked 
 by the Missouri bluffs, which form a blue and indent- 
 ed outline, over the tops of the grand forest bottoms. 
 You can trace these bluffs to the point of union. To 
 the left, your eye catches the much broader curve of 
 the upper Mississippi, which presents a regular section 
 of an immense circle. Your eye follows this curve 
 forty miles. In the whole of this distance, the oppo- 
 site, or Illinois shore, is marked with a noble and bold 
 outline, over which hovers a blue and smoky mist. 
 16 
 
122 
 
 The perfect smoothness of the basin enclosed between 
 the two rivers, a carpet of verdure diversified with the 
 most beautify] flowers, and the great extent of the 
 curve, give the perpendicular bluffs that bound the ba- 
 sin, the aspect of mountains. This curve presents an 
 unbroken blue outline, except in one point, and 
 through that chasm is seen the Illinois, whose cliffs 
 are just discovered fading away in the distance, at the 
 east. 
 
 Between such magnificent outlines, from the foot of 
 the Mamelles, the prairie, in ascending towards the 
 north, has a width of five miles, and is seventy miles 
 in length. On the Mississippi side, the prairie touches 
 the river for most of this distance. The aspect of the 
 whole surface is so smooth, so level, and the verdure so 
 delightful, that the eye reposes upon it. Houses at 
 eight miles distance over this plain, seem just at your 
 feet. A few spreading trees planted by hand, are dotted 
 here and there upon the surface. Two fine islands 
 of woodland, of a circular form, diversify the view. 
 Large flocks of cattle and horses are seen grazing to- 
 gether. It is often the case that a flock of wild deer 
 is seen bounding over the plain. In the autumn, 
 immense flocks of pelicans, sand-bills, cranes, geese, 
 swans, ducks, and all kinds of aquatic fowls, are seen 
 hover in 2: over it. The soil is of the easiest culture 
 and the most exuberant productiveness. The farms 
 are laid out in parallelograms. At the foot of the 
 Mamelles are clumps of hazel bushes, pawpaws, wild 
 grapes, and prairie plums, in abundance. The grass 
 is thick and tall. Corn and wheat grow in the great- 
 est perfection. When I first saw this charming scene, 
 " Here," said I to my companion w 7 ho guided me, 
 "here shall be my farm, and here I will end my 
 
123 
 
 days! " In effect, take it all in all, I have not seen, 
 before nor since, a landscape which united, in an equal 
 degree, the grand, the beautiful, and fertile. It is not 
 necessary in seeing it to be very young or very roman- 
 tic, in order to have dreams steal over the mind, of 
 spending an Arcadian life in these remote plains, 
 which just begin to be vexed with the plough, far re- 
 moved from the haunts of wealth and fashion, in the 
 midst of rustic plenty, and of this beautiful nature. 
 
 I will only add, that it is intersected with two or 
 three canals, apparently the former beds of the river ; 
 that the soil is mellow, friable, and of an inky black- 
 ness ; that it immediately absorbs the rain, and affords 
 a road, always dry and beautiful, to Portage des Sioux. 
 It yields generally forty bushels of wheat, and seventy 
 of corn to the acre. The vegetable soil has a depth of 
 forty feet, and earth thrown from the bottom of the 
 w r ells, is as fertile as that on the surface. At a depth 
 of forty feet are found logs, leaves, pieces of pit-coal, 
 and a stratum of sand and pebbles, bearing evident 
 marks of the former attrition of running waters. Here 
 are a hundred thousand acres of land of this descrip- 
 tion, fit for the plough. 
 
 At the lower and northern edge of this prairie, is 
 the French village of Portage des Sioux ; and on the 
 opposite side of the river the beautiful bluffs of which 
 I have spoken. While I stood on the Mamelles, and 
 was looking in that direction, slight clouds and banks 
 of mist obscured them from view. In a few moments 
 the wind arose and dispersed the mists, and they burst 
 upon me in all the splendour of their height and hoary 
 whiteness. My companion, accustomed as he was to 
 the view, and not at all addicted to raptures, exclaim- 
 ed that he had never seen them look so beautiful. For 
 
m 
 
 myself, although 1 had seen on passing them, that they 
 were on the skirt of an unpeopled solitude, I could 
 hardly persuade myself, so complete was the illusion, 
 that I did not behold a noble and ancient town, built 
 of stone, whose immense buildings were surmounted 
 with towers and spires. 
 
 r lhat they impress other imaginations in the same 
 way, will appear from an incident that occurred some 
 years after. In crossing the prairie, and descending 
 towards Portage des Sioux, I came up with a French- 
 man descending also from St. Charles to that place. 
 The village before us was hidden from our view by 
 an interposing bench. As I came up with him, he 
 asked me the distance and the direction to Portage des 
 Sioux. I mentioned the distance, and pointed in the 
 direction, remarking that the village was behind the 
 bench, and could not be seen until we arrived there. 
 He was a gay, buoyant fellow, just from old France, 
 and with the characteristic disposition to see every 
 thing in its best and gayest light. " Derriere les 
 bancs ! " said he, pointing with a flourish of his hand 
 to the hoary pinnacles of the bluffs. 44 Pas du tout, 
 monsieur ! Voila la ville ! Une place superbe ! " He 
 chose to find the city, not in mud-walled cottages, but 
 in turrets and spires, like those of Paris. 
 
 In ascending the rivers, the Mississippi is swifter 
 and more difficult to surmount above the mouth of the 
 Ohio than it is below. The Missouri is considerably 
 more difficult of navigation than the Mississippi. It 
 possesses all the characteristics of that river in a still 
 higher degree. It is more fierce and unsparing in its 
 wrath, sweeping islands and large tracts of ground 
 away on one hand, to form an island and a sand-bar 
 with them on another. In ascending to St. Charles, 
 
125 
 
 my family experienced great difficulty. Ffom the 
 mouth to that place, and especially in passing Belle 
 Fontaine, the water is extremely difficult and dange- 
 rous. It is almost a continued ripple, pouring furious- 
 ly against the numerous sawyers, which give the river 
 the appearance of a field of dead trees. On the morn- 
 ing of the fifth day from St. Louis, my family arrived 
 at St. Charles, on the north bank of the Missouri, dis- 
 tant from the former place, by the course of the river, 
 forty miles. We were soon situated in a house be- 
 tween the first and second bluffs, a little distance from 
 the village, in a situation delightfully sheltered by 
 fruit-trees and shrubbery. Madame Duquette, a re- 
 spectable widow, owned it, and occupied one half with 
 us. The town is partly visible from this retirement, 
 although the noise is not heard. The river spreads 
 out below it in a wide and beautiful bay, adorned 
 with an island thick set with those regular cotton 
 trees, which so much resemble trees that have been 
 planted for a pleasure ground. The trees about the 
 house were literally bending under their loads of ap- 
 ples, pears, and the yellow Osage plum. Above the 
 house, and on the summit of the bluff, is a fine tract 
 of high and level plain, covered with hazie bushes and 
 wild hops, a great abundance of grapes, and the red 
 prairie plums. In this peaceful and pleasant residence 
 we passed two happy years, unmarked by any unusual 
 suffering or disaster. 
 
 The first Sabbath that I preached at St. Charles, 
 before morning worship, directly opposite the house 
 where service was to take place, there was a horse- 
 race. The horses received the signal to start away 
 just as I rode to the door. I have adverted to the 
 point before, but I cannot forbear to relate, that six 
 
126 
 
 years after, when I left the place, it was after a com- 
 munion, where the services had been performed in a 
 decent brick church, in which forty communicants 
 had received communion. When the legislature sat 
 here, which it had then done for three sessions, the 
 members remarked upon the seriousness and regularity 
 of the inhabitants of this place, and were in the habit 
 of drawing strong inferences in favour of the influence 
 of religion. In St. Louis and in other places, where 
 churches were formed, it was remarked that the man- 
 ners of the people became visibly softened and refined. 
 We had considerable societies in St. Louis, St. 
 Charles, at Bon-homme, at the Mines, at Jackson in 
 Cape Girardeau, and in other directions in the old and 
 settled parts of the state. We had also societies at 
 Boon's Lick, and in the new settlements that sprung 
 up on the upper Mississippi. We were in the habit of 
 being often consulted by the people, about building 
 tempory places of public worship. We soon found 
 that this furnished a fruitful source of discord. It was 
 hoped that the location of a place of worship would be- 
 come in time the centre of a village. At any rate, 
 every man of any influence would choose to have it 
 brought contiguous to his plantation. From this cir- 
 cumstance as well as from party feeling, and feuds in 
 neighbourhoods, the dispute often became so bitter, 
 where the place of worship should be placed, that it 
 ended in its not being built at all. 
 
 The far greater proportion of those who had been 
 reared in a predilection for our forms of worship, were 
 attached to the Presbyterian discipline. We deemed 
 it expedient to form a Presbytery, and we soon had 
 one composed of five ministers, who had been regular- 
 ly educated to the ministry. Our meetings were uni- 
 formly conducted with great harmony. 
 
127 
 
 The second year of my residence in Missouri, we 
 were called to the Mine district, regularly to induct 
 into office a young gentleman wfjo had been trained 
 to the ministry under the Rev. Gideon Blackburn. 
 The gentleman, though sick of the measles at the time 
 of his ordination, was inducted into office, apparently 
 with happy auspices. To the place of ordination was 
 a journey of eighty miles. I performed it in company 
 with the Rev. Mr. Mathews, a Presbyterian minister, 
 formerly of Pennsylvania, an Irishman by birth, a 
 gentlemen of great strictness of principle and charac- 
 ter, whose occasional facetiousness and pleasantry had 
 infinitely more force, as they beamed from a counte- 
 nance naturally hard and austere, and from whom, 
 judging by his tenets or his manner, no such things 
 could have been expected. 
 
 This long journey had many circumstances of inter- 
 est, and is very pleasant to me in the recollection. 
 We made our way among the high hills, and flint 
 knobs, and desolate vallies of the Maramec, cutting 
 short the way with anecdote and narrative, mutually 
 relating the scenes and events of our youth. As 1 
 shall attempt a description of the Mine district in an- 
 other place, I shall only remark here, that the Mara- 
 mec, where we crossed it, fifty miles from its mouth, is 
 a wide, rapid, and shallow river, running among high 
 hills, and having all the characteristics of a clear, cool, 
 and mountain stream. It had narrow, but very pleas- 
 ant bottoms, along which a few settlers were fixed. 
 In looking from the high and lonely hills upon the riv- 
 er, foaming along among its woods, and often meander- 
 ing many miles in advancing one in a direct course, 
 we saw some cabins, so secluded, so shut in by hills 
 on every side, that they seemed to have no neighbours 
 
128 
 
 but rocks and mountains, and to be left alone with 
 nature- I have seen no situations which brought to 
 my mind such strong images of solitude as these. 
 
 The second day we missed our way, and wandered 
 about among the hills, until after midnight. We had 
 calculated to pass the night " sub dio," under the open 
 sky. We finally heard the barking of dogs, by which 
 we were directed to a house. We suffered not a little 
 peril in making our approaches to the place? from a 
 pack of fierce dogs, which had been taught to fly upon 
 Indians, who had been occasionally lurking about 
 during the war that had just closed. Seeing us ap- 
 proach at that unseasonable hour, they probably took 
 us for the same kind of enemy, and we had fearful 
 evidence that thej' considered their master's house as 
 his castle, and that they meant to defend it with all 
 their force. We ascended a little building and took 
 ourselves out of their way until we raised the master. 
 Although it was but a cabin, and the hour so unsea- 
 sonable, we were most hospitably received and enter- 
 tained. Indeed I have very pleasing recollections of 
 hospitality from all the inhabitants of these remote re- 
 gions, w r here we called. 
 
 On this journey, for the first time since I left New 
 England, I passed through a long tract of pines. You 
 who are so deeply affected with the same grand and 
 simple music, will easily conjecture what were my 
 meditations, as the solemn and funereal hum of the 
 winds died away in the tops of these forests. You 
 will not doubt that remembrances of distant friends, 
 and of our early years, when this music was almost 
 daily heard, rushed upon me. I could not satiate my 
 eyes in gazing upon the trees of my native hills. I 
 returned by the way of St. Genevieve, Herculaneum, 
 and St. Louis, to St. Charles. 
 
129 
 
 The next summer, in company with a couple of 
 friends, I made a journey up the Illinois. This river 
 enters the upper Mississippi something more than twen- 
 ty miles above the mouth of the Missouri. In ascending 
 the Mississippi on the Illinois side, we passed a village 
 of the Illinois Indians. The Illinois brings in a clear 
 and broad stream, four hundred and fifty yards wide, 
 in a channel as strait and regular as a canal. Near 
 the mouth, it seems almost destitute of current. A 
 short distance above the mouth, opens the prairie, that 
 skirts the river. It is beautiful, being from two to 
 three miles in width, of the same fertility with that I 
 have attempted to describe already. Beyond this prai- 
 rie is a skirt of open w oods, and the whole is bound- 
 ed by a lime-stone bluff, smooth and perpendicular, 
 and generally from two to three hundred feet high. 
 A natural wall, so grand, regular, and continued, I 
 have seen no where else. It is many miles in extent; 
 and would look down upon the famed walls of Baby- 
 Ion or China. On the opposite shore, was a deep and 
 tangled bottom, full of a most luxuriant vegetation, but 
 subject to be overflowed. Beyond the bottom, was a 
 long series, league after league, of those siugular and 
 regular-shaped hills called " Mamelles." As has been 
 remarked on the Ohio, we observed that when the 
 prairie and stone bluffs shifted to the opposite shore, 
 the wooded bottom and the Mamelles were found on 
 the side on which we were travelling. 
 
 This was a district of the military lands. Some of 
 the soldiers were here to examine the value of their 
 acquisitions. Others had already fixed themselves on 
 their lands. The settlers were generally in the tim- 
 bered land, that skirted the edge of the prairie. Were 
 I to remark here upon the astonishing fertility of this 
 17 
 
130 
 
 prairie and bottom, it would only seem like repetition 
 of what has been remarked upon the first prairie of 
 the Missouri. For a considerable distance up the Illi- 
 nois it is still near the Mississippi. After ascending 
 it two days, we were told that river was only three 
 miles distant. A very rough and elevated bluff inter- 
 poses between the prairies of the two rivers. As we 
 stood on its summit, we could observe the course of 
 each river for a great distance, and could trace the 
 beautiful prairie on each, in configuration and sinuosi- 
 ties, conforming to the meanders of its river. We 
 concluded that from the point where we were, when the 
 ground was covered with ice or snow, a sledge, start- 
 ed from this summit either way, would reach the banks 
 of either river by its own descending force. We de- 
 scended from the bluff to the upper Mississippi, and 
 rode up another rich and charming prairie, with the 
 grass sometimes as high as onr heads, on our horses. 
 We went up to examine the site of a new town, that 
 had been advertised with great eclat in the papers. In 
 effect, for pleasantness and fertility nothing could ex- 
 ceed it. But we were obliged to imagine the bustle 
 of population, the blocks of buildings, the wealth and 
 splendour, that we were told would one day be here. 
 At present all was solitude and silence. Not a single 
 dwelling was any where in view. But deer and wild 
 fowl were in sufficient abundance. 
 
 At a considerable distance up the Illinois, and di- 
 rectly on its banks, we came, as we returned, upon 
 the cabins of three families of Pottawatomie Indians. 
 The water of the river, — at this season of the year 
 warm and of a marshy taste, — wastheir drink; and their 
 cabins were more smoky and dirty, and their fare appa- 
 rently more scanty and wretched, than falls to the lot of 
 
131 
 
 savages in general. They were of that class, which form 
 the intermediate link between the social and savage state. 
 In a tall, meagre, and sallow woman* with the dirt and 
 smoke worn into her complexion, my companion re- 
 cognised a young French woman of unmixed blood, 
 with whom, as he said, he had often danced as a part- 
 ner at the balls, at Portage des Sioux. He declared 
 that she had formerly been considered the belle of that 
 village, and the queen of the wake, and that against 
 \ the remonstrances of her parents, she had yoked her- 
 self with the tall and dirty savage, with whom she 
 now lived. The third night of our journey we were 
 benighted in a storm of thunder and rain, and were 
 glad to take shelter in a wigwam. The order of 
 things was here reversed. The husband was a 
 Frenchman and the wife a squaw. No words can 
 reach the description of the filthiness and apparent 
 misery of this wretched place. The man persisted in 
 declaring himself happy in his condition and in his wife. 
 For supper the husband had a terrapin, the squaw an 
 opossum ; and we had biscuit and uncooked mack- 
 erel, which we carried with us. This taste for asso- 
 ciation between these two races is exemplified in this 
 way in all directions up the Illinois, the Missouri, the 
 Mississippi, and especially at Prairie du Chien, up that 
 river, where three quarters of the inhabitants are the 
 mixed descendants of this union. In short, wherc- 
 ever the French have come in contact with the sava- 
 ges, these unions have been the result. 
 
 The object of this excursion had been to examine 
 into the moral condition and wants of the new settlers 
 on the Illinois. It was taken in the month of August. 
 I had suffered much from heat, bad food, and expo- 
 sure, and had breathed the air of the Illinois, charged at 
 
132 
 
 this sultry season with miasma. The week after my 
 return, I was taken down with a severe bilious fever. 
 Emigrants generally suffer some kind of sickness, 
 which is called " seasoning," implying that it is the 
 summit of the gradual process of acclimation. This 
 sickness commonly attacks them the first, second, or 
 third year, and is generally the more severe, the longer 
 it is delayed. This came in my third year's residence 
 in the country. I am aware that every sufferer in 
 this way, is apt to think his own case extraordinary. 
 My physicians agreed with all who saw me, that my 
 case was so. As very few live to record the issue of 
 a sickness like mine, and as you have requested me 
 and as I have promised to be particular, I will relate 
 some of the circumstances of this disease. And it is, 
 in ny view, desirable in the bitter agony of such dis- 
 eases, that more of the symptoms, sensations, and suf- 
 ferings should be recorded than have been, that others 
 in similar predicaments, may know that some before 
 them have had sufferings like theirs and have survived 
 them. I had had a fever before, and had risen and 
 been dressed every day. But in this, with the first 
 day I was prostrated to infantine weakness, and felt 
 with its first attack, that it was a thing very different 
 from what I had yet experienced. Paroxysms of de- 
 rangement occurred the third day, and this was to me 
 a new state of mind. That state of disease in which 
 partial derangement is mixed with a consciousness 
 generally sound, and a sensibility preternaturally ex- 
 cited, I should suppose the most distressing of all its 
 forms. At the same time that I was unable to recog- 
 nise my friends, I am informed that my memory was 
 more than ordinarily exact and retentive, and that I 
 repeated whole passages in the different languages 
 
133 
 
 which I knew, with entire accuracy. I recited, with- 
 out losing or misplacing a word, a passage of poetry, 
 which I could not so repeat, after I had recovered my 
 health. Sometimes imaginations the most delightful, 
 and at other times the most terrible, took possession of 
 of my mind. But at that hour in the evening, when 
 my family had been used to sing before prayers, I 
 constantly supposed that I heard two flutes playing 
 harmonies in the most exquisite and delightful airs. 
 So strong was this impression, that it was difficult to 
 persuade me, on the recovery of sanity, that it had not 
 been so. As my strength sank, and as the painful 
 process of blistering, and emetics, and other distressing 
 operations, was laid aside as of no farther use, I re- 
 member well that every person, who came into my 
 room, seemed to come with an insufferable glare of 
 light about his head, like a dazzling glory, and that 
 every one about me seemed to walk in the air, and in 
 eccentric ellipses. Then there were continual flashes 
 from my own eyes, like those when we receive the 
 concussion of a violent blow in the head. When the 
 paroxysm came upon me, a kind of awful curiosity, 
 not unmixed with delight, — for at that time I was 
 not afraid to die, — dwelt on my mind ; a straining of 
 its powers to imagine the scenes, that would burst upon 
 me, when I should shut my eyes upon time, and open 
 them in the light of eternity. I passed the greater 
 part of two days in such extreme weakness, as to be 
 unable to close my eyes, and yet during this period 
 when I was supposed unconscious, I was possessed of 
 consciousness in such a degree as to hear and to know 
 all that was passing about me. I expected every mo- 
 ment to have done with the earth ; and of one thing I 
 am sure, that I was then perfectly willing to lay down 
 
134 
 
 the " worn being, full of pain." A feeling not unlike 
 regret, accompanied my first impression that I was 
 returning back to life. Too soon, in such cases, reso- 
 lutions vanish. Life and the earth regain their charm 
 and their influence, and the former train of feelings 
 returns. 
 
 Every one, who has been sick in this way, and who 
 from the extreme of emaciation and weakness, has re- 
 covered a renovated existence, has probably been con- 
 scious in some degree, of the same delightful sensations 
 of convalescence which I experienced. In that state 
 of debility, from which all the seeds of disease and all 
 causes of irritation have been removed, there is some- 
 thing in the tranquillity and repose, which exclude 
 all uneasiness and all vexation, — not unlike the se- 
 renity and satisfaction, which are supposed to be the 
 portion of the blessed. I remember days of more elas- 
 tic feeling, and which gave rise to more expressions of 
 happiness. But I do not remember to have experi- 
 enced such a placid and contented frame for such a 
 length of time. I attempted to analyze my feelings, 
 and I flattered myself, that the consciousness of resto- 
 ration from the grave, and returning health, did not 
 make a material element in this state of tranquil en- 
 joyment. How strongly we feel, under such circum- 
 stances, that the vexing and bad passions will never 
 regain a place within us! The remembrance of the 
 manner in which the world and its hopes and desires 
 had affected me, seemed like a shadowy dream. I 
 shall not forget, until memory has lost her seat, the 
 sensations excited by the first view of the earth, the 
 trees, the river, and the heavens, the first time after 
 this illness that I was carried out to ride. Every ob- 
 ject had a new aspect, and a new colouring, and I 
 
135 
 
 beheld the beauty of nature, as if for the first time. 
 I had been confined fifty-five days, and with the 
 weakness of an infant, I had all its freedom from cares 
 and desires. How earnestly did I wish that such a 
 state of abstraction from passions and cares, and such 
 fresh and admiring views of nature, might last forever ! 
 
 LETTER XV.— ST. CHARLES. 
 
 During my long residence in the Mississippi valley, 
 I have had very considerable opportunities of becom- 
 ing acquainted with the various savage tribes of that 
 region. 1 have seen them in every point of view, 
 when hunting, when residing in iheir cabins, in their 
 permanent stations. I have seen them wild and unso- 
 phisticated in the woods. I have seen them in their 
 councils and deputations, when making treaties in the 
 considerable towns. I have seen their wisest, bravest, 
 and most considered ; and I have seen the wretched 
 families, that hang round the large towns, to trade and 
 to beg, intoxicated, subdued, filthy, and miserable, the 
 very outcasts of nature. I have seen much of the 
 Creeks and Cherokees, whose civilization and im- 
 provement are so much vaunted. I have seen the 
 wretched remains of the tribes on the lower Missis- 
 sippi, that stroll about New Orleans. I have taken 
 observation at Alexandria and Natchitoches of the In- 
 dians of those regions, and from the adjoining country of 
 New Spain. I have resided on the Arkansas, and have 
 been conversant with its savages. While I was at St. 
 Charles, savages came down from the Rocky Mount- 
 ains, so untamed, so unbroken to the ways of the 
 
136 
 
 whites, that they were said never to have eaten bread 
 until on that trip. While I was at St. Louis a grand 
 deputation from the northern points of the Missouri, 
 the Mississippi, and the lakes, comprising a selection 
 of their principal warriors and chiefs, to the number of 
 eighteen hundred, was there for a length of time. 
 They were there to make treaties, and settle the rela- 
 tions, that had been broken during the war, in which 
 most of them had taken a part hostile to the United 
 States. Thus I have inspected the northern, middle, 
 and southern Indians, for a length of ten years ; and I 
 mention it only to prove that my opportunities of ob- 
 servation have been considerable, and that I do not 
 undertake to form a judgment of their character, with- 
 out at least having seen much of it. 
 
 I have been forcibly struck with a general resem- 
 blance in their countenance, make, conformation, 
 manners, and habits. I believe that no race of men 
 can show people, who speak different languages, in- 
 habit different climes, and subsist on different food, 
 and who are yet so wonderfully alike. You may 
 easily discover striking differences in their stature, 
 strength, intellect, acuteness, and consideration among 
 themselves. But a savage of Canada, and of the 
 Rio del Norte, has substantially the same face, the 
 same form, and if I may so say, the same instincts. 
 They are all, in my mind, unquestionably from a com- 
 mon stock. What wonderful dreams they must have 
 had, who supposed that any of these races were deriv- 
 ed from the Welch, or the Jews. Their languages, 
 now that they are more attentively examined, are 
 found to be far less discordant than they have been 
 generally supposed. In the construction of it, in the 
 manner of forming their attributes, their verbs, their 
 
137 
 
 numerals, especially, there is a great and striking anal- 
 ogy. Nor will it explain this to my mind, to say that 
 their wants and modes of existence being alike, their 
 ways of expressing their thoughts must be also. They 
 have a language of signs, that is common to all from 
 Canada to the western sea. Governor Clark explained 
 to me a great number of these signs, which convey ex- 
 actly the same ideas to those who speak different lan- 
 guages. But in fact, with the command of four dia- 
 lects, I believe that a man could make himself under- 
 stood by the savages from Maine to Mexico. 
 
 They have not the same acute and tender sensibili- 
 ties with the other races of men. 4 particularly com- 
 pare them with a race with which I have often seen 
 them intermixed, — the negroes. They have no quick 
 perceptions, no acute feelings. They do not so easily 
 or readily sympathize with external nature. They 
 seem callous to every passion but rage. The instan - 
 ces that have been given in such glowing colours, of 
 their females having felt and displayed the passion of 
 love towards individuals of the whites, with such ar- 
 dour and devoted constancy, have, I doubt not, exist- 
 ed. But they were exceptions, anomalies from the 
 general character. In ail the positions in which I 
 have seen them, they do not seem susceptible of much 
 affection for their own species or the whites. They 
 are apparently a melancholy, sullen, and musing race, 
 who appear to have whatever they have of emotion or 
 excitement on ordinary occasions, going on in the in- 
 ner man. Every one has remarked how little surprize 
 they express, for whatever is new, strange, or striking. 
 Their continual converse with woods, rocks, and ster- 
 ile deserts, with the roar of the winds, and the solitude 
 and gloom of the wilderness, their alternations of sa- 
 18 
 
138 
 
 tiety and hunger, their continual exposure to danger* 
 their uncertain existence, which seems to them a 
 forced and unnatural state, the little hold which their 
 affections seem to have upon life, the wild and savage 
 nature that always surrounds them, — these circumstan- 
 ces seem to have impressed a steady and unalterable 
 gloom upon their countenance. If there be here and 
 there a young man, otherwise born to distinction 
 among them, who feels the freshness and the vivacity 
 of a youthful existence, and shows any thing of the 
 gaiety and volatility of other animals in such circum- 
 stances, he is denounced as a trifling thing, destitute of 
 all dignity of character, and the sullen and silent 
 young savage will be advanced above him. They 
 converse very little, even among themselves. They 
 seem to possess an instinctive determination to be 
 w r holly independent even of their own savage society. 
 They wish to have as few relations as may be, with 
 any thing external to themselves. 
 
 Their impassible fortitude and endurance of suffer- 
 ing, which have been so much vaunted, are after all, in 
 my mind, the result of a greater degree of physical 
 insensibility. It has been told me, with how much 
 truth 1 know not, but I believe it, that in amputation, 
 and other surgical operations, their nerves do not 
 shrink, do not show the same tendency to spasm, with 
 those of the whites. When the savage, to explain his 
 insensibility to cold, called upon the white man to 
 recollect how little his own face was affected by it, in 
 consequence of its constant exposure, the savage add- 
 ed, u My body is all face." This increasing insensi- 
 bility, transmitted from generation to generation, final- 
 ly becomes inwrought with the whole web of animal 
 nature, and the body of the savage seems to have little 
 
139 
 
 more sensibility than the hoof of horses. Of course 
 no ordinary stimulus excites them to action. None 
 of the common excitements, endearments, or motives, 
 operate upon them at all. They seem to hold most of 
 the things that move us, in proud disdain. The hor- 
 rors of their dreadful warfare, the infernal rage of their 
 battles, the demoniac fury of gratified revenge, the 
 alternations of hope and despair in their gambling, to 
 which they are addicted far beyond the whites, the 
 brutal exhiliration of drunkenness, — these are their 
 pleasurable excitements. These are the things that 
 awaken them to a strong and pleasurable conscious- 
 ness of existence. When these excitements arouse the 
 imprisoned energies of their long and sullen medita- 
 tions, it is like iEolus uncaging the whirlwinds. The 
 tomahawk flies with unpitying and unsparing fury. 
 The writhing of their victims inspires a horrible joy. 
 Nor need we wonder at the enmity that exists between 
 them and the frontier people, when we know how 
 often such enemies have been let loose upon their 
 women and children. 
 
 I have often contrasted the savages, in all these re- 
 spects, with the negroes, and it has seemed to me that 
 they were the two extremes of human nature brought 
 together. The negro is easily excitable, and in the 
 highest degree susceptible of all the passions ; he is 
 more especially so of the mild and gentle affections. 
 To the Indian, stern, silent, moody, ruminating ex- 
 istence seems a burden. To the negro, remove 
 only pain and hunger, it is naturally a state of enjoy- 
 ment. As soon as his burdens are laid down, or his 
 toils for a moment suspended, he sings, he seizes his 
 fiddle, he dances. When their days are passed in 
 continued and severe toil, their nights, — for like cats 
 
140 
 
 and owls they arc nocturnal animals, — are passed in 
 wandering about from plantation to plantation, in vis- 
 iting, feasting, and conversation. 
 
 Every year the negroes have two or three holi- 
 days, which in New Orleans and the vicinity, are like 
 the 44 Saturnalia " of the slaves in ancient Rome. 
 The great Congo-dance is performed. Every thing 
 is license and revelry. Some hundreds of negroes, 
 male and female, follow the king of the wake, who is 
 conspicuous for his youth, size, the whiteness of his 
 eyes, and the blackness of his visage. For a crown 
 he has a series of oblong, gilt-paper boxes on his 
 head, tapering upwards, like a pyramid. From the 
 ends of these boxes hang two huge tassels, like those 
 on epaulets. He wags his head and makes grimaces. 
 By his thousand mountebank tricks, and contortions 
 of countenance and form, he produces an irresistible 
 elfect upon the multitude. All the characters that fol- 
 low him, of leading estimation, have their own peculiar 
 dress, and their own contortions. They dance, and 
 their streamers fly, and the bells that they have hung 
 about them tinkle. Never will you see gayer counte- 
 nances, demonstrations of more forgetfulness of the 
 past and the future, and more entire abandonment to 
 the joyous existence of the present moment. I have 
 seen groups of these moody and silent sons of the for- 
 est, following these merry bachanalians in their dance, 
 through the streets, scarcely relaxing their grim visa- 
 ges to a smiie, in the view of antics that convulsed 
 even the masters of the negroes with laughter. 
 
 I once witnessed a spectacle, w hich I am told the 
 Indians are rather shy of exhibiting to strangers, not 
 only among the whites, but even of their own race. 
 This was a set mourning for a deceased relative. It 
 
141 
 
 took place in a Chactaw family, on the north side of 
 Lake Ponchartrain. About two months before, they 
 had appointed this day for doing up the mourning at 
 once. The whole group consisted of nine persons, 
 male and female. Only four men enacted the mourn- 
 ing. I was walking near the place in company with 
 my family. Our attention was arrested by the pecul- 
 iar posture of the mourners, and by a monotonous and 
 most melancholy lament, in a kind of tone not unlike 
 the howling of a dog. We walked up to the mourn- 
 ing, but it went on as if the parties were unobservant 
 of our presence. Four large men sat opposite, and 
 with their heads so inclined to each other as almost 
 to touch. A blanket was thrown over their heads. 
 Each held a corner of it in his hand. In this position, 
 one that appeared to lead in the business, would begin 
 the dolorous note, which the rest immediately follow- 
 ed in a prolonged and dismal strain, for more than half 
 a minute. It then sunk away. It was followed by a 
 few convulsive sobs or snuffles, only giving way to 
 the same dismal howl again. This was said to be a 
 common ceremony in like cases, and this was a pre- 
 concerted duty, which they had met at this time and 
 place to discharge. The performance lasted some- 
 thing more than an hour. The squaw and sisters of 
 the person deceased, were walking about with uncon- 
 cern, and as though nothing more than ordinary was 
 transacting. To be able to judge of the sincerity with 
 which these mourners enacted their business, to satisfy 
 myself whether they were in earnest or in jest, I sat 
 down close by them, so that I could look under their 
 blanket, and I saw the tears actually streaming down 
 their cheeks in good earnest. When the mourning 
 was over, they arose, assumed their usual countenance, 
 and went about their ordinary business. 
 
142 
 
 It appears to be a habit with them, to do all their 
 manifestations of joy, grief, or religion, at once, at a 
 stated time, and by the quantity. Such is the purport 
 of their war-feasts and dances, their religious ceremo- 
 nial of roasting a dog, and, in some places, drinking 
 what is called the 66 black drink," before they com- 
 mence any important enterprize. 
 
 A few days after my first arrival at St. Louis, there 
 arrived, as I have remarked, from different points of 
 the upper Mississippi, Missouri, and the lakes, a great 
 number of the principal warriors and chiefs of the 
 tribes of these regions, to attend a grand council with 
 commissioners assembled under the authority of the 
 United States, to make treaties of peace with the 
 tribes that had been hostile to us during the war. 
 Their squaws and children attended them. A better 
 opportunity to observe the distinctions that exist be- 
 tween the different and very distant tribes of those 
 regions, seldom occurs. I remarked their different 
 modes of constructing their water-craft. Those from 
 the lakes, and the high points of the Mississippi, had 
 beautiful canoes, or rather large skiffs, of white birch 
 bark. Those from the lower Mississippi, and from 
 the Missouri, had pirogues, or canoes hollowed out of 
 a large tree. Some tribes covered their tents with 
 bear-skins. Those from far up the Mississippi, had 
 beautiful cone-shaped tents, made very neatly with 
 rush matting. Those from the upper regions of the 
 Missouri, had their tents of tanned buffalo robes, 
 marked on the inside with scarlet lines, and they were 
 of an elliptical form. In some instances, we saw 
 marks of savage progress in refinement and taste, in 
 covering the earth under their tents with rush or skin 
 carpeting. They were generally dirty, rude, and dis- 
 
143 
 
 posed to intoxication. When ladies of respectable 
 dress and appearance came to see them, as often hap- 
 pened, for they were encamped just out of the limits 
 of the town, they were particular in the manifestation 
 of marks of savage rudeness and indecency. They 
 were well aware of the effect of such conduct, and 
 when the ladies fled in confusion, they were sure to 
 raise a brutal laugh. We saw many small animals 
 roasting on the points of sticks, after the Indian fash- 
 ion, which we at first took to be pigs, but which we 
 afterwards ascertained to be dogs, and that they had 
 brought many with them for this purpose. The tribes 
 from the upper Mississippi and the lakes, that is, from 
 the vicinity of the British settlements, gambled with 
 our playing cards. They put their ratious, their skins, 
 their rifles, their dogs, and sometimes, we were told, 
 their squaws, at stake on the issue of these games. 
 The Missouri Indians gambled with a circular parch- 
 ment box, having a bottom, and shaped like a small 
 drum. From this they cast up a number of small 
 shells or pebbles, waving the palms of their hands 
 horizontally between the falling pebbles and the box, 
 at the same time blowing on the failing pebbles with 
 their mouth. 
 
 Gambling, as we have remarked, is one of the few 
 excitements sufficient to make them sensible of exist- 
 ence. It is a passion, to which with the characteristic 
 insanity of civilized gamblers, they will sacrifice for- 
 tune, the means of subsistence, their wives and chil- 
 dren, and even life. They often commit suicide in 
 despair, after they have gambled away every thing but 
 life. 
 
 I used at evening often to spend an hour or two in 
 walking among their tents, as they were encamped on 
 
144 
 
 the margin of the Mississippi. They were the repre- 
 sentatives of a great many tribes, and they were the 
 select men, that is the warriors, and council-chiefs of 
 their tribes. None others are deputed on occasions 
 like these. The same moody, unjoyous, and rumin- 
 ating aspect, which I have constantly since seen all 
 classes wear, marked them. To the few who could 
 speak or understand English, I endeavoured to speak 
 on the subject of religion. I have surely had it in my 
 heart to impress them with the importance of the sub- 
 ject. I have scarcely noted an instance in which the 
 subject was not received either with indifference, rude- 
 ness, or jesting. Of all races of men that I have seen, 
 they seem to me most incapable of religious impres- 
 sions. They have, indeed, some notions of an invisible 
 agent. But they seemed generally to think, that the 
 Indians had their God, as the whites had theirs. 
 
 There can be no question about the benevolence of 
 the efforts that have been made to christianize them. 
 Full gladly would I welcome all the hopes that have 
 been entertained upon this point. Gladly would I be- 
 lieve, that this wretched race would receive the gospel, 
 and become happier and better. There can be but 
 one opinion, what would be the result of their imbibing 
 the genuine spirit of the gospel. Nothing will event- 
 ually be gained to the great cause by colouring and 
 misstatement. However reluctant we may be to 
 receive it, the real state of things will eventually 
 be known to us. We have heard of the imperisha- 
 ble labours of an Eliot and a Brainerd in other days. 
 But in these times it is a melancholy truth, that 
 Protestant exertions to christianize them, have not 
 been in these regions marked with apparent success. 
 The Catholics have caused many to hang a crucifix 
 
145 
 
 around their necks, which they show as they show their 
 medals and other ornaments, and this too often is all 
 that they have to mark them as christians. We have 
 read narratives of the Catholics, which detailed the 
 most glowing and animating views of their successes. 
 I have had accounts, however, from travellers in these 
 regions, that have been over the Stony Mountains into 
 the great missionary settlements of St. Peter and St. 
 Paul. These travellers, — and some of them were pro- 
 fessed Catholics, — unite in affirming, that the converts 
 will escape from the mission whenever it is in their 
 power, fly into their native deserts, and resume at 
 once their old modes of life. The vast empire of the 
 Jesuits in Paraguay has all passed away, and, we are 
 told, the descendants of the converted Indians are no 
 way distinguished from the other savages. It strikes 
 me that Christianity is the religion of civilized man, 
 that the savages must first be civilized, and that as 
 there is little hope that the present generation of In- 
 dians can be civilized, there is but little more that they 
 will be christianized. 
 
 I have often been called to witness the sneering 
 manner, with which the leading men in the western 
 and southern country, who see what has actually been 
 done, contemplate the missionary efforts that have 
 been made among the Indians. One thing must be 
 conceded to these efforts, that the same rules of reason- 
 ing and philosophizing have finally been applied to this 
 subject, which have been so successful in the investi- 
 gation of all others. Theory, however plausible and 
 benevolent, has given place to observation and experi- 
 ence, of what has been the fruit and result of these ex- 
 ertions. If anything can be gathered from the past to 
 guide the future, it is that there can be little hope of 
 
 19 
 
146 
 
 any radical change, except among the children, whose 
 inclinations and habits are yet to form. The Protest- 
 ant efforts that are now making, are of this class ; and 
 they are made on reasonable grounds, of calculation, 
 and promise more than any that have yet been at- 
 tempted. Those benevolent men, who have com- 
 menced missionary schools among the Indians, deserve 
 well of their country and of man. When the children 
 are civilized, and instructed in the usages and arts of 
 civilized life, and accustomed to find its security and 
 comfort necessary to their enjoyment, and to find 
 Christianity to be a grand point in that civilization, 
 among such, we may hope that the gospel will find its 
 element. Surely if any men merit earnest wishes and 
 prayers for their success, it must be those men, who 
 have left the precincts of every thing that is desirable 
 in life, to go into these solitudes, and take in hand 
 these unformed children of nature. It is upon the 
 children and the coming generation, that the lever of 
 our efforts of this kind among the Indians ought to 
 turn, as its pivot. 
 
 Certainly the time will come, when a more dis- 
 criminating and severe scrutiny will be applied to this 
 subject, than has yet been ; when benevolent wishes, 
 and the sanguine hopes of young and ardent men, will 
 not be the data on which to plan and execute schemes 
 of this sort. The principles on which to calculate 
 those exertions, will finally be adjusted by the improv- 
 ed philosophy of the age. The wisdom and expedi- 
 ency of missionary efforts must be tested, not by 
 theory, but experience, — by careful scrutiny of what 
 has been the actual result of these great labours of love. 
 Money, missionary efforts, and preachers are wanting, 
 far more than can be spared, in fields where the results 
 
147 
 
 of cultivation have been measured. The settled re- 
 gions of our own country, that are destitute of the 
 gospel, are more ample than all our sacrifices and ex- 
 ertions in this way can occupy. Certainly there ought 
 to be a serious and anxious inquiry, where the avails of 
 the bank of christian charity can be applied with the 
 best hope of success. These plans have too often 
 been formed, and these avails appropriated, on state- 
 ments, or rather misstatements, of successes, which 
 never had any existence, except in the ardent imagina- 
 tions of those that made them. 
 
 In respect to christianizing the savages, the leading 
 men of the southern country say, in a tone between 
 jest and earnest, that we can never expect to do it 
 without crossing the breed. In effect, wherever there 
 are half-breeds, as they are called, there is generally 
 a faction, a party ; and this race finds it convenient to 
 espouse the interests of civilization and Christianity. 
 The full-blooded chiefs and Indians are generally par- 
 tisans for the customs of the old time, and for the an- 
 cient religion. 
 
 When the Cherokees left their old country east of 
 the Mississippi, and went to the upper regions of the 
 Arkansas, I saw the emigrating portion of the nation. 
 They came in two or three divisions, and might 
 amount in all to eight hundred or a thousand. 1 was 
 formally introduced to the leading full-blooded chief, 
 Richard Justice. He told me by the interpreter, that 
 he had a number of wives, by whom he had more than 
 thirty children. He wore the same inflexible, melan- 
 choly countenance, which has struck me as so charac- 
 teristic of the race. He had a meagre, but very large 
 and brawny frame, was in appearance between eighty 
 and ninety years of age, and wore a great number of 
 
148 
 
 the common Indian insignia, and particularly huge 
 pendants in his ears. When asked in what light he 
 regarded schools, and those missionary efforts that 
 were then contemplated to be commenced in the coun- 
 try to which he was moving, he replied, that for the 
 true Indians the old ways were the best; that his 
 people were getting to be neither white men nor In- 
 dians ; that he conceived that his nation had offended 
 their gods by deserting their old worship ; and that he, 
 for his part, wished that his people should be always 
 Cherokees, or, as he called it, Chelokees, and nothing 
 else. Rogers, on the contrary, a young, aspiring, and 
 factious half blood chief, expressed himself warmly in 
 favour of schools and missionaries. He made munifi- 
 cent promises of what he was willing to do in aid of 
 such exertions. His wife, who was an intelligent and 
 well-informed half-blood woman, with fine eyes, and a 
 countenance not unlike the white women of the south- 
 ern country, remarked to me, after her husband had 
 retired, that she wished, indeed, that missionaries 
 might come among her people and benefit her hus- 
 band. She concluded, she added, that when people 
 became christians they ceased to get drunk ; that her 
 husband, when sober, was an amiable and a good hus- 
 band, but that when drunk he was terrible, and not at 
 all to be trusted. She went on to remark, that reli- 
 gious people ought to receive with some distrust his 
 promises of support to the missionaries, for that such 
 language, and such promises, had become now the 
 watchword of a party ; that she feared much, that his 
 pretended regard for religion was not the result of in- 
 ward conviction. 
 
 Many of these people had a number of slaves, fine 
 horses, waggons and ploughs, and implements of hus- 
 
149 
 
 bandry and domestic manufacture. They were gen- 
 erally very stout men, and had in their countenance 
 much haughtiness, and looked, as it seemed to me, 
 with ineffable disdain upon the boatmen and labourers 
 of our people, holding themselves to be a people of a 
 much higher class. " Black Thunder," one of their 
 chiefs, was aptly denominated, being one oi the largest 
 men that 1 had ever seen, as well as the most fierce 
 and formidable in his countenance and form. A wag- 
 gish and skipping young man among them was called 
 " The Squirrel." A young woman, not only a full- 
 blooded American, but rather fair and pretty, was wife 
 to one of the young warriors. She pretended or felt 
 a wish to escape from them, and made proposals to me 
 to allow her to secrete herself in my family. Some 
 efforts were made by the people of the village to carry 
 her pretended wishes into effect. But the savages, 
 whether they had been informed by herself that the 
 people wished to retain her, or whether they were ac- 
 tually fearful of her escape, watched her with the 
 most guarded jealousy. We saw her the next day 
 in the midst of the savages, and it was evident from 
 her movements, that she felt a coquettish pride in 
 showing the high estimation she had among them, 
 and how carefully she was watched. 
 
 I saw at Jackson, in Missouri, another emigration, 
 of the Shawannoes and Delavvares to the country as- 
 signed them at the sources of White River. It was a 
 scene like that of the moving Cherokees, except that 
 they seemed a poorer and more degraded race, and 
 their women more immodest and abandoned, i had 
 passed through the villages of these people, when they 
 inhabited them. And no place is more full of life and 
 motion than an Indian village. At the upper end of 
 
150 
 
 the villages, under the shade of the peach-trees, sat 
 the aged chiefs on their benches, dozing, their eyes 
 half closed, with their ruminating and thoughtful sul- 
 lenness depicted on their countenances The middle 
 and lower end of the villages were all bustle and life ; 
 the young warriors fixing their rifles, the women car- 
 rying water, and the children playing at ball. I 
 passed through the same villages, when every house 
 was deserted. The deer browsed upon their fields, 
 and the red-bird perched upon their shrubs and fruit- 
 trees. The mellow song of the bird, and the desolate 
 contrast of what I had seen but a few months before, 
 formed a scene calculated to awaken in my mind 
 melancholy emotions. 
 
 Whatever may be the estimate of the Indian charac- 
 ter in other respects, it is with me an undoubting con- 
 viction, that they are by nature a shrewd and intelli- 
 gent race of men, in no respects, as it regards combina- 
 tion of thought or quickness of apprehension, inferior 
 to uneducated white men. This inference I deduce 
 from having instructed Indian children. I draw it from 
 having seen the men and women in all situations cal- 
 culated to try and call forth their capacities. When 
 they examine any of our inventions, steam-boats, 
 steam-mills, and cotton-factories, for instance, — when 
 they contemplate any of our institutions in operation, — 
 by some quick analysis, or process of reasoning, they 
 seem immediately to comprehend the principle and the 
 object. No spectacle affords them more delight than 
 a large and orderly school. They seem instinctively 
 to comprehend, at least they explained to me that they 
 felt the advantages which this order of things gave our 
 children over theirs. 
 
151 
 
 When a tribe from the remotest regions arrives at 
 one of the towns, it is obvious how immediately and, 
 it would seem, from the first glanee, they select from 
 the crowds, which are drawn about them by curiosi- 
 ty, those that have weight and consideration among 
 the crowd ; how readily they fix upon the fathers, as 
 they call them, in distinction from all pretenders to 
 weight and influence among the people. I will record 
 an instance of this kind, from many that I have seen, 
 one that struck me most forcibly with the conviction 
 of their quickness of discernment in these respects. 
 Manuel Lisa, the great Spanish fur dealer on the Mis- 
 souri, brought down a deputation of Indians from the 
 Rocky Mountains to St. Louis. These savages, we 
 were assured, had been so remote from white people 
 and their ways, as never to have tasted the bread of the 
 whites before this trip. They had the appearance of 
 being more unsophisticated and panther-like, than any 
 savages I had seen. They landed at St. Charles from 
 the barges, that brought them down. A crowd, as 
 usual, gathered about the landing. In that crowd was 
 a trifling man, recently from New England, a man of 
 that class, of which Dr. Dwight speaks with such de- 
 served contempt, — a man oppressed with the burden of 
 his fancied talents and knowledge, and who had come 
 to this dark country, not to put his light under a bush- 
 el, but to let it shine, that men might see it. This 
 sight was to him a novel and imposing spectacle. 
 Among the people on the bank were men of the first 
 standing in the country. It is customary for such to 
 commence the ceremony of shaking hands with the sav- 
 ages. This man wished to introduce himself to the 
 notice of the people by anticipating them in this thing. 
 He walked on board their boats, and went round offer- 
 
152 
 
 ing them his hand. A sneer was visible in their coun- 
 tenances, while they gave him a kind of awkward and 
 reluctant shake of the hand. When he was past, they 
 laughed among themselves, and remarked, as the inter- 
 preter told us, that this was a little man, and no father. 
 They then came on shore themselves, went round, 
 and with an eager and respectful manner, and cer- 
 tainly without any prompting, began to shake hands 
 with the fathers in their estimated order of their 
 standing. It was remarked at the time, that we, who 
 knew the standing of these men, could not have select- 
 ed with more justice and discrimination. 
 
 At the grand council at St. Louis, of which I have 
 spoken, where all the American commissioners were 
 present, and a vast concourse of Indians and Ameri- 
 cans, — that portion of the Sacs that had been hostile 
 to us during the war, was engaged in the debates of 
 the council. Some noble-looking chiefs spoke on the 
 occasion. They fully exemplified all that I had ever 
 heard of energy, gracefulness, and dignity of action 
 and manner. The blanket was thrown round the 
 body in graceful folds. The right arm, muscular 
 brawny, was bare quite to the shoulder. And the 
 movement of the arm, and the inclinations of the body, 
 might have afforded a study to a youthful orator. I 
 observed a peculiarity of their posture, which I have 
 not seen elsewhere noticed. When they closed an 
 earnest and emphatic sentence, they regularly raised 
 the w 7 eight of the body from the heel, to poise it on 
 the toes and the fore part of the foot. The rest look- 
 ed on the speaker eagerly, and with intense interest. 
 When he uttered a sentence of strong meaning, or in- 
 volving some interesting point to be gamed, they 
 eheered him with a deep grunt, of acquiescence. 
 
153 
 
 A favourite chief, of singular mildness of counte- 
 nance and manner, had spoken two or three times, in 
 a very insinuating style. He was in fact the " Master 
 Plausible 99 of his tribe. I remarked to the governor, 
 that he was the only Indian I had ever seen, who ap- 
 peared to have mildness and mercy in his countenance. 
 He replied, that under this mild and insinuating exte- 
 rior, were concealed uncommon degrees of cunning, 
 courage, revenge, and cruelty ; that in fact he had been 
 the most bloody and troublesome partisan against us, 
 during the war, of the whole tribe. The grand speech 
 of this man, as translated, was no mean attempt to 
 apply to the ladies and gentlemen present, the delight* 
 ful unction of flattery. 
 
 Some report had got in circulation among them, 
 which inspired them with arrogant expectations of ob- 
 taining permission to retain the British traders among 
 them, for whom, it seems, they had contracted a great 
 fondness. The governor replied with great firmness, 
 that these expectations were wholly inadmissible. 
 His answer was received with a general grunt of an- 
 ger. A speaker of very different aspect from the 
 former arose, and with high dudgeon in his counte- 
 nance, observed, that he had understood that the thing 
 which they wished, had been promised ; but that 
 " the American people had two tongues." Mr. 
 Clarke, who perfectly understood the import of their 
 figures, explained the remark to mean, that we were 
 a perfidious aud double-tongued people. Justly indig- 
 nant to be addressed by a principal chief in this way, 
 and to notice that the remark was cheered by the 
 grunt of acquiescence on the part of the tribe, he 
 broke off the council with visible displeasure. In 
 the afternoon of that day, a detachment of United 
 20 
 
154 
 
 States artillery arrived on the shore of the river, oppo- 
 site the Indian camp. This detachment was ordered 
 to the Sac country. The men paraded and fired their 
 pieces. The terror of the savages at artillery is well 
 known. The courage of these fierce men was awed 
 at once in the prospect of this imposing force, which 
 they had understood was hound to their country. 
 The next morning the Sac chiefs, rather submissively, 
 requested the renewal of the conference which had been 
 broken off. We all attended the council to hear hovr 
 they would apologize for their insolence the day before. 
 The same chief who hail used the offensive language* 
 came forward and observed that the father had mis- 
 understood the meaning of the poor ignorant Indians ; 
 that he had intended only to say, that he had always 
 understood from his fathers, that the Americans used 
 two languages, viz. French and English ; and that 
 they had two ways to express all that they had to say 
 to the Indians. To me, it seemed that a man of hon- 
 our, retreating from a duel, could not more ingeniously 
 have explained away an offensive expression. 
 
 I coukl easily enter into details of this sort, and cite 
 numerous examples, which seemed to me to indicate 
 quick apprehension and strong intellect. I conversed 
 often with a tall and noble-looking Sioux Indian, 
 very finely dressed and painted, who had a more than 
 ordinary portion of Indian ornaments about his per- 
 son, lie had great numbers of little bells about his 
 legs and ancles, which tinkled as he walked along. 
 These are things of which Indians are not a little 
 proud. To crown all, he had a long and flourishing 
 tail of some wild animal, precisely from the point 
 where Lord Monbocldo supposes that our forefathers 
 used to have an actual tail appended to the body. 
 
155 
 
 From his fantastic tail, his fine dress, and majestic 
 strut, he used to he designated by some of the wits, 
 from Cowper's famous heroic verse, 44 Devil, yard- long 
 tailM." This Indian dandy spoke good English, 
 and unlike his tribe among civilized men, had great 
 acuteness and a vigorous intellect. From him I ob- 
 tained much information concerning his own nation 
 and the neighbouring tribes. He gave me a very in- 
 teresting biography of the famous Indian chief, " White 
 Hair " This chief came from the remotest point of 
 the Osage to St. Louis. He was supposed to have de- 
 rived his appellation of White Flair, from a grey wig, 
 or scratch, which he had taken from the head of an 
 American at the disastrous defeat of General St. Clair. 
 He had grasped at the wig's tail in the mel'e ot the 
 battle, supposing it the man's hair, and that he should 
 have him by that hold. The owner fled, and the 
 scratch to his astonishment remained in his hand. It 
 instantly became in his mind a charmed thing, a grand 
 medicine. Supposing that in a like case it would 
 always effect a like deliverance, he afterwards wore 
 it, as a charmed thing, rudely fastened to his own 
 scalp. Napoleon himself did not discover more 
 greediness for fame, nor the iirward heavings of a 
 more burning ambition, than this untrained son of the 
 forest. Said he, at the tables where he dined in St. 
 Louis, " I felt a fire within me, and it drove me to the 
 fight of St. Clair. When his army was scattered, I 
 returned on my steps to my country. But the fire 
 still burned, and I went over the mountains to the 
 western sea. I gained glory there. The fire still 
 burns, but I must return and die in obscurity, among 
 the forests of the Osage. " 
 
156 
 
 LETTER XVI.— ST. CHARLES. 
 
 Gun government can be contemplated in no point 
 of view, more calculated to inspire affection and re- 
 spect to it, than in the steady dignity? moderation, 
 benevolence, and untiring forbearance, which it has 
 constantly exercised towards the Indians. I have 
 had great opportunities to see the strictness of its 
 provisions to prevent the sale of whiskey among 
 them, and to see the generous exertions which it has 
 made to preserve them from destroying themselves, 
 and from killing each other. It appears to have 
 been the guiding maxim of the government, to ward 
 off all evil, and to do all practicable good to this un- 
 happy and declining race of beings. It seems to have 
 been, too, an effort of disinterested, benevolence. 
 Had it been the policy of the government, as has 
 been charged against it, to exterminate the race, it 
 would only be necessary to use but a small part of the 
 ample means in its power, to let them loose, the one 
 tribe upon the other, and they would mutually accom- 
 plish the work of self-destruction. Nothing farther 
 would be needed, than to unkennel them, excite their 
 jealousies, and stir up their revenge. We have 
 heard and read the benevolent harangues upon the 
 guilt of having destroyed the past races of this peo- 
 ple, and of having possessed ourselves of their lands. 
 Continual war is the natural instinct of this race. It 
 was equally so when white men first trod the Ameri- 
 can forest. It is not less so now, that the government 
 exercises a benevolent restraint, and keeps them from 
 killing each other. We firmly believe, that all ideas 
 
157 
 
 of property in the lands over which they roamed after 
 game, or skulked in ambush to kill one another, all 
 notions of a local habitation, have been furnished 
 them by the Americans. When they were in one 
 place to day, defending themselves against a tribe at 
 the east, and ready to march tomorrow to dispossess 
 another at the west, and they in their turn to dispos- 
 sess another tribe still beyond them, it never occur- 
 red to them to consider the land over which they 
 marched for war or for game, as their own in perma- 
 nent property, until they were taught its value by 
 the idea which the whites attached to it. No fact is 
 more unquestionable, than that ages before the whites 
 visited these shores, they were divided into a thou- 
 sand petty tribes, engaged, — as but for our govern- 
 ment they would be now, — in endless and exterminat- 
 ing wars, in which they dashed the babe into the 
 flames, and drank the warm blood of their victim, or 
 danced and yelled around the stake where he was con- 
 suming in the fire. The process of their depopulation 
 had been, in all probability, going on as rapidly before 
 the discovery of the country by the whites, as since. 
 I shall elsewhere speak of the manifest proofs of an 
 immensely greater population in these regions than 
 now exists. Did this race exterminate that, of which 
 the only remaining trace is the numberless mounds, 
 filled with human bones, which rise in the lonely 
 prairies of the west? Certain it is, that war is the 
 instinctive appetite of the present race, and that a 
 state of peace is a forced and unnatural state. 
 
 I am perfectly aware, that these are not the views, 
 which have been fashionable of late, in discussing this 
 subject. You will do me the justice to believe, that I 
 have aimed at but one thing, — to describe things just 
 
158 
 
 as they are; or at least, as they appeared to me. 
 Truth, simple, undisguised truth is my object ; and up- 
 on this, as upon all other subjects, it will ultimately 
 prevail. Perhaps it may be said, that it is not in the 
 vicinity of Fort Mims, or among the frontier people, 
 that the most flattering views of the savages are to be 
 obtained. I grant it ; but I think that in the history 
 of the ancient Canadian wars, and in the regions 
 where I have so long sojourned, are ;o be found the 
 most just, if not the most flattering views of this peo- 
 ple. They are not the less to be pitied, because they 
 are a cruel people by nature. They are not less to be 
 the objects of our best wishes and our prayers, because 
 they have no sympathy with suffering. From my in- 
 most soul I w r ish them to become the followers of Je- 
 sus Christ. I venerate the men who will venture on 
 the hard and unpromising task of attempting their con- 
 version. But with all these wishes, I could not dis- 
 guise from myself, that such as I have represented, is 
 the natural character of this people. 
 
 Something may be said, no doubt, in opposition to 
 these views of the subject ; as, that the frontier people 
 have been often the aggressors in Indian quarrels. The 
 character of the frontier people, has been much mis- 
 represented. They are generally a harmless and inof- 
 fensive race. I have not a doubt that most of these 
 quarrels originate in the natural jealousies of the In- 
 dians. I have been present in two instances, where 
 they had committed murders, attended the inquest, and 
 heard the evidence. In both cases the murders were 
 entirely unprovoked, even the parties themselves being 
 witnesses. They are a people extremely jealous, ad- 
 dicted to what the French call " tracasserie, >• to sus- 
 
159 
 
 pieions, and whisperings. A tribe never hunts long 
 on our immediate frontier, without stealing horses, 
 getting into broils, and committing murder, either 
 among our people, or among themselves. But, it is 
 objected, they are intoxicated, and we furnish them the 
 means. It is true, they will be drunk, whenever they 
 can, and this is not a very favourable trait. It is also 
 true, that the government has established the most rig- 
 id regulations to prevent their getting whiskey, and 
 has enforced these regulations with heavy penalties for 
 their violation, and I have frequently seen these penal- 
 ties imposed. 
 
 I remember to have seen a young Chactaw warrior, 
 very finely dressed and painted, drunk at the piazza 
 of the house where I lived. He made every effort to 
 quarrel with the white people, who were about the 
 house, and was extremely abusive and insulting. 
 When he found that no one would quarrel with him, 
 in revenge he plunged his knife into the neck of a 
 beautiful horse which he was holding by the halter. 
 
 A respectable trader at the post of Arkansas had 
 informed against another trader in the village, who 
 had sold whiskey to the Indians. This thing always 
 incurs their extreme resentment. I heard this gentle- 
 man in conversation with two drunken Indians, who 
 had slept the preceding night under his piazza. They 
 were insolent and quarrelsome in the morning. He 
 observed to me that could he find who had enabled 
 them to get drunk, he would inform against him. He 
 asked them, where they had purchased their whiskey? 
 They gave him a bitter smile, and intimated, that they 
 well understood his object, in asking the question. He 
 somewhat sternly repeated the question, Where did you 
 
160 
 
 purchase your whiskey ?" They held their bottles up 
 in the air, and informed him, that the u great Kentucky 
 captain/' pointing to the clouds, had rained the whiskey 
 into their bottles. 
 
 In the immense extent of frontier, which I have 
 visited, I have heard many an affecting tale of the hor- 
 rible barbarities and murders of the Indians, precisely 
 of a character with those, which used to be recorded 
 in the early periods of New England history. I saw 
 two children, the only members of a family — consist- 
 ing of a father, mother, and a number of children — 
 that were spared by the Indians. It was on the river 
 Femme-Osage. A party of Sacs and Foxes, that had 
 been burning and murdering in the vicinity, came upon 
 the house, as the father was coming in from abroad. 
 They shot him> and he fled, wounded, a little distance, 
 and fell. They then tomahawked the wife, and man- 
 gled her body. She had been boiling the sap of the 
 sugar-maple. The Indians threw two of the children 
 into the boiling kettles. The younger of the two or- 
 phans that I saw, was but three years- old. His sister 
 two years older, drew him under the bed before they 
 were seen by the Indians. It had, in the fashion of 
 the country, a cotton counterpane that descended to 
 the floor. The howling of these demons, the firing, 
 the barking of the dogs, the shrieking of the children 
 that became their victims, never drew from these poor 
 things, that were trembling under the bed, a cry, or 
 the smallest noise. The Indians thrust their knives 
 through the bed, that nothing concealed there, might 
 escape them, and went off, through fear of pursuit, 
 leaving these desolate beings unharmed. 
 
 You will see the countenances of the frontier peo- 
 ple, as they relate numberless tragic occurrences of this 
 
1G1 
 
 sort, gradually kindling. There seems, between them 
 and the savages, a deep-rooted enmity, like that be- 
 tween the seed of the woman and the serpent. They 
 would be more than human, if retaliation were not 
 sometimes the consequence. They tell you, with a> 
 certain expression of countenance, that in former days 
 when they met an Indian in the woods, they were very 
 apt to see him suffer under the falling-sickness. This 
 dreadful state of things has now passed away, and I 
 have seldom heard of late of a murder com milted by 
 the whites upon the Indians. Twenty years ago, the 
 Indians and whites both considered, when casual ren- 
 counters took place in the woods, that it was a fair 
 shot upon both sides. A volume would not contain 
 the cases of these unrecorded murders. 
 
 The narrations of a frontier circle, as they draw 
 round their evening fire, often turn upon the exploits 
 of the old race of men, the heroes of the past days, 
 who wore hunting shirts, and settled the country. In- 
 stances of undaunted heroism, of desperate daring, mid 
 seemingly of more than mortal endurance, are re- 
 corded of these people. In a boundless forest full of 
 panthers and bears, and more dreadful Indians, with 
 not a white within a hundred miles, a solitary adven- 
 turer penetrates the deepest wilderness, and begins to 
 make the strokes of his axe resound among the trees. 
 The Indians find him out, ambush, and imprison him. 
 A more acute and desperate warrior than themselves, 
 they wish to adopt him, and add his strength to their 
 tribe. He feigns contentment, uses the savage's insin- 
 uations, outruns him in the use of his own ways of 
 management, but watches his opportunity, and when 
 their suspicion is lulled, and they fall asleep, he springs 
 
 21 
 
162 
 
 upon them, kills his keepers, and bounds away into 
 unknown forests, pursued by them and their dogs. 
 He leaves them all at fault, subsists many days upon 
 berries and roots, and finally arrives at his little 
 clearing, and resumes his axe. In a little palisade, 
 three or four resolute men stand a siege of hundreds 
 of assailants, kill many of them, and mount calmly 
 on the roof of their shelter, to pour water upon the 
 fire, which burning arrows have kindled there, and 
 achieve the work amidst a shower of balls. A thou- 
 sand instances of that stern and unshrinking courage 
 which had shaken hands with death, of that endurance 
 which defied all the inventions of Indian torture, 
 are recorded of these wonderful men. The dread 
 of being roasted alive by the Indians, called into ac- 
 tion all their hidden energies and resources. 
 
 1 will relate one case of this sort, because I knew 
 the party, and lest I become tiresome on this head, 
 will close this kind of detail. The name of the hero 
 in question, was Baptiste Roy, a Frenchman, who 
 solicited, and. I am sorry to say, in vain, a compensa- 
 tion for his bravery from congress. It occurred at 
 u Cote sans Dessein on the Missouri. A numerous 
 band of northern savages, amounting to four hundred, 
 beset the garrison house, into which he, his wife, and 
 another man, had retreated. They were hunters by 
 profession, and had powder, lead, and four rifles in the 
 house. They immediately began to fire upon the In- 
 dians. The wife melted and moulded the lead, and 
 assisted in loading, occasionally taking her shot with 
 the other two. Every Indian that approached the 
 house, was sure to fall. The wife relates, that the 
 guns would soon become too much heated to hold in 
 t?he hand. Water was necessary to cool them. It 
 
163 
 
 was, I think, on the second day of the siege thajt 
 Eov's assistant was killed. He became impatient 
 to look on the scene of execution, and see what they 
 had done. He put his eye to the port- hole, and a 
 well aimed shot destroyed him. The Indians per- 
 ceived, that their shot had taken effect, and gave a 
 yell of exultation. They were encouraged by the 
 momentary slackening of the fire, to approach the 
 house, and fire it-over the heads of Roy and his wife. 
 He deliberately mounted the roof, knocked off the 
 burning boards, and escaped untouched from the 
 shower of balls. What must have been the nights of 
 this husband and wife ? After four days of unavail- 
 ing siege, the Indians gave a yell, exclaimed, that 
 the house was a 66 grand medicine/' meaning, that it . 
 was charmed and impregnable, and went away. 
 They left behind forty bodies to attest the marksman- 
 ship and steadiness of the besieged, and a peck of 
 balls collected from the logs of the house, 
 
 I have already hinted at the facility with which the 
 French and Indians intermix. There seems to be as 
 natural an affinity of the former people for them, as 
 there is repulsion between the Anglo-Americans and 
 them. Monstrous exceptions sometimes occur, but it 
 is so rare that a permanent connexion is formed be- 
 tween an American and an Indian woman, that even 
 the French themselves regard it as matter of aston- 
 ishment. The antipathy between the two races seems 
 fixed and unalterable. Peace there often is between 
 them when they are cast in the same vicinity, but any 
 affectionate intercourse, never. Whereas the French 
 settle among them, learn their language, intermarry, 
 and soon get smoked to the same copper complexion. 
 A race of half-breeds springs up in their calftns. A 
 
164 
 
 singular cast is the result of the intermarriages of 
 these half-breeds, called quarteroons. The lank hair, 
 the Indian countenance and manners predominate, 
 even in these. It is a singular fact, that the Indian 
 feature descends much farther in these intermixtures, 
 and is much slower to be amalgamated with that of 
 the wNltes, than that of the negro. Prairie du Chien, 
 on the upper Mississippi, is a sample of these inter- 
 mixtures. So are most of the French settlements on 
 tfie Missouri, Illinois, ard in short, wherever the 
 " petits paysans ?? come in contact with the Indians. 
 It would be an interesting disquisition, and one that 
 would throw true light upon the great difference of 
 national character between the French and Anglo- 
 Americans, which should assign the true causes of this 
 affinity on the one part, and antipathy on the other. 
 
 You will expect me to say something of the lonely 
 records of the former races that inhabited this coun- 
 try, That there has formerly been a much more nu- 
 merous population than exists here at present, with- 
 out running foul of the theories or speculations of 
 any other persons, I am fully impressed from the re- 
 sult of my own personal observations. From the 
 highest points of the Ohio to where I am now writing, 
 and far up the upper Mississippi and Missouri, the 
 more the country is explored and peopled, and the 
 more its surface is penetrated, not only are there more 
 mounds brought to view, but more incontestable marks 
 of a numerous population. Wells artificially walled, 
 different structures of convenience or defence, have 
 been found in such numbers, as no longer to excite 
 curiosity. ^Ornaments of silver and of copper, pot- 
 tery, of which I have seen numberless specimens on 
 all theafe waters, not to mention the mounds them- 
 
165 
 
 selves, and the still more tangible evidence of human 
 bodies found in a state of preservation, and of sepul- 
 chres full of bones, are unquestionable demonstra- 
 tions, that this country was once possessed of a nu- 
 merous population. Some of the mounds, such, for 
 example, as those between the two Miamies, those 
 near the Cahokia, and those far down the Missis- 
 sippi, in the vicinity of St. Francisville, must have 
 been works of great labour. Whatever may have 
 been their former objects and uses, they all exhibit 
 one indication of art. All that I have seen, were in 
 regular forms, generally cones or parallelograms. If 
 it be remarked that the rude monuments of this kind, 
 those of the Mexican Indians even, are structures of 
 stone, and that these are all of earth, — I can only 
 say, that these memorials of former toil and exist- 
 ence, are, as far as my observation has extended, all 
 in regions destitute of stones. The limits of this 
 work exclude any attempts to describe the walls, and 
 other regular works of stone, that are occasionally 
 found in these regions. The mounds themselves, 
 though of earth, are not those rude and shapeless 
 heaps, that they have been commonly represented to 
 be. I have seen, for instance, in different parts of 
 the Atlantic country, the breast works and other de- 
 fences of earth, that were thrown up by our people, 
 during the war of the Revolution. None of those 
 monuments date back more than fifty years. These 
 mounds must date back to remote depths in the olden 
 time. From the ages of the trees on them, and from 
 other data, we can trace them back six hundred 
 years, leaving it entirely to the imagination to de- 
 scend deeper into the depths of time beyond. And yet 
 after the rains, the washing, and the crumbling of so 
 
166 
 
 many a^es ? many of them are still twenty-five feet 
 high. Ail of them are incomparably more conspicu- 
 ous monuments, than the works which I just noticed. 
 Some of them are spread over an extent of acres, I 
 have seen, great and small, I should suppose, an hun- 
 dred. Though diverse in position and form, they 11 
 have an uniform character. They are for the most part 
 in rich soils, and in conspicuous situations. Those on 
 the Ohio are covered with very large trees. But in 
 the prairie regions, where I have seen the greatest 
 numbers, they are covered with tall grass, and gene- 
 rally near benches, which indicate the former courses 
 of the rivers, in the finest situations for present cul- 
 ture ; and the greatest population clearly has been in 
 those very positions, where the most dense future 
 population will be. 
 
 You have been informed that I cultivated a small 
 farm on that beautiful prairie below St. Charles, 
 which I have attempted to describe, called The Ma- 
 melle," or " Point prairie." In my enclosure, and di- 
 rectly back of my house, were two conical mounds of 
 considerable elevation. A hundred paces in front of 
 them, was a high bench, making the shore of the 
 " Marais Croche," an extensive marsh, and evident- 
 ly the former bed of the Missouri. In digging a 
 ditch on the margin of this bench, at the depth of 
 four feet, we discovered great quantities of broken 
 pottery, belonging to vessels of all siz^.s and charac- 
 ters. Some must have been of a size to contain four 
 gallons. This must have been a very populous place. 
 The soil is admirable, the prospect boundless; but 
 from the scanty number of habitations in view, rather 
 lonely. It will one day contain an immense popula- 
 tion again. I have walked on these mounds, when 
 
167 
 
 the twilight of evening was closing in. I have sur- 
 veyed their form, have ascertained that they are full 
 of human hones, and have found, as you will easily 
 believe, at such a time and place, sufficient scope for 
 my lonely musings. You, who are a poet and a fath- 
 er, will excuse a father for inserting some verses on 
 this subject, by my son, your former pupil. 
 
 LINES 
 
 ON THE MOUNDS IN THE CAHOKIA PRAIRIE, ILLINOIS. 
 
 The sun's last rays were fading from the west, 
 The deepening shade stole slowly o'er the plain, 
 The evening breeze had lulled itself to rest, 
 And all was silence,- — save the mournful strain 
 With which the widowed turtle wooed in vain 
 Her absent lover to her lonely nest. 
 
 Now, one by one emerging to the sight, 
 The brighter stars assumed their seals on high ; 
 The moon's pale crescent glowed serenely blight, ' 
 As the last twilight fled along the sky, 
 And all her train, in cloudless majesty, 
 Were glittering on the dark blue vault of night. 
 
 I lingered, by some soft enchantment bound, 
 And gazed enraptured on the lovely scene ; 
 F:om the dark summit of an Indian mound 
 I saw the plain outspread in living green, 
 Its fringe of cliffs was in the distance seen, 
 And the dark line of forest sweeping round. 
 
 I saw the lesser mounds which round me rose; 
 Each was a giant heap of rnoulderipg clay ; 
 There slept the warriors, women, friends, and foes., 
 There side by side the rival chieftains lay; 
 And mighty tribes, swept from the face of day, 
 Forgot their wars and found a long repose, v 
 
168 
 
 Ye mouldering relics of departed years, 
 
 Your names have perished ; not a trace remains, 
 
 Save where the grass-grown mound its summit rear? 
 
 From the green bosom of your native plains; 
 
 Say, do your spirits wear oblivion's chains ? 
 
 Did death forever quench your hopes and fears ? 
 
 Or live they shrined in some congenial form ? 
 What if the swan who leaves her summer nest 
 Among the northern lakes, and mounts the storm 
 To wing her rapid flight to climes more blest, 
 Should hover o'er the very spot where rest 
 The crumbling bones— -once with her spirit warm. 
 
 What if the song, so soft, so sweet, so clear, 
 
 Whose music fell so gently from on high, 
 
 And which, enraptured, I have stopped to hear, 
 
 Gazing in vain upon the cloudless sky, — 
 
 Was their own soft funereal melody 
 
 While lingering o'er the scenes that once were dear. 
 
 Or did those fairy hopes of future bliss, 
 
 Which simple nature to your bosoms gave, 
 
 Find other worlds with fairer skies than this 
 
 Beyond the gloomy portals of the grave, 
 
 In whose bright climes the virtuous and the brave 
 
 Rest from their toils, and all their cares dismiss ? — 
 
 Where the great hunter still pursues the chase, 
 And o'er the sunny mountains tracks the deer, 
 Or where he finds each long extinguished race, 
 And sees once more the mighty mammoth rear 
 The giant form which lies imbedded here, 
 Of other years the sole remaining trace. 
 
 Or it may be that still ye linger near 
 
 The sleeping ashes, once your dearest pride; 
 
 And could your forms to mortal eye appear, 
 
169 
 
 Or the dark veil of death be thrown aside, 
 Then might I see your restless shadows glide 
 With watchful care around these relics dear. 
 
 If so, forgive the rude unhallowed feet 
 
 Which trod so thoughtless o'er your mighty dead $ 
 
 I would not thus profane their lone retreat, 
 
 Nor trample where the sleeping warrior's head 
 
 Lay pillowed on his everlasting bed 
 
 Age after age, still sunk in slumbers sweet. 
 
 Farewell — and may you still in peace repose, 
 Still o'er you may the flowers untrodden bloom, 
 And softly wave to every breeze that blows, 
 Casting their fragrance on each lonely tomb 
 In which your tribes sleep in earth's common womb, 
 And mingle with the clay from which they rose. 
 March 10, 1825. 
 
 The English, when they sneer at our country, speak 
 of it as sterile in moral interest. It has, say they, no 
 monuments, no ruins, none of the massive remains of 
 former ages ; no castles, no mouldering abbeys, no 
 baronial towers and dungeons, nothing to connect the 
 imagination and the heart with the past, no recollec- 
 tions of former ages, to associate the past with the 
 future. But I have been attempting sketches of the 
 largest and most fertile valley in the world, larger, in 
 fact, than half of Europe, all its remotest points being 
 brought into proximity by a stream, which runs the 
 length of that continent, and to which all but two or 
 three of the rivers of Europe are but rivulets. Its for- 
 ests make a respectable figure, even placed beside Blen- 
 heim park. We have lakes which could find a place 
 for the Cumberland lakes in the hollow of one of their 
 islands. We have prairies, which have struck me as 
 22 
 
170 
 
 among the sublimest prospects in nature. There we 
 see the sun rising over a boundless plain, where the 
 blue of the heavens in all directions touches and min- 
 gles with the verdure of the flowers. It is to me a 
 view far more glorious than that on which the sun 
 rises over a barren and angry waste of sea. The one 
 is soft, cheerful, associated with life, and requires an 
 easier effort of the imagination to travel beyond the 
 eye. The other is grand, but dreary, desolate, and 
 always ready to destroy. In the most pleasing posi- 
 tions of these prairies, we have our Indian mounds, 
 which proudly rise above the plain. At first the eye 
 mistakes them for hills ; but when it catches the regu- 
 larity of their breastworks and ditches, it discovers at 
 once that they are the labours of art and of men. 
 When the evidence of the senses convinces us that 
 human bones moulder in these masses, when you dig 
 about them and bring to light their domestic utensils, 
 and are compelled to believe that the busy tide of life 
 once flowed here, when you see at once that these 
 races were of a very different character from the pres- 
 ent generation, you begin to inquire if any tradition, 
 if any [the faintest records can throw any light upon 
 these habitations of men of another age. Is there no 
 scope beside these mounds for imagination, and for 
 contemplation of the past ? The men, their j-oys, their 
 sorrows, their bones, are all buried together. But the 
 grand features of nature remain. There is the beauti- 
 ful prairie, over which they " strutted through life's 
 poor play." The forests, the hills, the mounds, lift 
 their heads in unalterable repose, and furnish the same 
 sources of contemplation to us, that they did to those 
 generations that have passed away. 
 
171 
 
 It is true, we have little reason to suppose that 
 they were the guilty dens of petty tyrants, who let 
 loose their half savage vassals, to burn, plunder, 
 enslave, and despoil an adjoining den. There are 
 no remains of the vast and useless monasteries, where 
 ignorant and lazy monks dreamed over their lusts, 
 or meditated their vile plans of acquisition and im- 
 posture. Here must have been a race of men on 
 these charming plains, that had every call from the 
 seenes that surrounded them, to contented existence 
 and tranquil meditation. Unfortunate, as men view the 
 thing, they must have been. Innocent and peaceful 
 they probably were ; for had they been reared amidst 
 wars and quarrels, like the present Indians, they 
 would doubtless have maintained their ground, and 
 their posterity would have remained to this day. 
 Beside them, moulder the huge bones of their contem- 
 porary beasts, which must have been'of thrice the size 
 of the elephant. I cannot judge of the recollections 
 excited by castles and towers that I have not seen. 
 But I have seen all of grandeur, which our cities can 
 display. I have seen, too, these lonely tombs of the 
 desert, — seen them rise from these boundless and un- 
 peopled plains. My imagination had been filled, 
 and my heart has been full. The nothingness of the 
 brief dream of human life has forced itself upon my 
 mind. The unknown race, to which these bones be- 
 longed, had, I doubt not, as many projects of ambition 
 and hoped as sanguinely to have their names survive, 
 as the great of the present day. 
 
 The more the subject of the past races of men and 
 animals in this region is investigated, the more per- 
 plexed it seems to become. The huge bones of the 
 animals indicate them to be vastly larger than any 
 
172 
 
 that now exist on the earth. All that I have seen and 
 heard of the remains of the men, would seem to show, 
 that they w ere smaller than the men of our times. 
 All the bodies, that have been found in that state 
 of high preservation, in which they were discovered 
 in nitrous caves, were considerably smaller than the 
 present ordinary stature of men. The two bodies, 
 that were found in the vast limestone cavern in 
 Tennessee, one of which I saw at Lexington, were 
 neither of them more than four feet in height. It 
 seemed to me, that this must have been nearly the 
 height of the living person. The teeth and nails did 
 not seem to indicate the shrinking of the flesh from 
 them in the desiccating process by which they were 
 preserved. The teeth were s ted by considera- 
 ble intervals, and were small, long, white, and sharp, 
 reviving the horrible images of nursery tales of ogres* 
 teeth. The hair seemed to have been sandy, or in- 
 clining to yellow. It is well known that nothing is so 
 uniform in the present Indian, as his lank black hair. 
 From the pains taken to preserve the bodies, and the 
 great labour of making the funeral robes in which 
 they were folded, they must have been of the (( blood 
 royal," or personages of great consideration in their 
 day. The person that I saw had evidently died by 
 a blow on the skull. The blood had coagulated there 
 into a mass of a texture and colour, sufficiently mark- 
 ed to show that it had been blood. The envelope 
 of the body was double. Two splendid blankets, 
 completely woven with the most beautiful feathers of 
 the wild turkey, arranged in regular stripes and com- 
 partments, encircled it. The cloth, on which these 
 feathers were woven, was a kind of linen of neat texture, 
 of the same kind with that which is now woven from 
 
173 
 
 the fibres of the nettle. The body was evidently 
 that of a female of middle age, and I should suppose, 
 that her majesty weighed, when I saw her, six or eight 
 pounds. 
 
 At the time that the Lilliputian graves were found 
 on the Maramec, in the county of St. Louis, many 
 people went from that town to satisfy their curiosity 
 by inspec ting them. I made arrangements to go, but 
 was called away by indispensable duties. I relate 
 them from memory only, and from the narrative, oral 
 and printed, of the Rev. Mr. Peck, who examined 
 them on the spot. It appears from him, that the 
 graves were numerous, that the coffins were of stone, 
 that the bones in some instances were nearly en- 
 tire ; that the length of the bodies was determined by 
 that of the coffins, which they filled, and that the bod- 
 ies in general could not have been more than from 
 three feet and a half to four feet in length. Thus, 
 it should seem, that the generations of the past in this 
 region were mammoths and pigmies. 
 
 I have examined the pottery, of which I have spok- 
 en above, with some attention. It is unbaked, and 
 the glazing very incomplete, since oil will soak through 
 it. It is evident, from slight departures from regular- 
 ity in the surface, that it was moulded by the hand 
 and not by any thing like our lathe. The composition, 
 when fractured, shows many white floccules in the 
 clay, that resemble fine snow, and this I judge to be 
 pulverized shells. The basis of the composition ap- 
 pears to be the alluvial clay, carried along in the wa- 
 ters of the Mississippi, and called by the French " terre 
 grasse," from its greasy feel. Samples of this pottery 
 more or less perfect, are shown every where on the riv- 
 er. Some of the most perfect have been dug from 
 
174 
 
 what are called the " chalk banks," below the mouth 
 of the Ohio. The most perfect, that I have seen, be- 
 ing in fact as entire as when first formed, was a ves- 
 sel in my possession. It was a drinking jug, like the 
 " scyphus " of the ancients. It was dug from the 
 chalk-bank. It was smooth, well moulded, and of 
 the colour of common grey stone-ware. It had been 
 rounded with great care, and yet, from slight indenta- 
 tions on the surface, it was manifest that it had 
 been so wrought in the palm of the hand. The 
 model of the form was a simple and obvious one — the 
 bottle-gourd, — and it would contain about two quarts. 
 This vessel iiad been used to hold animal oil : for it had 
 soaked through, and varnished the external surface. 
 Its neck was that of a squaw, know r n by the clubbing 
 of the hair, after the Indian fashion. The moulder 
 was not an accurate copyist, and had learned neither 
 statuary nor anatomy ; for, although the finish was fine, 
 the head was monstrous. There seemed to have been 
 an intention of wit in the outlet. It was the horrible 
 and distorted mouth of a savage, and in drinking you 
 would be obliged to place your lips in contact with 
 those of madam, the squaw. 
 
 LETTER XVII.— ST. CHARLES. 
 
 The people in the Atlantic states have not yet re- 
 covered from the horror, inspired by the term H back- 
 woodsnian." This prejudice is particularly strong in 
 New England, and is more or less felt from Maine to 
 Georgia. When I first visited this country, I had my 
 
175 
 
 full share, and my family by far too much for their 
 comfort. la approaching the country, I heard a thou- 
 sand stories of gougings, and robberies, and shooting 
 down with the rifle. I have travelled in these region^ 
 thousands of miles under all circumstances of exposure 
 and danger. I have travelled alone, or in company 
 only with such as needed protection, instead of being 
 able to impart it ; and this too, in many instances, 
 where I was not known as a minister, or where such 
 knowledge would have had no influence in protecting 
 me. I never have carried the slightest weapon of 
 defence. I scarcely remember to have experienced any 
 thing that resembled insult, or to have felt myself in 
 danger from the people. I have often seen men that 
 had lost an eye. Instances of murder, numerous and 
 h&rrible in their circumstances, have occurred in my 
 vicinity. But they were such lawless rencounters, as 
 terminate in murder every where, and in which the 
 drunkenness, brutality, and violence were mutual. 
 They were catastrophes, in which quiet and sober men 
 would be in no danger of being involved. When we 
 look round these immense regions, and consider that 
 I have been in settlements three hundred miles from 
 any court of justice, when we look at the position of 
 the men, and the state of things, the wonder is, that 
 so few outrages and murders occur. The gentlemen 
 of the towns, even here, speak often with a certain 
 contempt and horror of the backwoodsmen. I have 
 read, and not without feelings of pain, the bitter re- 
 presentations of the learned and virtuous Dr. Dwight, 
 in speaking of them. He represents these vast re- 
 gions, as a grand reservoir for the scum of the Atlantic 
 states. He characterizes in the mass the emigrants 
 from New England, as discontented coblers, too proud. 
 
176 
 
 too much in debt, too unprincipled, too much puffed 
 up with self-conceit, too strongly impressed that their 
 fancied talents could not find scope in their own 
 country, to stay there. It is true there are worthless 
 people here, and the most so, it must be confessed, are 
 from New England. It is true there are gamblers, and 
 gougers, and outlaws ; but there are fewer of them, 
 than from the nature of things, and the character of the 
 age and the woild, we ought to expect. But it is un- 
 worthy of the excellent man in question so to designate 
 this people in the mass. The backwoodsman of the 
 west, as I have seen him, is generally an amiable and 
 virtuous man. His general motive for coming here is 
 to be a freeholder, to have plenty of rich land, and to 
 be able to settle his children about him. It is a most 
 virtuous motive. And notwithstanding all that Dr. 
 Dwight and Talleyrand have said to the contrary, 
 1 fully believe, that nine in ten of the emigrants 
 have come here with no other motive. You find, in 
 truth, that he has vices and barbarisms, peculiar to his 
 situation. His manners are rough. He wears, it may 
 be, a long beard. He has a great quantity of bear 
 or deer skins wrought into his household establishment, 
 his furniture, and dress. He carries a knife, or a dirk 
 in his bosom, and when in the woods has a rifle on 
 his back, and a pack of dogs at his heels. An Atlan- 
 tic stranger, transferred directly from one of our cities 
 to his door, would recoil from a rencounter with him. 
 But remember, that his rifle and his dogs are among 
 his chief means of support and profit. Remember, 
 that all his first days here were passed in dread of the 
 savages. Remember, that he still encounters them, still 
 meets bears and panthers. Enter his door, and tell 
 him you are benighted, and wish the shelter of his 
 
177 
 
 cabin for the night. The welcome is indeed seeming- 
 ly ungracious : " I reckon you can stay," or 16 1 sup- 
 pose we must let you stay." But this apparent ungra- 
 ciousness is the harbinger of every kindness that he 
 can bestow, and every comfort that his cabin can 
 afford. Good coffee, corn bread and butter, venison, 
 pork, wild and tame fowls are set before you. His 
 wife, timid, silent, reserved, but constantly attentive 
 to your comfort, does not sit at the table with you, but 
 like the wives of the patriarchs, stands and attends 
 on you. You are shown to the best bed which the 
 house can offer. When this kind of hospitality has 
 been afforded you as long as you choose to stay, and 
 when you depart, and speak about your bill, you are 
 most commonly told with some slight mark of resent- 
 ment, that they do not keep tavern. Even the flax- 
 en-headed urchins will turn away from your mo- 
 ney. 
 
 In all my extensive intercourse with these people, 
 I do not recollect but one instance of positive rudeness 
 and inhospitality. It was on the waters of the Cuivre 
 of the upper Mississippi ; and from a man to whom I 
 had presented bibles, who had received the hospitali- 
 ties of my house, who had invited me into his settle- 
 ment to preach. I turned away indignantly from a 
 cold and reluctant reception here, made my way from 
 the house of this man, — who w 7 as a German and com- 
 paratively rich, — through deep and dark forests, and 
 amidst the concerts of wolves howling on the neigh- 
 bouring hills. Providentially, about midnight, I heard 
 the barking of dogs at a distance, made my way to 
 the cabin of a very poor man, who arose at midnight, 
 took me in, provided supper, and gave me a most cor- 
 dial reception. 
 
 23 
 
178 
 
 With this single exception, I have found the back- 
 woodsmen to be such as I have described ; a hardy, 
 adventurous, hospitable, rough, but sincere and up- 
 right race of people. I have received so many kind- 
 nesses from them, that it becomes me always to pre- 
 serve a grateful and affectionate remembrance of them. 
 If we were to try them by the standard of New Eng- 
 land customs and opinions, that is to say, the customs 
 of a people under entirely different circumstances, 
 there would be many things in the picture, that would 
 strike us offensively. They care little about ministers, 
 and think less about paying them. They are averse to 
 all, even the most necessary restraints. They are 
 destitute of the forms and observances of society and 
 religion; but they are sincere and kind without pro- 
 fessions, and have a coarse, but substantial morality, 
 which is often rendered more striking by the immedi- 
 ate contrast of the graceful bows, civility, and profes- 
 sions of their French Catholic neighbours, who have 
 the observances of society and the forms of worship, 
 with often but a scanty modicum of the blunt truth 
 and uprightness of their unpolished neighbours. 
 
 In the towns of the upper country on the Mississip- 
 pi, and especially in St. Louis, there is one species of 
 barbarism, that is but too common ; I mean the horrid 
 practice of duelling. But be it remembered, this is 
 the barbarism only of that small class that denominate 
 themselves "the gentlemen." It cannot be matter of 
 astonishment that these are common here, when we 
 recollect, that the fierce and adventurous spirits are 
 naturally attracted to these regions, and that it is a 
 common proverb of the people, that when we cross 
 the Mississippi, " we travel beyond the Sabbath." 
 
179 
 
 It would lead me to sueh personalities as I mean 
 to avoid, were I to give jog details, and my views of 
 the fatal duels, of which there were so many while I 
 was here. I can only say, that I lost, in this dreadful 
 way, two individuals with whom I had personal inter- 
 course, and from whom I had received many kind- 
 nesses. One of them was one of the most promising, 
 and apparently the most sober and moral young men 
 in the state, the hope of his family, and the prop of 
 the old age of his father. Ail that fell were men in 
 office, of standing and character. I am not here going 
 to start a dissertation upon the trite subject of duelling, 
 the most horrible and savage relic of a barbarous 
 age. If any thing could disgust reasoning beings with 
 this dreadful practice, it would be to have seen its fre- 
 quency and its terminations and consequences in this 
 region. The best encomium of regulated society, and 
 of the restraints of order and religion, is found in the 
 fact, that the duels that occur here, compared with 
 those that occur in New England, in proportion to the 
 population, are as a hundred to one. But even here, 
 it would be unjust to infer that the mass of the people 
 favour duelling. A single consideration will go far to 
 explain its frequency of occurrence among the upper 
 classes. As we have said, the ambitious, fiery, and 
 ungovernable spirits emigrate to obtain consequence, 
 and make their fortune. There is a continual chaos 
 of the political elements, occasioned by this continual 
 addition of new and discordant materials. The new 
 adventurers that arrive, have not as yet had their place 
 or their standing assigned them in public opinion. In 
 process of time, this new timber is inwrought into the 
 old political fabric, and thus it becomes continually 
 repaired and new moulded. In other words, people 
 
180 
 
 come here and find themselves in a position to start for 
 a new standing in society. No new man can ascend 
 to eminence, without displacing some one who is al- 
 ready there. Where character and estimation are set- 
 tled by prescription, the occupant of the high station 
 gives place peaceably to him that public opinion has 
 mounted to his place. Not so to the newly arrived em- 
 igrant, who makes his way to public favour, before his 
 standing and character have been settled by general 
 estimation. A few partisans find it convenient to cry 
 up their friend, who has recently emigrated here from 
 abroad. This is the very country and region for this 
 kind of crying up and crying down. We know that 
 every circle, however small, has its prodigious great 
 man, like Sancho's beauty, the greatest within three 
 leagues. How often have I heard of these great men 
 on a small circle, the actual monopolists of all the 
 talents and all the virtues, and yet men, of whom on 
 acquaintance I was compelled to form but a very in- 
 different opinion. To express a doubt in this case is 
 treason. Even " faint praise " is almost a ground of 
 offence. At the mouth of the pistol it must be settled, 
 W 7 hich is the greater man of the opposing circles. 
 The partisans of the opposing great men meet. Reck- 
 lessness about justice, and even life, is generated by 
 the blasphemy and abuse that grow out of the idle 
 quarrel. They throw away their lives, and the des- 
 perate indifference with which they do it, creates a 
 kind of respect in the minds of them that contemplate 
 it. 
 
 Many people without education and character, who 
 were not gentlemen in the circles where they used to 
 move, get accommodated here from the tailor with 
 something of the externals of a gentleman, and at 
 
181 
 
 once set up in this newly assumed character. The 
 shortest road to settle their pretensions is to fight a 
 duel. Such are always ready for the combat. Most 
 of the duels which took place while I was in the coun- 
 try, originated in causes like these. 
 
 The superstition in which duelling originated, is a 
 most idle one ; for the innocent and amiable are gen- 
 erally seen to fall, and the worthless to survive. That 
 they are not tests of courage, has been so often said 
 and sung, that it has become as trite as it is true. I 
 knew in that region an officer that fell in this way, 
 who was universally supposed to be a coward ; he 
 challenged his man, believing him to be a greater cow- 
 ard than himself ; but in this he mistook, went out, 
 and was slain. It is indeed most disgusting to see 
 these bullies, who lie every day, whose life in fact is 
 a standing lie, put people to death for calling them 
 liars, and immediately pass for men of honour and 
 truth. 
 
 One duel occurred on the Illinois side of the river, 
 and not far from St. Louis, at Bellevue, which ought 
 to serve as a solemn warning against the jest of trying 
 a man's courage in this way. A young gentleman, a 
 respectable attorney, had just commenced business in 
 that place. He had been bullied by a man, who was 
 indeed an officer in rank, but a man of dubious char- 
 acter. The young gentleman had been cautioned 
 against being drawn into the contest, and had been as- 
 sured, that according to the orthodox canons of hon- 
 our, the character of the man did not justify fighting 
 him. But an idea was entertained, that he had not 
 sufficient nerve to stand a challenge. It was agreed 
 by his friends that the next time the man insulted him, 
 he should send him a challenge, and that the second* 
 
 I 
 
182 
 
 should load both the rifles, — for they were to fight 
 with rifles, — with blank cartridges. The opposite 
 party was not to be in the secret, and the joke was 
 to watch his eye, and see if it did not blench. The 
 challenge was sent, and the seconds on both sides 
 made a solemn contract with each other, that both the 
 guns should be loaded with blank cartridges. The 
 young attorney went out to watch the eye of his an- 
 tagonist and to enjoy the joke. The parties met, dis- 
 charged, and the attorney fell with two rifle-bullets 
 through his heart. The wretch who was second for 
 his antagonist, had violated his stipulation, and had 
 loaded the rifle with two bullets. An amiable young 
 woman was left a widow with one orphan babe. The 
 wretches were both arrested, confined, broke jail and 
 fled, — -the principal to the remote points of Red Riv- 
 er, whence he returned after three years to Illinois, 
 was arrested, and I hope executed, though I am igno- 
 rant of the fact. 
 
 Though too many leading men in the country on 
 the Mississippi advocate duelling, there is evidently, 
 with the increasing progress of moral ideas and of 
 knowledge, an increasing sense of the abomination of 
 duelling, even in this region. Kentucky has taken an 
 honourable position against the barbarous practice, in 
 the enactment of a law, requiring an oath on the part 
 of any man qualifying himself for any office of trust 
 or election, that he has not given or accepted a chal- 
 lenge for a certain number of years. It has the desir- 
 ed effect to restrain duels, in a state where they used 
 to be common. Public opinion is every where gather- 
 ing strength against it, and the time, I trust, will soon 
 be, when, instead of its being blazoned, that a can- 
 didate for office has slain his man, it will operate as an 
 
183 
 
 impediment to his views, and this stain upon humanity 
 will no longer disgrace the country. 
 
 Missouri and Illinois have imported from abroad 
 many men respectable for their talents and acquire- 
 ments. Many more have come here from abroad, ex- 
 pecting to eclipse every thing of brightness that was 
 already in the country, and who have very unexpect- 
 edly found themselves eclipsed. Of the itinerant 
 preachers, I did not hear one who approached to me- 
 diocrity. They may have been pious men, but, for the 
 most part, they defy all criticism. I heard one gen- 
 tleman, who was for a while esteemed a great orator 
 at St. Louis, twice use a figure, which I think Swift 
 would have selected, as a fine example of bathos. 
 Speaking of the love of God, as naturally raising the 
 soul to the object of that love, he illustrated the idea, 
 by saying that the stream would always rise as high 
 as the fountain. He added, that every lady had an 
 explanation of this fact before her, w r hen she saw the 
 water rising as high in the nose, as in the body of the 
 teapot ! I heard him quote Greek to the Missourians, 
 and his knowledge of Greek was of a piece with the 
 figure of the teapot. 
 
 I heard the Rev. Dr. B. the favourite orator of Ten- 
 nessee, preach. I would not wish to laud him in the 
 same affected strain, with the encomiums of the blind 
 minister of Virginia. But he is certainly an extraor- 
 dinary man in his way. His first appearance is 
 against him, indicating a rough and uncouth man. 
 He uses many low words, and images and illustra- 
 tions in bad taste. But perhaps, when you are get- 
 ting tired, almost disgusted, every thing is reversed in 
 a moment. He flashes upon you. You catch his eye 
 and you follow him ; he bursts upon you in a glow of 
 
184 
 
 feeling and pathos, leaving you not sufficiently cool 
 to criticise. We may affect to decry the talent of 
 moving the inmost affections. After all, I am inclined 
 to think it the most important qualification, which a 
 minister can possess. He possesses this in an eminent 
 degree. He has the electric eye, the thrilling tones, the 
 unction, the feeling, the universal language of passion 
 and nature, which is equally understood and felt by all 
 people. He has evidently been richly endowed by na- 
 ture ; but his endowments owe little to discipline or 
 education. 
 
 There are a few preachers here, plain men, of sound 
 instruction and good sense, who are respected for these 
 qualifications, but are not popular as orators. These 
 men are from New England, and formed on the mod- 
 els of that country. They have, also, some acute law- 
 yers at the bar. It struck me as being superior to 
 that of Ohio. The first lawyer, when I arrived in the 
 country, was E. H. Esq., a man unlettered, but of 
 strong sense, and it was said by competent judges, a 
 great special pleader. He had a kind of sharp, fierce, 
 and barking manner of speaking, which had such an 
 effect to awe the jury, and had become so popular, 
 that it descended to the bar, as his mantle, after he 
 was dead. Often have I heard young and incom- 
 petent lawyers, attempting to catch the bark of E. H. 
 
 Col. B., well known in another place, has since been 
 supreme at the bar. He is acute, laboured, florid, 
 rather sophomorical, to use our word, but a man of 
 strong sense. There flashes " strange fire ?? from his 
 eye, and all that he does " smells of the lamp." 
 There was a young gentleman, Mr. B., who gave 
 strong promise of future excellence. He was the on- 
 ly member of the bar, whom I heard plead, that show- 
 
185 
 
 ed in his manner the fruit of classical taste and dis- 
 cipline. He was happy in his arrangement and choice 
 of words, and concise and coi densed ; and had a 
 suavity in his manner. But these things were too of- 
 ten thrown away upon the jury in a region, where 
 noise and flourish are generally mistaken for sense and 
 reason. 
 
 The people here are not yet a reading people. 
 Few good books are brought into the country. The 
 few literary men that are here, seeing nothing to 
 excite or reward their pursuits, seeing other objects 
 exclusively occupy all minds, soon catch the prevail- 
 ing feeling. The people are too busy, too much oc- 
 cupied in making farms and speculations, to think of 
 literature. 
 
 America inherits, I believe, from England a taste 
 for puffing. She has improved upon her model. In 
 your quarter, as well as here, the people are idolaters 
 to the " golden calves." Some favourite man, fash- 
 ion, or opinion, sweep every thing before them. This 
 region is the paradise of puffers. One puffs up, and 
 another down. As you draw near the influence of the 
 " lord of the ascendant,' 7 you will find opinions grad- 
 uated to his dicta. The last stranger that arrives from 
 Kentucky, or the Atlantic country, is but poorly intro- 
 duced to his new residence, if he have not one of these 
 great men to puff a breeze in the sail of his skiff, as 
 he puts himself afloat. 
 
 I have been amused in reading puffing advertise- 
 ments in the newspapers. A little subscription school, 
 in which half the pupils are abecedarians, is a col- 
 lege. One is a Lancastrian school, or a school of 
 "instruction mutuelle." There is the Pestalozzi es- 
 tablishment, with its appropriate emblazoning. There 
 24 
 
) 
 
 186 ' 
 
 is the agricultural school, the missionary school, the 
 grammar box, the new way to make a wit of a dunce 
 in six lessons, and all the mechanical ways of inocula- 
 ting children with learning, that they may not endure 
 the pain of getting it in the old and natural way. I 
 would not have you smile exclusively at the people of 
 the West. This ridiculous species of swindling is ma- 
 king as much progress in your country as here. The 
 misfortune is, that these vile pretensions finally induce 
 the people to believe, that there is a 6i royal road " {o 
 learning. The old and beaten track, marked out by 
 the only sure guide, experience, is forsaken. The 
 parents are flattered, deceived, and swindled. Puffing 
 pretenders take the place of the modest man of science, 
 who scorns to compete with him in these vile arts. 
 The children have 1 heir brains distended with the 
 "east wind/* and grow up at once empty and con- 
 ceited. 
 
 These founders of new schools, for the most part, 
 advertise themselves from London, Paris, Philadelphia, 
 New York, Boston, and have all performed exploits 
 in the regions whence they came, and bring the latest 
 improvements with them. As to what they can do, 
 and what they will do, the object is to lay on the col- 
 ouring thick and threefold. A respectable man wish- 
 es to establish himself in a school . in those regions. 
 He consults a friend, who knows the meridian of the 
 country. The advice is, Call your school by some new 
 and imposing name. Let it be understood, that you 
 have a new way of instructing children, by which 
 they can learn twice as much, in half the time, as by 
 the old ways. Throw off all modesty. Move the 
 water, and get in while it is moving. In short, de- 
 pend upon the gullibility of the people. A school, 
 
187 
 
 modelled on this advice, was instituted at St. Louis, 
 while I was there, with a very imposing name. The 
 masters, — professors, I should say, — proposed to teach 
 most of the languages, and all the sciences. Hebrew 
 they would communicate in twelve lessons ; Latin 
 and Greek, with a proportionate promptness. These 
 men, who were to teach all this themselves, had read 
 Erasmus with a translation, and knew the Greek al- 
 phabet, and in their public discourses, — for they were 
 ministers, — sometimes dealt very abusively with the 
 " king's English. " 
 
 Town-making introduces another species of puffing. 
 Art and ingenuity have been exhausted in devising 
 new ways of alluring purchasers, to take lots and 
 build in the new town. There are the fine rivers, the 
 healthy hills, the mineral springs, the clear running 
 water, the eligible mill-seats, the valuable forests, the 
 quarries of building-stone, the fine steam-boat navi- 
 gation, the vast country adjacent, the central positon, 
 the connecting point between the great towns, the ad- 
 mirable soil, and last of all the cheerful and undoubt- 
 ing predictions of what the town must oue day be. I 
 have read more than an hundred advertisements of 
 this sort. Then the legislature must be tampered 
 with, in order to make the town either the metropolis, 
 or at least the seat of justice. In effect, we were 
 told that in Illinois, two influential men, who both had 
 Tadmors to be upreared, took a hand of cards, to as- 
 certain which should resign his pretensions to legisla- 
 tive aid in building his town, in favour of the other. 
 
 A coarse caricature of this abomination of town- 
 making, appeared in the St. Louis papers. The 
 name was u Ne plus ultra." The streets were laid 
 out a mile in width ; the squares were to be sections, 
 
188 
 
 each containing six hundred and forty acres. The 
 mall was a vast standing forest. In the centre of this 
 modern Babylon, roads were to cross each other in a 
 meridional line at right angles, one from the south 
 pole to Symmes's hole in the north, and another from 
 Pekin to Jerusalem. 
 
 In truth, while travelling on the prairies of the Illi- 
 nois and Missouri, and observing such immense tracts 
 of rich soil, of the blackness of ink, and of exhaust- 
 less fertility, — remarking the beautiful simplicity of 
 the limits of farms, introduced by our government, in 
 causing the land to be all surveyed in exact squares, 
 and thus destroying here the barbarous prescription, 
 which has in the settled countries laid out the lands in 
 ugly farms, and bounded them by zigzag lines, — con- 
 templating the hedge of verdure that will bound the 
 squares on these smooth and fertile plains, — remarking 
 the beauty of the orchards and improvements, that 
 must ensue, — being convinced that the climate will 
 grow salubrious with its population and improve- 
 ment—seeing the guardian genius, Liberty, hovering 
 over the country, — measuring the progress of the fu- 
 ture, only by the analogy of the past, — it will be 
 difficult for the imagination to assign limits to the 
 future growth and prosperity of the country. Per- 
 haps on one of these boundless plains, and contigu- 
 ous to some one of these noble rivers, in view of these 
 hoary bluffs, and where all these means of the subsist- 
 ence and multiplication of the species are concentered 
 in such ample abundance, will arise the actual " Ne 
 plus ultra." On looking at the astonishing change, 
 which the last ten years have introduced over the 
 whole face of the United States, and anticipating the 
 change of a century, I have sometimes found the fa- 
 
189 
 
 mous wish of Franklin stealing into my mind, with 
 respect to the interesting country which I am de- 
 scribing. 
 
 LETTER XVIII.— ST. CHARLES. 
 
 I will here attempt to give you some of the inci- 
 dents of my ministerial life, and a very brief chroni- 
 cle of family events, during the five years which I 
 spent in this region, before we descended to the Ar- 
 kansas. In the first year of my residence, 1 arranged , 
 my places of worship, and made acquaintances with 
 families disposed to aid me in my pursuits. Feeble, 
 infirm, and worn down as I am with the labours of 
 the past, and beginning to find that it is necessary 
 rather to live and find enjoyment in the remem- 
 brances of the past, than in the hopes of the future, 
 as it respects this life, I delight to call to remem- 
 brance the amiable families with which I have been 
 acquainted, and the happy days that I have spent in 
 this remote and sequestered world. I love to remem- 
 ber how I arrived late in the evening in view of a 
 group of cabins, seen by their cheerful fires, blazing 
 among the trees, or across the plains. My approach 
 was uniformly greeted by the cry of a numerous pack 
 of dogs, who, however, after the first meeting, would 
 fawn round me, and give me their welcome in advance 
 of their master's. The eye of a stranger would see 
 but little in the picture before me, but solitude and sav- 
 , ageness, filth and hunger. A hundred recollections 
 crowd upon me, of such asylums affording the most 
 affectionate welcome, cheerful and cordial conversa- 
 tion, unrepressed by ceremony or pride, excellent 
 
J 90 
 
 coffee (the true nectar in such a place), substantial 
 and good fare of all kinds, a clean bed, and refresh- 
 ing slumbers. And the charm of cordial and endear- 
 ed society has a zest in the solitudes of Missouri, 
 where one would scarce expect to find it, which it 
 has not in crowded cities, where it ought to be a 
 common commodity. I could name many excellent 
 families, where I found such society. They were con- 
 tent to have their abundance, to practise their vir- 
 tues, and to give themselves to hospitality without 
 seeking notoriety, and they would not wish their 
 names recorded. I remember among my happiest 
 days, those which I spent with these people. 
 
 I feel an oppression of heart, though it be from 
 gratitude, almost painful, as I remember our reception 
 by two families in the " Point/ 5 below St. Charles, 
 after the return of my family from the Arkansas, and 
 before w T e descended to the lower country. I may 
 best relate it here, and I should do injustice to my 
 feelings and to truth, if I did not relate it. If these 
 simple annals should ever reach them, they will know 
 to whom I refer, and they will be assured that my 
 grateful feelings will only end with my life. Five of 
 my family, — myself and Mrs. F. among them, — imme- 
 diately on our return from the lower country, were 
 taken with the fever of the country in one day. We 
 had not yet taken a house, and seized with this fever, 
 we were utterly incapable of making any arrangements. 
 We were sick, and " they took us in." We were 
 scattered in different houses. Mrs. F. parted with 
 an infant babe from the breast, which in the parox- 
 ysm of fever no longer yielded its supplies. The 
 families where we were lodged, were aware that in their 
 houses, they could not furnish exactly the comforts 
 
191 
 
 for the sick, to which we had been used. But in as- 
 siduity and sympathy, they more than made up this 
 deficiency. Self-respect forbids me to blazon some 
 of the circumstances of our suffering during that long 
 and dreary period. 1 was unconscious for days to- 
 gether. In the height of my fever, and while as yet 
 unable to Ajse myself in bed, circumstances compel- 
 led me to be removed on a carriage to a distance of 
 >six miles. ~ We had not even the poor comfort of suf- 
 fering together. Our fever lasted forty days. To 
 Mrs. F and myself the ague supervened, after the 
 fever was* at an end. I suffered from fever and ague 
 sixty days| In this deplorable situation we found the 
 kindest reception. Sick as we were, and probable 
 as the prospect was, that some of us would add the 
 trouble of funeral rites and duties to the labour and 
 cares of nursing us, they never remitted their kind- 
 ness for a moment ; and thanks to the great Physician, 
 we lived to bless them, and repay them every thing 
 but the due amount of gratitude. The names of 
 these benefactors I am not permitted to record. But 
 their kindness ought to be recorded, in proof that 
 there is kindness and sympathy with distress, and 
 christian feeling, in the prairies of Missouri. How 
 often have unhappy associations induced us to think 
 of people, as ignorant and barbarous, because they 
 lived in such a region ! There are generous hearts 
 and there are elevated minds every where. How 
 often, while thinking of these families, to whom we 
 owe so much, have I remembered Gray's beautiful 
 verses ; — " Full many a gem, " &c. 
 
 Many of these families, — where I most frequently 
 sojourned for five years, — were to me almost "the 
 same as the more endeared families of my native 
 
192 
 
 country. Many of these remembrances are delightful 
 to me, and variegate the general gloom cast over that 
 period by sickness and suffering. These interchanges 
 of kindness between me and this people, whom in this 
 world I expect to see no more, are written, I doubt 
 not, in a more durabJe and high record, than the frail 
 tablet of human memory. Of one family, — among 
 the dearest to my remembrance, and one of the best 
 samples of a Missouri planter, in the middle walks of 
 life, — I may be allowed to speak with more particular- 
 ity. The father, the mother, the daughter, are gone. 
 The orphans that remain, are as yet incapable of com- 
 prehending the contents of this page. They resided 
 in Bonhomme, about twelve miles from St. Louis, 
 and near the deep bottom of the Missouri. 
 
 The greater part of the large settlement in which 
 they lived, is located on a tract of undulating country, 
 of a very curious surface. It is neither prairie nor 
 woodland, but a compound of both. It is intersected 
 with numerous spring-branches, around which there 
 are always found clumps of trees. Unlike the prairies 
 in general, the surface of the untimbered lands is cov- 
 ered with shrubbery of different kinds. I have re- 
 marked here a most singular and pleasing landscape 
 in the spring. At a period so early that the general 
 aspect is a brown surface of bushes and grass, you 
 will here and there see a beautiful flowering shrub, 
 that has felt the influence of the spring. The flow 7 ers 
 were of two classes, w 7 hite and crimson. Some of the 
 trees, in the same manner, were just beginning to un- 
 fold their foliage and flowers, affording a fine contrast 
 with those trees that had still the hue of winter. On 
 these elevated plains, the regular lines of the farming 
 enclosures, in square forms, striped here and there 
 
193 
 
 with the bright and tender verdure of the springing 
 wheat, afforded the most charming contrast with the 
 surrounding brown of the heathy plain. In the dis- 
 tance, these square enclosures of verdure, amidst this 
 brown, so diminished to the eye, have the appearance 
 of having been painted for landscapes. The effect 
 of social labour never struck me more forcibly than 
 in the plantation of Mr. Jamieson, the bead of the 
 .family in question, as I saw it for the first time, when 
 just emerging from the deep bottom of the Missouri, 
 and at the distance of three miles. The fields, though 
 extensive and beautiful, had been but recently won 
 from the heath. No verdure ever seemed more lively? 
 than the oblong strips of wheat and rye, which had at- 
 tained the height of six inches. It was before any 
 other vegetation diversified the solemn brown of the 
 heath, except the dog- wood with its pure white, and 
 the red-bud with its beautiful red blossoms. 
 
 Just on the edge of these fields, six cabins were oc- 
 cupied by the family, its servants, and establishments, 
 which, seen in the distance, had the appearance of so 
 many bee-hives. The family was from western Vir- 
 ginia, or that part of the state which lies west of the 
 mountains, and was of Scotch descent. It consisted 
 of the husband, wife, and six children ; and a group 
 of more beautiful children I have never seen. The 
 parents were hospitable and courteous; and had seen 
 society enough to know its forms, but not of that sort 
 to render them affected or fastidious. The piety of 
 these amiable people was not often blazoned in their 
 conversation, but was sober, constant, pervading their 
 family management and their conversation. It seem- 
 ed a living principle. The stranger came in, and was 
 so welcomed as to feel himself at home. The circle 
 25 
 
194 
 
 that assembled round their evening fire, entered into 
 conversations, that were cordial and exhilirating, 
 The fare, too, was such in all respects, — although fur- 
 nished in a cabin, — as is not often found in more 
 sumptuous dwellings. In this house I have passed 
 many pleasant days. 
 
 Whenever the name of the eldest daughter is men- 
 tioned in my family, a visible gloom comes over their 
 countenances. She was long a pupil in my family. 
 From the first of her residence with us, she was an 
 object of general attention, for she was beautiful, the 
 rose of the prairie, and she was at the most interest- 
 ing period of life, and she was gay, and untamed in 
 the possession of an uncontrolled flow of spirits, and 
 as buoyant as the fawn of her own prairie. The reg- 
 ulations of a religious family in that region, differ 
 widely from ours. When she first resided with us, 
 she was disposed to consider our rules as odious, and 
 our restrictions as tyranny. But in the progress of 
 her studies, and of more mature acquaintance, she be- 
 came tranquil, satisfied, and studious, exhibiting an 
 affectionate submission, that endeared her to us all. 
 She soon became to me, as one of my children. A 
 conversation, which I had with her, during that se- 
 vere sickness, which I have mentioned, will long be 
 remembered in my family. Contrary to all our expec- 
 tations, I recovered, and had the satisfaction to see the 
 pensive thoughtfulness, that had long been gathering 
 on her brow, assume the form of piety and religion. 
 When we were about to depart from that region for 
 the Arkansas, her parting from my family was affect- 
 ionate and solemn. I crossed the Missouri with her, 
 and listened with delight to her views, her resolutions, 
 and the plans which she proposed for her future life, 
 
195 
 
 You will believe, that they were not the less interest- 
 ing to me, for being seasoned with a spice of romance. 
 But she laid down, as the outline, the steady and un- 
 alterable guidance of religion. The counsels which 
 I gave her, as we were crossing the stream, were of 
 course paternal and affectionate, for I expected to meet 
 her no more. The ferryman was a flippant and un- 
 feeling Frenchman, who understood not a word of our 
 conversation, but marking her tears, concluded I was 
 scolding her. He had a saucy frankness of taking 
 every one to account, and when I returned, he began 
 to chide me for scolding such a beautiful girl. " Vous 
 etes ministre Protestant," said he, " c'est une religion 
 tres seche, tres dure. Nous autres Catholiques n'avons 
 pas cceurs faites comme 9a ! " As he understood it, 
 I had been giving her stern lessons, and harsh coun- 
 sels, which had been the cause of her tears. 
 
 Why should I refrain from giving a few more details 
 of this interesting young woman, through fear that 
 this page should take the form of a romance. You 
 have repeatedly pressed upon me, to go boldly and 
 minutely into the history of all that I have seen, en- 
 joyed, or suffered. My mind and my memory sug- 
 gest in the case of this young person, so dear to my 
 family, far more than I shall relate, and instead of 
 wishing to colour, I shall be obliged to touch only the 
 remaining incidents of her short career. There resid- 
 ed in her father's family a very respectable young 
 man. He was rather silent and reserved in his man- 
 ners, but thinking, intelligent, and of a very different 
 cast from the young men in his vicinity. Still, he was 
 not exactly calculated to win the affections of a 
 beautiful young woman, in whose mind there was, 
 perhaps, but one obliquity, and that had been caused 
 
196 
 
 by the perusal of the novels of the day. He was not 
 her hero, her " beau ideal." We knew his worth. We 
 knew his true and honourable affection, truly and hon- 
 ourably expressed. He was in a respectable employ- 
 ment, and looked to the very lucrative and respectable 
 office, which he has since held in the country of St. 
 Louis. Mrs. F., w ho knew the wishes of her parents, 
 laboured the point with her, that the prospect of good 
 sense, fidelity, tried affection, and honourable support, 
 were the best guarantees of happiness in the wed- 
 ded state. It was not easy to dispel the day-dreams, 
 which she had fostered from the idle reading of the 
 day. But with the growing influence of religion, 
 there grew up also more sober and just surveys of 
 life and its duties, and a stronger wish to gratify her 
 parents in the first desire of their hearts. She was 
 engaged to this young man, and on my return with 
 my family from Arkansas, I heard with great pleasure 
 that she was shortly to reward his honourable and 
 persevering attachment, with her hand. The wed- 
 ding day was fixed, and all was sober expectation of 
 tranquillity and happiness. The charming and en- 
 deared eldest daughter was to be fixed near the plan- 
 tation of her father. Another square, with its com- 
 partments of verdure, was to be struck out of the 
 brown of the heath. I envy no man, if it be not the 
 father that so settles beloved children around him. 
 This young man, in view of his prospects, probably 
 envied no man. She was suddenly seized with one 
 of the terrible fevers of the country, which riot so fatal- 
 ly in a frame so elastic and healthful as hers. It 
 ought to cheer us, that we may lay hold of a resource, 
 which will enable us to triumph over human passions 
 and fears, over love and death. The sincerity of her 
 religion was tested in this way. 
 
197 
 
 She called her lover to her bed, and took of him the 
 tenderest parting. She sang with the family the sim- 
 B pie, but sweet hymn, so common in that country, and 
 in which she delighted when in health : u The day 
 is past and gone/' &c. She bade them fareweil, and 
 closed her eyes in peace upon all the joyful prospects 
 that were opening before her. Circumstance s, not 
 necessary to detail, compelled them to make her bri- 
 dal dress her shroud. The father, the mother soon 
 followed this daughter, too dearly loved, too deeply 
 lamented. I have been in view of this desolate hab- 
 itation, but I have not wished to enter it. I have felt 
 more intensely than ever, as I saw these cabins again, 
 the pathetic close of the story of " Paul and Virgin- 
 ia." 
 
 During the first autumn of my residence in St. 
 Charles, it began to be a fashionable trip for people, 
 who had imbibed the prevailing notions of the beauty 
 and advantages of this country, to visit it. We enter- 
 tained many respectable strangers from Virginia, the 
 Carolinas, and Kentucky. During the visits of these 
 gentlemen, my two young children were ill of bilious 
 fever. The autumn was delightfully mild, and loaded 
 with fruits and grain, even in regions where they had 
 scarcely had rain enough, from planting to harvest, 
 to prevent the husbandmen from labouring in the fields. 
 This country differs essentially from that of the At- 
 lantic, in being much less subject to rains, — in its being 
 in fact a very dry country. But, such is the freshness 
 and richness of the soil, and its capability of resisting 
 drought, that if once the corn and wheat can be ger- 
 minated so as to come up, they are sure of a crop. 
 
 Among these visiters to the country w*is Judge 
 Tucker, a very respectable gentleman of high political 
 
198 
 
 standing, from Virginia. He brought with him a num- 
 ber of the most respectable people from Carolina and 
 Kentucky ; the families of Naylor and Coneter. Their 
 imaginations were warmed by the striking appearance 
 of a country so beautiful, and so unlike the Atlantic 
 countries, and they seemed to feel upon the subject all 
 the ardour and freshness of youthful poets. Longer 
 and more practical acquaintance with this land of 
 promise has taught these amiable and opulent people, 
 that evils of all sorts can exist in the most beautiful 
 countries, and that physical advantages are but a poor 
 compensation for the loss of moral ones. 
 
 During the first winter and all the second and third 
 years of my residence here, the rage for speculating in 
 their lands was at the highest. No Jews were ever 
 more greedy to accumulate money. I have often been 
 at collections, where lands were at sale for taxes and 
 by orders of court, and at other times, where there 
 were voluntary sales at auction. The zeal to purchase 
 amounted to a fever. There were no arts, to which 
 resort was not had to cry up and cry down. Land 
 speculators constituted a particular party. It re- 
 quired prodigious efforts to become adroit. The spec- 
 ulators had a peculiar kind of slang dialect, appropriate 
 to their profession, and when they walked about it was 
 with an air of solemn thoughtfulness upon their coun- 
 tenances as though they were the people, and wisdom 
 would die with them. The surveyors of course were 
 very important instruments in this business, and a great 
 and fortunate land-speculator and land-holder was 
 looked up to with as much veneration by the people, as 
 any partner in the house of Hope in London, or Gray 
 in America. I question, if the people of Missouri 
 generally thought there existed higher objects of envy* 
 
199 
 
 than Choteau and a few other great land-holders of tha£ 
 class. A very large tract of land was cried by the 
 sheriff for sale, when I was present, and the only limits 
 and bounds given were, that it was thirty miles north of 
 St. Louis. A general laugh ran through the crowd as- 
 sembled at the court-house door. But a purchaser 
 soon appeared, who bid off the tract thirty miles 
 north of St. Louis, undoubtedly with a view to sell it 
 to some more greedy speculator than himself. 
 
 There were people who offered immense tracts of 
 land, the titles to which were contingent, and only in 
 prospect. Often the same tract was offered for sale by 
 two and even three claimants. The whole county of 
 St. Charles, containing a number of thousands of in- 
 habitants, was offered for sale, by what was called the 
 Glamorgan claim, and thirteen hundred dollars were 
 paid on the spot for the claim. But it is not my in- 
 tention to dip into the gulph of land-claims, settle- 
 ment-rights, preemption-rights, Spanish grants, con- 
 firmed claims, unconfirmed claims, and New Madrid 
 claims. The discussion, the investigation of these 
 claims, the comparative value of them, the vaunting of 
 the mill-streams on the one, the range and the proba- 
 ble advantages of another, the prospect of confirma- 
 tion of the unconfirmed titles, the expectations of one 
 from the eloquence of the members of congress who 
 would espouse the interest of his claim, of another from 
 his determined and declared purpose to carry his 
 claims by bribery, — conversation upon these points 
 made up the burden of the song in all social meetings. 
 They were like the weather in other countries, stand- 
 ing and perpetual topics of conversation. Nor let the 
 inhabitant of the Atlantic cities suppose that these 
 were without an intense interest. Families were con- 
 
stantly arriving, many of them polite and well-inform- 
 ed, and they were going on to these tracts, which, 
 portrayed by the interested surveyors and specula- 
 tors, and as yet partially explored and possessing 
 much of the interest of unknown regions, were to be 
 their home. 
 
 The first months of the life of a family, that seats it- 
 self in these remote solitudes, have a charm of romance 
 thrown over them, which, alas ! more intimate acquain- 
 tance is but too sure to dispel. Never have I seen 
 countenances suffused with more interest or eagerness, 
 than in circles of this description, where the compara- 
 tive beauty and advantages of different sections of the 
 country, or the best sites for location, were the themes 
 of conversation. No doubt many of these speculations 
 were dishonest No subject is more susceptible of all 
 the arts of cheating, because in no point is it so im- 
 possible to disprove advantages, which vary with the 
 imagination of him that contemplates them. The spec- 
 ulators often exercised dishonest arts, before the great 
 change in the aspect of the times, which was more or 
 less felt every where, but felt with a more severe 
 pressure here than in any other place, and they grew 
 rich with unexampled rapidity. But they had not 
 rightly discerned the signs of the times. For land 
 speculation was at its greediest activity about the 
 time that they took a sudden, I might call it figura- 
 tively, a perpendicular fall. For they fell from an es- 
 timation above their real value, through all the stages 
 of depreciation, to an estimation probably far below 
 their proper value. Hundreds of speculators, who had 
 embarked all their means, and a still greater degree 
 of credit in these speculations, and who might have 
 sold these lands in the fortunate moment and been 
 
201 
 
 independent, retained them, through greediness, until 
 they sank at once in value upon their hands, and many 
 were ruined ; and, as always happens in such cases, 
 these men of the principal show of wealth, of credit to 
 any extent, and in whose stability much of the means 
 of the country was involved, could not fail to drag 
 down multitudes with them in their fall. 
 
 Between the second and third years of my residence 
 in the country, the immigration from the western and 
 southern states to this,eountry poured in a flood, the 
 power and strength of which could only be adequately 
 conceived by persons on the spot. We have number- 
 ed a hundred persons passing through the village of 
 St. Charles in one day. The number was said to 
 have equalled that for many days together. From 
 the Mamelles I have looked over the subjacent plain 
 quite to the ferry, where the immigrants crossed the 
 upper Mississippi. I have seen in this extent nine 
 wagons harnessed with from four to six horses. We 
 may allow a hundred cattle, besides hogs, horses, 
 and sheep, to each wagon ; and from three or four to 
 twenty slaves. The whole appearance of the train, 
 the cattle with their hundred bells ; the negroes with 
 delight in their countenances, for their labours are 
 suspended and their imaginations excited ; the wag- 
 ons, often carrying two or three tons, so loaded that 
 the mistress and children are strolling carelessly 
 along, in a gait which enables them to keep up with 
 the slow travelling carriage ; — the whole group oc- 
 cupies three quarters of a mile. The slaves generally 
 seem fond of their masters, and quite as much delight- 
 ed and interested in the immigration, as the master. 
 It is to me a very pleasing and patriarchal scene. It 
 carries me back to the days of other vears, and to the 
 26 
 
202 
 
 pastoral pursuits of those ancient races, whose home 
 was in a tent, wherever their flocks found range. 
 
 I question if the rich inhabitants of England, taking 
 their summer excursion to Bath, are happier in their 
 journey, than these people. Just about nightfall, they 
 come to a spring or a branch, where there is water 
 and wood. The pack of dogs sets up a cheerful 
 barking. The cattle lie down and ruminate. The 
 team is unharnessed. The huge waggons are cover- 
 ed, so that the roof completely excludes the rain. 
 The cooking utensils are brought out. The blacks 
 prepare a supper, which the toils of the day render 
 delicious; and they talk over the adventures of the 
 past day, and the prospects of the next. Meantime, 
 they are going where there is nothing but buffaloes 
 and deer to limit their range, even to the western sea. 
 Their imaginations are highly excited. Said some 
 of them to me, as they passed over the Mamelle 
 prairie, the richest spot that I have ever seen ; " If 
 this is so rich, what must Boon's Lick be?" 
 
 From some cause, it happens that in the western 
 and southern states, a tract of country gets a name, as 
 being more desirable than any other. The imagina- 
 tions of the multitudes that converse upon the subject, 
 get kindled, and the plains of Mamre in old time, or 
 the hills of the land of promise, were not more fertile 
 in milk and honey, than are the fashionable points of 
 immigration. During the first, second, and third years 
 of my residence here, the whole current of immigra- 
 tion set towards this country, Boon's Lick, so called, 
 from Boon's having discovered and worked the salines 
 in that tract. Boon's Lick was the common centre of 
 hopes, and the common point of union for the peo- 
 ple. Ask one of them whither he was moving, and 
 
205 
 
 the answer was, 6i To Boon's Lick, to be sure." I 
 conversed with great numbers of these people, af- 
 fording just samples of the great class of frontier or 
 backwoods people, who begin upon the retirement 
 of the Indians, and in their turn yield to a more indus- 
 trious and permanent race who succeed them, and 
 they in turn push on still farther, with their face ever 
 toward the western sea. And thus wave propels 
 wave. Thus the frontier still broadens, and there are 
 many white settlers fixed in their homes eight hundred 
 miles above St. Charles. The surveyor who ran the 
 base line from the mouth of the Osage to the Arkan- 
 sas, found a white family in the vast intermediate de- 
 sert between the settlements of the one river and the 
 other, a hundred miles from any settled habitation, even 
 of the Indians. They reported that they saw no 
 people oftener than once in a year. And the range is 
 almost beyond the stretch of imagination. For the 
 gentlemen of Long's Expedition tell us, that in the. po- 
 litical limits of the United States, they found tribes of 
 Indians, whose ears the name of the government that 
 claims their country, had never reached. Nothing 
 can or will limit the immigration westward, but the 
 Western Ocean. Alas ! for the moving generation of 
 the day, when the tide of advancing backwoodsmen 
 shall have met the surge of the Pacific. They may 
 then set them down and weep for other worlds. 
 
 After a while the Boon's Lick current began to dis- 
 part, and a branch of it to sweep off towards Salt Riv- 
 er. In a little while Salt River, — -a river of the upper 
 Mississippi, — became the pole-star of attraction. After 
 my return from Arkansas, as we were journeying 
 through the state of Illinois, in the year 1819, the cur- 
 rent set in another direction. The Kentuckians and 
 
204 
 
 Tennesseans were moving their droves of cattle to a 
 point on the Iiiinois. I could not exactly make out 
 for two or three days, the name of their destined coun- 
 try. They pronounced it as though it were Moovis- 
 tar, or as my children phrased it, Moving-star. On 
 being better informed, we were told that the country 
 was denominated from some poor sand-banks near the 
 river, " Mauvaise Terre," or " Poor Land." I have 
 heard at least a dozen points come into fashion, and go 
 out again, as places of immigration. There was for a 
 long time a strong sensation in favour of the plains on 
 the Pacific, at the mouth of the Columbia. There 
 was some effort made at Washington for the establish- 
 ment of a military post there, and had it been effected, 
 hundreds of these people would have packed up all, 
 and would have whistled over the vast and snowy 
 Chepywan ridge to lay their bones on the shores of 
 the Pacific. At the moment I am writing, over the 
 western and southern country, the current of the move- 
 able part of the community is towards Texas, and un- 
 fortunately out of the limits of the country. 
 
 I have spoken of the moveable part of the commu- 
 nity, and unfortunately for the western country, it con- 
 stitutes too great a proportion of the whole communi- 
 ty. The general inclination here, is too much like 
 that of the Tartars. Next to hunting, Indian wars, 
 and the w T onderful exuberance of Kentucky, the fa- 
 vourite topic is new countries. They talk of them. 
 They are attached to the associations connected with 
 such conversations. They have a fatal effect upon 
 their exertions. They have no motive, in consonance 
 with these feelings, to build with old Cato, " for pos- 
 terity and the immortal gods." They only make 
 such improvenents as they can leave without reluct- 
 
205 
 
 ance and without loss. I have every where noted the 
 operation of this impediment in the way of those per- 
 manent and noble improvements which grow out of a 
 love for that appropriated spot where we were born, 
 and where we expect to die. There are noble and 
 most tender prejudices of this kind, which in the best 
 minds are the strongest, and which make every thing 
 dear in that cradle of our affections. There is a fund 
 of virtuous habits, arising out of these permanent es- 
 tablishments, which give to our patriotism u a local 
 habitation and a name." But neither do I at all believe 
 the eloquent but perverse representation that Talleyrand 
 has given of these same moving people, who have no 
 affection for one spot more than another, and whose 
 home is in the wild woods, or the boundless prairies, or 
 wherever their dogs, their cattle, and their servants, 
 are about them. They lose, no doubt, some of the 
 noble prejudices which are transmitted with durable 
 mansions through successive generations. But they 
 in their turn, have virtues, that are called into exer- 
 cise by the peculiarities of their case and character, 
 which are equally unknown. But whatever may be 
 the effect of the stationary or the moving life upon the 
 parties respectively, there can be no doubt about the 
 result of this spirit upon the face of the country. 
 Durable houses of brick or of stone, which are pecul- 
 iarly called for, on account of the scarcity of timber, — 
 fences of hedge and ditch, — barns and granaries of the 
 more durable kind, — the establishment of the coarser 
 manufactories, so necessary in a country like this, — 
 the planting of artificial forests, which on the wide 
 prairies would be so beautiful and useful, — all that 
 accumulation of labour, industry, taste, and wealth, 
 that unite to beautify a family residence, to be trans- 
 
206 
 
 mitted as a proud and useful memento of the family, — 
 these improvements, which seem to be so naturally 
 called for on these fertile plains, will not become gen- 
 eral for many years. Scarcely has a family fixed it- 
 self, and enclosed a plantation with the universal 
 fence, — split rails, laid in the worm-trail, or what is 
 known in the north by the name of Virginia fence, — 
 reared a suitable number of log buildings, in short, 
 achieved the first rough improvements, that appertain 
 to the most absolute necessity, than the assembled 
 family about the winter fire begin to talk about the 
 prevailing theme, — some country that has become the 
 rage, as a point of immigration. They offer their 
 farm for sale, and move away. 
 
 Some go a step farther than this, and plant an or- 
 chard ; and no where do the trees grow so thriftily or 
 rapidly. In the space of two or three years from the 
 time of planting, they become loaded with fruit. But 
 even this delightful appendage to a permanent estab- 
 lishment, an orchard, which, with its trees, so thrifty, 
 and of the colour of young willows, looks, on these 
 plains, so regular and beautiful, — even this does not 
 constitute a sufficiently permanent motive of resi- 
 dence. It is true there are places in Ohio, Kentucky, 
 and Tennessee, that are substantial and beautiful, and 
 on the noble models of the German establishments in 
 the centre of Pennsylvania ; and they show to such 
 singular advantage, that they only make us regret that 
 they are not more common. In the generations to 
 come, when the tide of immigration shall have reach- 
 ed the western sea, and the recoil shall begin to fix 
 the people of these open plains in Illinois and Missou- 
 ri, on their prairies, then they will plant these naked, 
 but level and rich tracts ; then they will rear substan- 
 
207 
 
 tial mansions of brick or stone ; then they will dis- 
 cover the strata of coal ; then they will draw the 
 hedge and ditch for leagues together in a right line, 
 and beautiful plantations will arise, where now there 
 are nothing but naked w astes of prairie, far from w ood 
 and water. 
 
 The two states of Missouri and Illinois, had long 
 had French establishments in them. Kaskaskia, in 
 Illinois, is said to date its commencement farther back 
 than Philadelphia. The early history of these states, 
 their being considerable establishments many years 
 ago, and their having on an emergency sent vast quan- 
 tities of flour to New Orleans, are facts well known. 
 Some of the establishments on the west bank of the 
 Mississippi, as at St. Genevieve and St. Louis, are 
 ancient, in comparison with the rest of the country. 
 But under the French and Spanish regime, they had 
 existed as straggling French boating, hunting, and fur 
 establishments, — in manners, in pursuits, and character, 
 as different from American establishments as can be 
 imagined. They were in a manner neglected by the 
 Spanish and French governments. Nothing could sit 
 easier on the shoulders of an indolent race of hunters, 
 who led a half savage life in the woods, than did this 
 regime. There was little to tempt the avarice, or 
 stimulate the ambition or jealousy of the commandants. 
 Every married man with a family went to the com- 
 mandant of the district, and for a very trifling douceur 
 obtained a settlement-right, amounting to an American 
 section ; and these, although the owners at the time, 
 probably, had no anticipations of their ultimate value 
 under another order of things, were of course selected 
 in the best possible positions. Favourites of the com - 
 mandant obtained one, two, or three leagues square, 
 
208 
 
 called Spanish concessions. The commandant, a 
 priest, a file of soldiers, and a calaboza made up the 
 engine of government. The priest was generally a 
 Nimrod of a hunter, a card-player, and, as far as the 
 means could be obtained, a wine-bibber. The com- 
 mandant, an ignorant and despotic man, whose legis- 
 lation and execution all centered in his cane. Afraid 
 of the Indians, and still more afraid of the Anglo- 
 Americans, who were in those days a furious set of 
 outlaws, and who were deemed by the Spanish to be 
 a compound of Atheist, drunkard, and boxer ; they 
 were glad to let the wheels of government go on as 
 smoothly as possible. When the commandant was 
 raised in his temper, the object of his resentment was 
 immediately brought before him, tried on the spot, 
 and if found guilty, was sent straight to the calaboza. 
 But to blunt the acuteness of his feelings, and render 
 the reflections of his first hours as little bitter as pos- 
 sible, a suitable provision of whiskey was sent to the 
 unhappy culprit, who would become very drunk ; 
 and after the long sleep that followed, was over, and 
 he became clamorous for more whiskey, the command- 
 ant generally stipulated that the prisoner upon libera- 
 tion should be gone, and then he was liberated. They 
 were all summoned as a kind of militia, not to fight or 
 prepare for it, but to report themselves, and to appear 
 before the commandant once a year. And this, to- 
 gether with the restriction of having no public Protest- 
 ant preaching, was the whole burden. When we add, 
 that the maintaining these military posts was very ex- 
 pensive, and that the commandants spent all the money 
 in their respective districts^ we shall easily see whence 
 it happens that the old settlers look back to the French 
 and Spanish times, as the golden age. It is curious 
 
209 
 
 to observe with how much ardour they recur to the 
 recollections of those happy days. And these recol- 
 lections are the cause, that those people and their de- 
 scendants have still a strong predilection for the French 
 and Spanish governments, and one great reason of 
 their wish to emigrate to Texas. 
 
 But, however happy these hunters, left unmolested 
 in the wilderness, may have been, the country made 
 no advances towards actual civilization and improve- 
 ment under them. Like the English mariners on the 
 sea, their home was in boats and canoes, along these 
 interminable rivers, or in the forests hunting with the 
 Indians. The laborious and municipal life, and the 
 agricultural and permanent industry of the Americans, 
 their complex system of roads, bridges, trainings, mil- 
 itia, trials by jury, and above all, their taxes, were as 
 hostile to the feelings of the greater portion of the in- 
 habitants, when we purchased Louisiana, as the fixed 
 home and labour of a Russian are said to be to a 
 Tartar. 
 
 But as soon as this country came under our govern- 
 ment, and the influence of the guardian spirit of lib- 
 erty began to be felt, it is astonishing how quickly all 
 these things began to change. The proudest eulogy, 
 that was ever uttered upon the genius of our govern- 
 ment, was this sudden transformation. Immediately 
 upon the country's passing into the hands of the Amer- 
 ican government, the lands began to rise in value. 
 The country began to have an estimation in the minds 
 of the inhabitants. And the French, much as they 
 were dissatisfied with the municipal regulations of the 
 Americans, were not the less eager to gain all possible 
 advantage from the increased value of lands and pos- 
 sessions. The " Louve des eaux," in the year 1811, 
 27 
 
210 
 
 was fatal on account of- the universal sickness, which 
 carried off great numbers of the Americans, who had 
 not jet obtained comfortable cabins, clothing, or food. 
 For as yet, there were no mills, but a few indifferent 
 ones worked by horses, in the French villages. Corn 
 bread, made of maize pounded in a mortar, was their 
 whole bread. Notwithstanding this discouragement, 
 and the consequent relinquishment of the country by 
 many who had settled there, and the multitudes dis- 
 couraged by their reports, from coming to the country, 
 it began to receive a regular increase of American 
 population, people whose object it was to make farms, 
 and live by agriculture. The American courts were 
 in operation, and their decisions had given confidence 
 to the settlers, and security to lands and possessions. 
 Lead had become a valuable and abundant article of 
 exportation. But when I first saw the country, the 
 marks of improvement were scarcely at all visible up- 
 on the face of it. The people, with few ex- 
 ceptions, still lived in mud-daubed cabins. The 
 French villages had that peculiar aspect, which belongs 
 to them, looking, from their singular forms and plas- 
 tered walls, as beautiful at a distance, as they were 
 mean and comfortless, when contemplated near at 
 hand. St. Genevieve, with a population of fifteen 
 hundred people, had only half a dozen comfortable 
 American houses in the town. Carondelet, Florissant, 
 Portage des Sioux, St. Charles, in short all the vil- 
 lages were entirely French. St. Louis had perhaps 
 six or eight American brick houses, and St. Charles 
 but one. The rest were either houses made with 
 upright timbers, and the interstices daubed with mud, 
 or stone houses laid up rough-cast, and coated smooth 
 with mortar. When I left the country there was a 
 
211 
 
 number of considerable villages containing good hous- 
 es, that had arisen, de novo, and the old French towns 
 became chequered with handsome brick buildings. 
 Lines of buildings containing spacious and handsome 
 city houses, arose in St. Louis, — houses, that would not 
 have disgraced Philadelphia. St. Charles reared 
 a long and handsome street of spacious and neat brick 
 houses. Handsome houses arose in different points 
 of the country, surrounded by gardens and orchards, 
 which indicated attention to beauty, as well as use- 
 fulness. Steam-mills arose in St. Louis, and ox-mills 
 on the principle of the inclined plain, or tread- 
 mill. Saw- mills were erected among the pine for- 
 ests on the Gasconade, far up the Missouri. The 
 means and materials for building became abundant, 
 and boards sunk from five dollars the hundred feet, 
 to one and a half. You might in different parts 
 of the state enter handsome houses, and taverns built in 
 the Atlantic style ; and I have seen two of the latter, 
 which were not content with the title of " hotel," impos- 
 ing as it is, but which carried on their signs the still 
 more fashionable term " caravanserai." The militia 
 made progress in organization. Schools and academies, 
 with imposing proffers at least, arose. The population 
 had increased to about seventy thousand. The progress 
 of Illinois, with which I was not so much acquainted, 
 was nearly similar, although it laboured under the in- 
 convenience of excluding the larger slave holders, from 
 its laws interdicting slavery. This disadvantage was 
 not as yet compensated, by its opening a more invit- 
 ing asylum to emigration from the North ; for the full 
 tide of that emigration set towards Ohio. What was 
 not arrested there, chiefly settled in Indiana. Only a 
 small portion of it reached Illinois. But from the im- 
 
212 
 
 mense bodies of its rich land, it possessing in my judg- 
 ment a greater quantity, than any other portion of the 
 Union, and from its unrivalled position in respeet to in- 
 land navigation, it must eventually leave the opposite 
 state behind, in the progress of its advancement. 
 
 A sudden and very unfortunate impediment to this 
 growing improvement began to be visible in the lat- 
 ter part of 1816, and went on increasing in its force, 
 until I left the country. This was in the sudden re- 
 duction of prices in the Atlantic country, the pressure 
 of the times, and the sudden failure of the numerous 
 banks of the western country, of which, it appeared, 
 that but a few had ever been conducted upon banking 
 principles. As long as the lands remained high, and 
 the emigrants continued to pour in, bringing with 
 them the money, with which they bought their lands, — 
 as long as the abundant and unnatural circulation of 
 money, both good and spurious, continued to pass un- 
 questioned, these bills answered all the purposes of 
 money. But the moment this pressure began to ope- 
 rate, in preventing the people who were disposed to 
 remove to the country, from selling their lands, the 
 tide was arrested. The merchants, who had sold as 
 liberally, as the unnatural abundance of money had 
 enabled the people to purchase, called for payment. 
 The spurious bills all failed in the hands of the hold- 
 ers. The merchants remitted every specie dollar, 
 that came to their hands. At once all circulating me- 
 dium disappeared. There were scarcely means for 
 the wealthiest planter to purchase articles of the most 
 pure necessity. Lands at first sunk in value, and then 
 would scarcely sell at all. All confidence was de- 
 stroyed by the many evasions of payment, that occur- 
 red through the influence of what were called relief 
 
213 
 
 laws. In Missouri and Illinois they established a 
 hanking system, which was called a loan office. The 
 money was redeemable in equal annual instalments 
 of ten per cent, in ten years. This money, not build- 
 ing its credit on specie in the vaults of its bank, but 
 on the faith of the state, pledged for its redemption, 
 was declared by some of the courts to be illegal, and 
 not a tender, as it had been made by the legislature 
 that created it. Other courts gave an opposite decis- 
 ion. It depreciated successively to seventy-five, fifty, 
 thirty-seven, and twenty-five per cent, of its nom- 
 inal value. And this remedy, like quack reme- 
 dies in general, aggravated the paroxysm of the 
 disease. 
 
 There w T as probably no part of the United States 
 more severely pressed than these two states. Im- 
 provement not only came to a dead pause, but even 
 seemed to retrograde. A great many people had been 
 sick on removing to a new climate. Unable to 
 get money to pay their taxes, to purchase clothing 
 for themselves and slaves, and those luxuries, which 
 by long custom have become necessaries ; they pack- 
 ed up their moveables, collected their cattle, and 
 returned to the countries whence they came. I 
 witnessed the meeting of two families on the St. 
 Charles road, the one going to Boon's Lick, and 
 the other coming from it. They had formerly been 
 neighbours in Kentucky. The person retreating from 
 Missouri first questions the other, why he was 
 leaving u old Kentuck." The reply was, Jf The range 
 is all eaten out, and I am going to Boon's Lick." 
 " Why," he asked in his turn, " are you coming 
 away ? " " Oh ! the people die there," — I use his ve- 
 ry phrase, — " like rotten sheep. They have filled one 
 
214 
 
 grave-yard 'already, and have begun upon another. 
 Turn about, and go back ; after all there is nothing 
 like old . Kentuck." " I am determined, however," 
 said the immigrant, " to go on." " Well, go on, but I 
 can tell you, you will shake," — meaning that he would 
 have the ague. 
 
 I was here when the state of Missouri passed from 
 its territorial character to that of a state. The slave 
 question w T as discussed with a great deal of asper- 
 ity, and no person from the northern states, unless his 
 sentiments were unequivocally expressed, had any 
 hope of being elected to the convention, that formed 
 the constitution. The constitution was well enough, 
 except in its stupid interdiction of ministers from being 
 eligible to any office in the state, and in some other 
 trifling enactions equally barbarous. 
 
 In the scramble for offices that ensued, all the ele- 
 ments of vanity, ambition, and aspiring consequence 
 burst out. The people in the western country, from 
 some cause, are far more eager for distinction and for 
 office, than at the eastward. Electioneering is carried 
 on with more unblushing effrontery. In calling from 
 the common level of society, people unknown to one an- 
 other and to the state, the new officers that were to be 
 created, a chance was offered for distinction, which 
 might never occur again. Many, who would never 
 have aspired to an office in the region from w hich they 
 came, here found themselves thrown into positions, 
 where this new hope of distinction was awakened. 
 The campaign was hard fought. Much ink was shed. 
 Many political essays came from the presses, which 
 will never go down to posterity. But on the whole, 
 that redeeming principle which seems to be mixed with 
 the administration of government on American prin- 
 
215 
 
 ciples, brought about the issue with a quietness, which 
 considering the bitterness of the competition, the na- 
 ture of the case, and the elements of strife and dis- 
 cord which were so abundantly mixed in this chaotic 
 political mass, w as incredible. Alexander McNair was 
 elected first governor in opposition to Mr. Clark, who 
 had been territorial governor. He was an amiable Hi- 
 bernian, an ancient inhabitant of St. Louis, who had 
 endeared himself to the people by his cordial and win- 
 ning manners. The judges selected were respectable, 
 and the whole setting up of the new government was 
 fortunate, and of good omen for the future peace of 
 the state. The legislature convened at St. Charles. 
 I was present at their meetings two winters. Some 
 of them were neither Solons nor Solomons. Indeed, 
 in the western country and elsewhere in America, 
 they do not believe the maxim, 44 ex quolibet, ?? &c< ; al- 
 most any timber can be worked into the political ship. 
 Some boys invented a very tolerable pasquinade. It 
 was labelled on the plastering around the speaker's 
 chair. 44 Missouri, forgive them. They know not 
 what they do." 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 It is time for me to return to the narrative of mat- 
 ters more personally interesting to myself. I had du- 
 ties belonging to my profession in the lower country. 
 I had received an invitation to immigrate to the state 
 of Mississippi. Matters were in such a train at St. 
 Charles, that the situation of a minister was rather 
 pleasant, in some respects. There was an agreeable 
 society, a good choir of singers, and a people, between 
 
216 
 
 whom and myself there existed a mutual attachment 
 St. Charles, too, had many delightful and sheltered 
 walks, which I had traversed, according to my custom, 
 a thousand times. I had never seen a place, which 
 seemed to me so much like home. I had often thought 
 to finish my course there, — had found the place where 
 I had hoped that my ashes would rest. 1 know not 
 how it is, but there are places, where there seems to 
 exist a secret sympathy between the place and the 
 person. There are others, which from the first we 
 regard with dislike. St. Charles, with its high bench 
 above the town, its beautiful wooded islands, its rich 
 opposite bottom, its extended prairie, had a charm 
 for me. When, in fulfilling what seemed to be the 
 designation of providence with respect to me, I was 
 preparing for my departure, some arrangements were 
 made to effect a final settlement for me, and a sub- 
 scription was filled to a considerable amount, which, 
 had it been attempted before I had made my arrange- 
 ments for departure, I should have accepted. But our 
 purpose was fixed, to try some more southern climate. 
 I had some bibles and tracts for Arkansas, and it was 
 proposed, that we should stop at the "Post," on our 
 way to Natchez. 
 
 We had determined to go in the autumn of 
 1818, but the very severe disease, with which I had 
 been visited, prevented. I was ready to depart the 
 spring following. It will be seen in the progress of 
 these pages, that we went down the Mississippi to the 
 territory of Arkansas, staid there one summer, and ex- 
 perienced distressing sickness in every member of my 
 family, except myself ; that my family became ex- 
 tremely disheartened ; that we returned in the autumn 
 up the Mississippi, to the south part of Missouri* 
 
217 
 
 spending one year in the counties of New Madrid and 
 Cape Girardeau, that we then returned to St. Charles, 
 and in the autumn were v all seized, except my eldest 
 son, with the bilious fever. My wife and myself just 
 escaped with our lives. We botli had fever and ague 
 long after the regular fever had left us. I had seven- 
 ty fits of the ague, labouring under this dreadful com- 
 plaint the greater part of the year. We received 
 earnest and pressing invitations from our friends, ac- 
 companied by unquestionable marks of kind recollec- 
 tions of us ; and made preparations to go down the 
 Mississippi to New Orleans, thinking to embark 
 thence for New England. After a sacramental meet- 
 ing at St, Charles accompanied by the prayers and 
 tears of many friends, not without corresponding tears 
 of our own, we left St. Charles, and, in two days 
 afterwards, our quiet retreat on the delightful prairie 
 below town. We embarked once more in our own 
 boat. I at least, before I bid a final adieu to that 
 fertile and charming plain, cast many a " longing, 
 lingering look behind." These, our advancing and 
 retrograde movements, would have perplexed the or- 
 der of my remarks, had I journalized down, and back- 
 ward again. I propose therefore to throw together 
 the result of my observations in the southern parts of 
 this state, though they were made on my return from 
 the Arkansas, and to reserve my remarks on that 
 part of the country, as a portion of my observations 
 of the southern part of the Mississippi valley. I will 
 only remark, that in my trip from St. Charles to Ar- 
 kansas, we went in a very large keel-boat, with an 
 ignorant patron. The whole way was one scene 
 of disasters. We ran aground near Belle-fon- 
 taine, and were extricated bv the help of a file of 
 28 
 
21H 
 
 soldiers from the garrison. We were carried among 
 the sawyers at the mouth of the Missouri, and nar- 
 rowly escaped wreck. We were like to he sunk 
 in the harbour at St. Louis by a leak in the bot- 
 tom of our boat, which commenced in a dark and 
 stormy night. 
 
 Opposite Flour Island we encountered the severest 
 storm of thunder, hail, and wind, that I had ever yet 
 experienced. Wherever the full force of the thunder- 
 gust passed the river, it twisted the cotton trees in all 
 directions, as though they had been rushes. No 
 person, who is unacquainted with the Mississippi, can 
 have an adequate idea of the roughness and the agi- 
 tation occasioned by a tempest, especially when the 
 wind blows in a direction opposite to the current. 
 Storms on it are at least as dangerous as they are on 
 the sea. The waves came in on the running-boards, 
 as they are called, of the boat, at times two feet deep. 
 We were heavily laden, our boat an hundred feet 
 keel, old and frail ; the water gained upon us, not- 
 withstanding all our efforts to bail and pump ; and such 
 was the violence of the wind and current, that it was 
 all in vain to attempt to give the boat headway in 
 any other direction, than to let her float before the 
 wind, making no exertion, only to keep her bow across 
 the waves. Two very large boats, that came in com- 
 pany with us from the mouth of the Ohio, that had 
 been lashed together before the storm, unlashed as 
 the storm commenced. The one went on a sawyer, 
 and was dashed in pieces. She had been loaded with 
 four or five hundred barrels of flour, porter, and 
 whiskey, and the barrels were floating by us in all 
 directions. The hands left the other, that was loaded 
 in the same way, and she floated by us, sunk to the 
 
219 
 
 roof. We made every effort to run her on shore in 
 vain. Nor did we ever ascertain what became of the 
 hands of either boat. They probably all perished. 
 For the water was over the banks from ten to twenty 
 feet, and the width of this overflow was probably forty 
 miles. 
 
 We were afterwards driven by wind and by mis- 
 management into an eddy opposite the middle Chick- 
 asaw bluff, in which our boat of an hundred feet in 
 length, was whirled about so rapidly, as to create 
 dizziness in the passengers, and in which the centre 
 sunk like a basin, and of course bent the boat, so as 
 that it would have broken, had we not availed our- 
 selves of a fortunate filling of this basin, to get a cable 
 to the trees on shore, by which, with great difficulty, 
 we extricated ourselves. A barge, but a little while 
 before, had been broken in two, in this same eddy. 
 This closed the series of our unpleasant accidents, 
 before we reached the fort of Arkansas, the voyage 
 to which, and back again to New Madrid, will be 
 noted in another place. 
 
 LETTER XX.—JACKSOJV. 
 
 The county of New Madrid is the southern limit of 
 the state of Missouri, which here bounds upon the 
 territory of Arkansas. I expected to have found this 
 little village a most abandoned and disagreeable place, 
 and it was my object to have made my way with my 
 family by land to St. Charles. But we were still fee- 
 ble from sickness. We arrived about the middle of 
 December, 1819. The winter was commencing with 
 severity, and the Mississippi was so low, that the boat 
 
220 
 
 which brought my family from Arkansas, — although 
 it drew only thirty inches cf water, — was continually 
 striking on the shoal sand-bars. And to add to the 
 difficulty, the ice was beginning to run in the Missis- 
 sippi, so as to preclude any possibility of going up 
 safely. We concluded to spend the winter at New 
 Madrid, and we were delighted to find a few amiable 
 and well-informed families, with whom w r e passed a 
 few months very pleasantly, in the interchange of kind 
 and affectionate offices. A congregation attended di- 
 vine service on the Sabbath with perseverance and at- 
 tention. A venerable Jady of the name of Gray, who 
 w ? as as well-informed as she was devout, a part of 
 whose house my family occupied, assisted me in my 
 labours, and formed herself a Sabbath school, which 
 she has continued some years with uninterrupted suc- 
 cess. The winter passed pleasantly. The region is 
 interesting in many points of view. It is a fine tract 
 of country, principally alluvial, very rich and pleasant, 
 and chiefly timbered land. In this respect, the coun- 
 try south of the Missouri, and west of the Mississippi, 
 differs essentially from the country north of the Mis- 
 souri. From the Mississippi, for two hundred miles 
 west it is almost entirely woodland. A few small al- 
 luvial prairies make the only exceptions. There is 
 much land covered with shrubs and very poor, which 
 differs much from prairie land. And then, beyond 
 that, there are vast tracts of country covered with flint- 
 knobs. With the exception of what is called the Great 
 Prairie, near New Madrid, the country, for many miles 
 on all sides, is covered with heavy timber of all the de- 
 scriptions common to that country ; and in addition 
 there is the yellow poplar, — tulipifera liriodendron, — 
 one of of the grandest and loftiest trees of the forest. 
 
221 
 
 You first begin to discern in new species of trees, — 
 in new classes of Manes, or creeping vines in the bot- 
 toms, and in a few classes of most beautiful shrubs, 
 approaches to a new and more southern climate. This 
 regiou also is interesting from the singularly romantic 
 project of colonizing a great town and country under 
 the Spanish regime. In listening to the details of this 
 singular attempt, under a certain General Morgan, of 
 New Jersey, I have heard particulars alternately ludi- 
 crous and terrible, exciting laughter and shuddering, 
 which if they were narrated without any colouring, 
 would emulate the stories of romance. A hundred 
 and a hundred scenes have been exhibited in these re- 
 gions, which are now incapable of being rescued from 
 oblivion, which possessed, to me at least, a harrowing 
 degree of interest, in the disappointments and sufferings 
 of these original adventurers, enticed away by colour- 
 ed descriptions, which represented these countries as 
 terrestrial paradises. Many of the families were re- 
 spectable, and had been reared in all the tenderness of 
 opulence and plenty. There were highly cultivated 
 and distinguished French families, — and here, among 
 the bears and Indians, and in a sickly climate, and in 
 a boundless forest, surrounded by a swamp, dotted 
 with a hundred dead lakes, and of four hundred miles 
 extent, they found the difference between an Arcadian 
 residence in the descriptions of romance, and actual 
 existence in the wild woods. There were a few aged 
 chroniclers of these days still surviving, when I was 
 there, particularly two French families, from whom I 
 obtained many of these details. The settlement had 
 almost expired, had been resuscitated, and had again 
 exhibited symptoms of languishment, a number of 
 times. 
 
222 
 
 'But up to the melancholy period of the earthquakes, 
 it had advanced with the slow but certain progress of 
 every thing that feels the influence of American laws 
 and habits. By these terrible phenomena, the settle- 
 ment again received a shock which portended at first 
 entire desertion, but from which, as the earthquakes 
 have lessened in frequency and violence, it is again 
 slowly recovering. From all the accounts, corrected 
 one by another, and compared witli the very imperfect 
 narratives which were published, I infer that the shock 
 of these earthquakes in the immediate vicinity of the 
 centre of their force, must have equalled in their ter- 
 rible heavings of the earth, any thing of the kind that 
 has been recorded. I do not believe that the public 
 have ever yet had any adequate idea of the violence of 
 the concussions. We are accustomed to measure this 
 by the buildings overturned, and the mortality that re- 
 sults. Here the country was thinly settled. The 
 houses, fortunately, were frail and of logs, the most 
 difficult to overturn that could be constructed. Yet, 
 as it was, whole tracts were plunged into the bed of 
 the river. The grave-yard at New Madrid, with all 
 its sleeping tenants, was precipitated into the bend of 
 • the stream. Most of the houses were thrown down. 
 Large lakes of twenty miles in extent were made in 
 an hour. Other lakes were drained. The whole 
 country, to the mouth of the Ohio in one direction, 
 and to the St. Francis in the other, including a front 
 of three hundred miles, was convulsed to such a de- 
 gree as to create lakes and islands, the number of 
 which is not yet known, — to cover a tract of many 
 miles in extent, near the Little Prairie, with water 
 three or four feet deep ; and when the water disap- 
 peared, a stratum of sand of the same thickness was 
 
223 
 
 left in its place. The trees split in the midst, lashed 
 one with another, and are still visible over great 
 tracts of country, inclining in every direction and in 
 every angle to the earth and the horizon. They de- 
 scribed the undulation of the earth as resembling waves, 
 increasing in elevation as they advanced, and when 
 they had attained a certain fearful height, the earth 
 would burst, and vast volumes of water, and sand, 
 and pit-coal were discharged, as high as the tops of the 
 trees. I have seen a hundred of these chasms, which 
 remained fearfully deep, although in a very tender al- 
 luvial soil, and after a lapse of seven years. Whole 
 districts were covered with white sand, so as to be- 
 come uninhabitable. The water at first covered the 
 whole country, particularly at the Little Prairie ; and 
 it must have been, indeed, a scene of horror, in these 
 deep forests and in the gloom of the darkest night, and 
 by wading in the water to the middle, to fly from these 
 concussions, which were occurring every few hours, 
 with a noise equally terrible to the beasts and birds, as 
 to men. The birds themselves lost all power and dis- 
 position to fly, and retreated to the bosoms of men, 
 their fellow sufferers in this general convulsion. A 
 few persons sunk in these chasms, and were providen- 
 tially extricated. One person died of affright. One 
 perished miserably on an island, which retained its 
 original level in the midst of a wide lake created by* 
 the earthquake. The hat and clothes of this man 
 were found. A number perished, who sunk with their 
 boats in the river. A bursting of the earth just below 
 the village of New Madrid, arrested this mighty 
 stream in its course, and caused a reflux of its waves, 
 by which in a little time a great number of boats were 
 swept by the ascending current into the mouth of the 
 
224 
 
 Bayou, carried out and left upon the dry earth, when 
 the accumulating waters of the river had again cleared 
 their current. 
 
 There was a great number of severe shocks, but 
 tw r o series of concussions were particularly terrible : 
 far more so than the rest. And they remark that the 
 shocks w T ere clearly distinguishable into two classes ; 
 those in which the motion was horizontal, and those in 
 which it was perpendicular. The latter were attended 
 with the explosions, and the terrible mixture of noises, 
 that preceded and accompanied the earthquakes, in a 
 louder degree, but were by no means so desolating and 
 destructive as the other. When they were felt, the 
 houses crumbled, the trees waved together, the ground 
 sunk, and all the destructive phenomena were more 
 conspicuous. In the interval of the earthquakes there 
 w r as one evening, and that a brilliant and cloudless 
 one, in which the western sky was a continued glare 
 of vivid flashes of lightning, and of repeated peals of 
 subterranean thunder, seeming to proceed, as the flash- 
 es did, from below the horizon. They remark that 
 the night, so conspicuous for subterranean thunder, 
 w ? as the same period in which the fatal earthquakes at 
 Carraccas occurred, and they seem to suppose these 
 flashes and that event parts of the same scene. 
 
 One result from these terrific phenomena was very 
 obvious. The people of this village had been noted 
 for their profligacy and impiety. In the midst of these 
 scenes of terror, all, Catholics and Protestants, praying 
 and profane, became of one religion, and partook of 
 one feeling. Two hundred people, speaking English, 
 French, and Spanish, crowded together, their visages 
 pale, the mothers embracing their children, — as soon 
 as the omen that preceded the earthquakes became visi- 
 
225 
 
 ble, as soon as the air became a little obscured, as 
 though a sudden mist arose from the east, — all, in their 
 different languages and forms, but all deeply in earn- 
 est, betook themselves to the voice of prayer. The 
 cattle, as much terrified as the rational creation, 
 crowded about the assemblage of men, and seemed to 
 demand protection, or community of danger. One 
 lady ran as far as her strength would permit, and then 
 fell exhausted and fainting, from which she never re- 
 covered. The general impulse, when the shocks com- 
 menced, was to run ; and yet when they were at the 
 severest point of their motion, the people were thrown 
 on the ground at almost every step. A French gen- 
 tleman told me that in escaping from his house, the 
 largest in the village, he found he had left an infant 
 behind, and he attempted to mount up the raised piaz- 
 za to recover the child, and was thrown down a dozen 
 times in succession. The venerable lady in whose 
 house we lodged, was extricated from the ruins of her 
 house, having lost every thing that appertained to her 
 establishment, which could be broken or destroyed. 
 The people at the Little Prairie, who suffered most, 
 had their settlement, — which consisted of a hundred 
 families, and which was located in a wide and very 
 deep and fertile bottom, — broken up. When I passed 
 it, and stopped to contemplate the traces of the catas- 
 trophe which remained after seven years, the crevices 
 where the earth had burst were sufficiently manifest, 
 and the whole region was covered with sand to the 
 depth of two or three feet. The surface was red with 
 oxided pyrites of iron, and the sand-blows, as they 
 were called, were abundantly mixed with this kind of 
 earth, and with pieces of pit-coal. But two families 
 remained of the whole settlement. The object 
 29 
 
226 
 
 seems to have been in the first paroxysms of alarm to 
 escape to the hills at the distance of twenty-five miles. 
 The depth of the water that covered the surface soon 
 precluded escape. 
 
 The people without an exception were unlettered 
 backwoodsmen, of the class least addicted to reason- 
 ing. And yet it is remarkable how ingeniously, and 
 conclusively they reasoned from apprehension shar- 
 pened by fear. They remarked that the chasms in 
 the earth were in direction from southwest to north- 
 east, and they were of an extent to swallow up not 
 only men, but houses, " down quick into the pit.' 7 
 And these chasms occurred frequently within intervals 
 of half a mile. They felled the tallest trees at right 
 angles to the chasms, and stationed themselves upon the 
 felled trees. By this invention all were saved. For 
 the chasms occurred more than once under these fell- 
 ed trees. Meantime their cattle and their harvests, 
 both here and at New Madrid, principally perished. 
 The people no longer dared to dwell in houses. They 
 passed this winter, and the succeeding one in bark 
 booths and camps, like those of the Indians, of so 
 light a texture as not to expose the inhabitants to dan- 
 ger in case of their being thrown down. Such num- 
 bers of laden boats were wrecked above, and the la- 
 ding driven by the eddy into the mouth of the Bayou, 
 at the village, which makes the harbour, that the people 
 w ere amply supplied with every article of provision. 
 Flour, beef, pork, bacon, butter, cheese, apples, in 
 short, every thing that is carried down the river, was 
 in such abundance, as scarcely to be matters of sale. 
 Many boats, that came safely into the Bayou, were dis- 
 posed of by their affrighted owners for a trifle. For 
 the shocks still continued every day ; and the owners. 
 
227 
 
 deeming the whole country below to be sunk, were 
 glad to return to the upper country, as fast as possi- 
 ble. In effect, a great many islands were sunk, new 
 ones raised, and the bed of the river very much 
 changed in every respect. 
 
 After the earthquake had moderated in violence, 
 the country exhibited a melancholy aspect of chasms 
 of sand covering the earth, of trees thrown down, or 
 lying at an angle of forty-five' degrees, or split in the 
 middle. The earthquakes still recurred at short inter- 
 vals, so that the people had no confidence to rebuild 
 good houses, or chimnies of brick. The Little Prairie 
 settlement was broken up. The Great Prairie settle- 
 ment, one of the most flourishing before on the west 
 bank of the Mississippi, was much diminished. New 
 Madrid again dwindled to insignificance and decay ; 
 the people trembling in their miserable hovels at the 
 distant and melancholy rumbling of the approaching 
 shocks. The general government passed an act, al- 
 lowing the inhabitants of this country to locate the 
 same quantity of lands, that they possessed here, in any 
 part of the territory, w r here the lands were not yet 
 covered by any claim. These claims passed into the 
 hands of speculators, and were never of any substan- 
 tial benefit to the possessors. When I resided there, 
 this district, formerly so level, rich, and beautiful, had 
 the most melancholy of all aspects of decay, the to- 
 kens of former cultivation and habitancy, which were 
 now mementos of desolation and desertion. Large 
 and beautiful orchards, left uninclosed, houses unin- 
 habited, deep chasms in the earth, obvious at frequent 
 intervals, — such was the face of the country, although 
 the people had for years become so accustomed to 
 frequent and small shocks, which did no essential in- 
 
228 
 
 jury, that the lands were gradually rising again in 
 value, and New Madrid was slowly rebuilding, 
 with frail buildings, adapted to the apprehensions of 
 the people. 
 
 LETTER XXI. — NEW MADRID. 
 
 In the family of the excellent Mrs- Gray we passed 
 a very pleasant winter. She had seen seventy winters 
 and was the living chronicle of all the events that had 
 happened in that interesting colony, from its first set- 
 tlement. She had seen families of fashion and opu- 
 lence, from "the states," as they call them, and from old 
 France settled there, — had seen them married and giv* 
 en in marriage. They had figured, and had had their 
 petty rivalries and displays in the wilderness — 
 had melted away, and were gone. Other wonders of 
 distinction and greatness had come from other and 
 more fashionable regions to replace them ; and when 
 I was there, a very curious collection of sketches might 
 easily have been made of singular characters, — singular 
 for the standing and connexions which they had had 
 in other countries, singular too for latent and intrinsic 
 claims to distinction, and singular as furnishing grounds 
 for the remark which each made upon the other, that 
 it was astonishing to find such people cast in such a 
 place. 
 
 Such reflections have often forced themselves upon me 
 in every corner of this country. People, learned, dis- 
 tinguished, rich, highly connected, who ought to have 
 figured in any place, by the whimsical freaks of what 
 we call fortune, are thrown upon these deserts, and 
 
229 
 
 fall unknown, un pitied, unrecorded, and their ashes 
 mingle with the soil of the desert. 
 
 In the very place where I am writing these lines, 
 it was but two years since, that a German nobleman, 
 a professor of Gottingen, a man gifted in the highest 
 degree, who left behind him volumes of scientific re- 
 marks upon the natural history of the country, died an 
 object of charity. 
 
 The venerable narrator of the history of New 
 Madrid, from Morgan's romantic attempt, through all 
 its successive changes of Spanish, French, and Amer- 
 ican times, the rise and fall of the great people, the 
 calamitous events of the earthquakes, her own dis- 
 astrous fortunes, and those of her daughter, — was her- 
 self not the smallest wonder of the place. She had 
 a considerable library, was perfectly acquainted with 
 Plato, spoke of him as familiarly as a school boy does 
 of Washington, had all the great ancients, their ex- 
 ploits, and respective merits, entirely at command. 
 Her daughter had lived in the great world in Natchez 
 and New Orleans, in the family of Mr. Derbigny, and 
 in the families of two of the greater commandants, and 
 spoke and read French, as well as English. In the 
 midst of some of these conversations, prolonged over 
 the winter fire, we were not unfrequently interrupted 
 for a moment by the distant and hollow thunder of 
 the approaching earthquake. An awe, a slight pale- 
 ness passed over every countenance. The narra- 
 tive was suspended for a moment, and resumed. 
 
 The alluvial country, perfectly level and inter- 
 spersed with small prairies, reaches about twenty 
 miles west and north of the Mississippi. The inter- 
 vening tract between this low country, and the ridgy 
 region of the country of Cape Girardeau has springs. 
 
230 
 
 If you come from the lower country, in travelling 
 from the city of New Orleans to this point, you pass 
 but one place where the bluffs approach near to the 
 Mississippi, — but one place where there are springs of 
 water. All is level and has that peculiar configuration 
 of soil, and growth of trees and plants, which belong 
 to the alluvion of the Mississippi. Here you begin to 
 mount hills. At first indeed in their richness and the 
 blackness of their soil, they indicate their contiguity 
 to the alluvial country. They have also alluvial for- 
 est, pawpaw, persimon, and more than all the stately 
 yellow poplar : they are fine regular undulations in 
 parallel lines, and in the valleys spring out beautiful 
 fountains of water. The purer breezes of the upland 
 country fan you. You drink from the only spring, 
 one place only excepted, between this and the gulf of 
 Mexico. I cannot easily describe the sensations I 
 experienced after more than a year's residence without 
 seeing a hill, a stone placed by nature in the soil, or a 
 spring, when I began to ascend these noble and uni- 
 form benches, and see the transparent waters coursing 
 along in the valleys. Soon after you ascend them, 
 you come to a broken and rather hilly country, whose 
 principal growth is oak ; and such is the character 
 of the country of Cape Girardeau, one of the 
 most populous in the state. From here, with the ex- 
 ception of comparatively narrow bottoms of the Mis- 
 sissippi and the intervening streams, such is the char- 
 acter of the country quite to the Missouri. 
 
 There is one curiosity in the configuration of the 
 country as you approach Cape Girardeau, ascending 
 from NevvMadrid — the great swamp. It is, at the 
 place of crossing, three miles wide. The waters of 
 St. Francis rise in it. They commence within a few 
 
231 
 
 rods of the Mississippi in a swamp, considerably low- 
 er than the ordinary level of the river. The swamp 
 begins with the width of half a mile, diverges to three 
 miles' width, where the road from New Madrid cross- 
 es it, which is a few miles from the Mississippi, and 
 continues to widen until it becomes in some places six- 
 ty miles wide. It meanders, like the Mississippi, and 
 extends three hundred miles, before it discharges the 
 St. Francis into the Mississippi, although it arose not 
 a hundred yards from its banks. Its soil is deep, 
 black, in summer dry, except where the waters of 
 St. Francis find a kind of channel among the grass, 
 and is a vast rice swamp, fitted by nature for the cul- 
 tivation of that valuable grain to an indefinite extent. 
 
 Cape Girardeau is one of the ancient establishments 
 of the country, being the first settlement on hills 
 above the mouth of the Ohio. Here was the resi- 
 dence of Lorimier, so famous in the annals of that 
 region, a rich commandant, who married a Shawnese 
 wife, and acquired by that means, and by his largesses 
 among the Indians, an unbounded ascendency among 
 that tribe, and the Delawares. Some of his descend- 
 ents were pupils of mine. They were the fourth 
 generation in descent from the squaw, the offspring of 
 a German father, and of the grand-daughter of Lori- 
 mier. But all traces of the Indian feature had disap- 
 peared. I have never seen fairer complexions than 
 the females of this descent. 
 
 The centre of this county is Jackson, a place not 
 yet more than twelve years old. Cape Girardeau, 
 the original seat of the colony, is finely situated on a 
 commanding bluff, which projects in a noble cape into 
 the river. But, notwithstanding its very advantage- 
 ous position, being the first bluff that offers a site 
 
232 
 
 for a town above the mouth of the Ohio, caprice in 
 settling the country has placed the county town at 
 Jackson, twelve miles in the interior. It is a consid- 
 erable village on a hill, with the Kentucky outline of 
 dead trees, and huge logs lying on all sides in the 
 fields. Here is the com pac test settlement in the 
 state, a thickly timbered, well watered, and hilly coun- 
 try, furnishing pure hill-streams and mill-seats. The 
 soil is inferior, compared with many other points of 
 the state. But these advantages have caused a mass 
 of settlers to fall upon the oak and beech wood, and 
 endure the severe labour of cutting down the trees to 
 form plantations, in a country, where there are mil- 
 lions of acres of the richest lands lit for the plough. 
 
 Among these people I sojourned, and preached, 
 more than a year, and my time passed more devoid 
 of interest, or of attachment, or comfort, or utility, 
 than in any other part of the country. The people 
 are extremely rough. Their country is a fine range 
 for all species of sectarians, furnishing the sort of 
 people in abundance, who are ignorant, bigoted, and 
 think, by devotion to some favoured preacher or sect, 
 to atone for the want of morals and decency, and every 
 thing that appertains to the spirit of Christianity. 
 
 I should not omit, that there is one curiosity here, — 
 an isolated but pure German settlement, where these 
 people have in fact preserved their nationality, and 
 their language more unmixed, than even in Pennsyl- 
 vania. At a meeting in the woods, where it was sup- 
 posed four hundred German people were present, 
 there were not half a dozen people of English de- 
 scent. The women are not able to express themselves 
 well in English. The men, though they understand 
 the colloquial and familiar language, yet express them- 
 
233 
 
 selves with the peculiar German accent, pronunciation , 
 and phrase, so as to be very amusing, if not some- 
 times ludicrous. They are principally Lutherans, and 
 came some of them directly from Germany, but the 
 greater portion from North Carolina and Pennsly- 
 vania. They have fixed themselves on a clear and 
 beautiful stream called the White-water, which runs 
 twenty-five miles, and loses itself in the great swamp. 
 Located here in the forest, — a narrow settlement of 
 Germans unmixed with other people, having little 
 communication, except with their own people, and lit- 
 tle intercourse with the world, having beside all the 
 coarse trades and manufactures among themselves, 
 they have preserved their peculiarities in an uncom- 
 mon degree. 
 
 They are anxious for religious instruction, and love 
 the German honesty and industry. But almost every 
 farmer has his distillery, and the pernicious poison, 
 whiskey, dribbles from the corn ; and in their curious 
 dialect, they told me, that while they wanted religion, 
 and their children baptized, and a minister as exem- 
 plary as possible, he must allow the honest Dutch, as 
 they call themselves, to partake of the native beve- 
 rage. And they undertook to prove, that the swear- 
 ing and drunkenness of a Dutchman was not so bad as 
 that of an American. One of them was reproved for 
 his intemperance and profaneness, and it was remark- 
 ed that he had been zealous and very strict in his reli- 
 gious profession in Carolina. 46 Never mind," said 
 he, f* this is a bad country for religion. I know, that 
 I have lost him," he continued, " but never mind, by 
 and by the good breacher," as he phrased it, " will 
 come along, and I shall pick him all up again." 
 30 
 
234 
 
 The vast size of their horses, their own gigantic 
 size, the peculiar dress of the women, the child-like 
 and unsophisticated simplicity of their conversation, 
 amused me exceedingly. Nothing could afford a 
 more striking contrast to the uniformity of manners 
 and opinions among their American neighbours. I 
 attended a funeral, where there were a great number 
 of them present. After I had performed such services 
 as I was used to perform on such occasions, a most 
 venerable looking old man, of the name of Nyeswun- 
 ger, with a silver beard that flowed down his chin, 
 came forward and asked me if I were willing that he 
 should perform some of their peculiar rites. I of 
 course wished to hear them. He opened a very an- 
 cient version of Luther's hymns, and they all began to 
 sing in German, so loud that the woods echoed the 
 strain ; and yet there was something affecting in the 
 singing of these ancient people, carrying one of their 
 brethren to his long home, in the use of the language 
 and rites which they had brought with them over the 
 sea from " fader land," a word which often occurred 
 in their hymn. It was a long, loud, and mournful air, 
 w hich they sung as they bore the body along. The 
 words < 4 mein Gott," 44 mein hroder," and 64 fader 
 land," died away in distant echoes in the woods. Re- 
 membrances and associations rushed upon me, and I 
 shall long remember that funeral hymn. 
 
 They had brought a minister among them, of the 
 name of Weiberg, or ; as they pronounced it, Wine- 
 bo rk ; an educated man, but a notorious drunkard. 
 The earnest manner in which he performed divine 
 service in their own ritual, and in their own language, 
 carried away all their affections. For, — like other 
 people naturally phlegmatic, — when the tide once gets 
 
235 
 
 started, it sweeps all restraints from its course. After 
 service he would get drunk, and as often happens 
 among them, was quarrelsome. They claimed indul- 
 gence to get drunk themselves, but were not quite so 
 clear in allowing their minister the same privilege. 
 The consequence was, that when the time came round 
 for them to pay their subscription, they were disposed 
 to refuse, alleging, as justification, his un worthiness 
 and drunkenness. He had for three successive years 
 in this way commenced and recovered suits against 
 them. And to reinstate himself in their good will, it 
 was only necessary for him to take them w hen a suf- 
 ficient quantity of whiskey had opened their phlegm- 
 atic natures to sensibility, and then give them a vehe- 
 ment discourse, as they phrased it, in the pure old 
 Dutch, and give them a German hymn of his own 
 manufacture, — for he was a poet too,— and the sub- 
 scription paper was once more brought forward. They 
 who had lost their suit, and had been most inveterate 
 in their dislike, were thawed out, and crowded about 
 the paper either to sign their name or make their 
 mark. 
 
 He had been fairly banished by a common feeling, 
 when I was there, and had gone to a German swarm 
 from this hive, that had settled upon the waters of the 
 St. Francis. But he occasionally returned to Germa- 
 ny, as it was called, to taste their whiskey aud cider ; 
 for they had productive orchards. He came to the 
 house of a Madam Ballinger, where I usually staid 
 when among them. " Well," said he, 44 1 judge you 
 will now get good fast, now that you have a Yankee 
 breacher. Does he know one word of Dutch ? " 
 " Very little, I suppose," she replied ; but in order to 
 vindicate her preacher, she added, " but he knows 
 
236 
 
 French," &c. ; and she went on giving my knowledge 
 of various languages, according to her own fancy : — 
 " And, mein Gott, what I tinks much good, he does 
 not trink one trop of whiskey ! " 
 
 The settlement is German, also, in all its habits, — in 
 their taste for permanent buildings, and their disposi- 
 tion to build with stone,- — in their love of silver dollars, 
 and their contempt of bank-bills, — in their disposition 
 to manufacture every necessary among themselves. I 
 counted forty-five femate dresses hung round my sleep- 
 ing-room, all of cotton, raised, and manufactured, and 
 coloured in the family. The ladies of cities are not 
 more inwardly gratified with the possession of the new- 
 est and most costly furniture, than these good, laborious, 
 submissive, and silent housewives are, in hanging 
 round their best apartment fifty male and female dress- 
 es, all manufactured by their own hand. I had the 
 good fortune to be very acceptable to this people, al- 
 though I could not smoke, drink whiskey, nor talk 
 German. They made various efforts to fix my family 
 among them. And, as the highest expression of good 
 will, they told me that they would do more than they 
 had done for Wei berg. 
 
 These strong features of nationality are very strik- 
 ing characteristics in this country universally. The 
 Germans, the French, the Anglo-Americans, Scotch, 
 and Irish, all retain and preserve their national man- 
 ners and prejudices. Nothing fosters attachment to 
 every thing national, like residing in a foreign region, 
 and among foreign manners. All our peculiar ways 
 of thinking and acting become endeared to us by the 
 unpleasant contrast of foreign manners, and become 
 identified with our best possessions by national pride. 
 But among the races in this country, the Germans 
 
237 
 
 succeed decidedly the best ; better, even, than the 
 Anglo-Americans. They have no- vagrant imagina- 
 tions ; and they cast a single look over the forest or 
 prairie which they have purchased, and their minds 
 seize intuitively the best arrangement and division, and 
 their farming establishment generally succeeds. They 
 build a good house and barn. They plant a large or- 
 chard. Their fences, their gates, all the appendages 
 to their establishment, are strong and permanent. 
 They raise large horses and cattle. They spend little, 
 and when they sell will receive nothing in pay but 
 specie. Every stroke counts towards improvement. 
 Their wives have no taste for parties and tea. Silent, 
 unwearied labour, and the rearing of their children, 
 are their only pursuits ; and in a few years they are 
 comparatively rich. Next to them in prosperity are 
 the Anglo-Americans. Then the Scotch. The direct 
 emigrants from England are only superior to the 
 French, who in the upper country have succeeded less 
 than any other people, as planters. The German set- 
 tlement in Cape Girardeau extends very near the 
 French settlement of St. Genevieve ; and here you 
 have the strong points of national difference brought in 
 direct contrast. The one race is generally independ- 
 ent in their condition ; the other produces a few rich 
 farmers, but is generally a poor race of hunters, crowd- 
 ed in villages with mud hovels, fond of conversation and 
 coffee, and never rises from a state of indigence. The 
 difference produces a corresponding physical difference 
 even in the body. The Germans are large, stout, and 
 ruddy-looking men and women. The poorer French 
 are spare, thin, sallow, and tanned, with their flesh 
 adhering to their bones, and apparently dried to the 
 Consistency of parchment, 
 
238 
 
 The year which I passed in New Madrid, and the 
 counties of Cape Girardeau and St. Genevieve, afford- 
 ed me great opportunities to compare the habits of 
 these various races, as they are more mixed in their 
 population in this region than elsewhere. As it re- 
 spects their religious opinions, there are considerable 
 settlements north of Jackson, that came in a body 
 from North Carolina ; they are generally Presbyte- 
 rians, and professors of religion. The Germans, as I 
 have remarked, are generally Lutherans. The Bap- 
 tists, the Cumberland Presbyterians, and the Method- 
 ists have many societies, and the Catholics have a 
 large settlement here, composed of French and Irish, 
 extending from St. Genevieve to the county of Cape 
 Girardeau. Half way between these regions, they 
 have a large and rather conspicuous building, a semi- 
 nary for the rearing of Catholic priests, where there 
 were constantly a convent of Hives preparing for the 
 ministry. 
 
 One general trait appears to me strongly to charac- 
 terize this region in a religious point of view. They 
 are anxious to collect a great many people and preach- 
 ers, and achieve, if the expression may be allowed, a 
 great deal of religion at once, that they may lie by, 
 and be exempt from its rules and duties until the regu- 
 lar recurrence of the period for replenishing the ex- 
 hausted stock. Hence we witness the melancholy 
 aspect of much appearance and seeming, frequent 
 meetings, spasms, cries, fallings, faintings, and, what 
 I Imagine will be a new aspect of religious feeling to 
 most of my readers, the religious laugh. Nothing is 
 more common at these scenes, than to see the more 
 forward people on these occasions indulging in what 
 seemed to me an idiot and spasmodic laugh, and when 
 
239 
 
 I asked what it meant, I was told it was the holy 
 laugh ! Preposterous as the term may seem to my 
 readers, the phrase " holy laugh w is so familiar to me, 
 as no longer to excite surprise. But in these same 
 regions, and among these same people, morals, gen- 
 uine tenderness of heart, and capacity to be guided 
 either by reason, persuasion, or the uniform dictates 
 of the gospel, was an affecting desideratum. 
 
 LETTER XXL — J A CKSON. 
 
 I have often witnessed in this country a most im- 
 pressive view, which I do not remember to have seen 
 noticed by any travellers who have preceded me. It is 
 the burning of the prairies. It is visible at times in all 
 parts of Missouri, but nowhere w r ith more effect than 
 in St. Louis. The tall and thick grass that grows in the 
 prairies that abound through all the country, is fired ; 
 most frequently at that season of the year, called 
 Indian summer. The moon rises with a broad disk, 
 and of a bloody hue, upon the smoky atmosphere. 
 Thousands of acres of grass are burning in all direc- 
 tions. In the w T ide prairies the advancing front of 
 flame often has an extent of miles. Many travellers, 
 arrested by these burnings, have perished. The crim- 
 son-coloured flames, seen through the dim atmosphere, 
 in the distance seem to rise from the earth to the sky. 
 The view, before the eye becomes familiarized with 
 it, is grand, I might almost say terrific ; for nothing 
 has ever given me such a striking image of our con- 
 ceptions of the final conflagration. 
 
240 
 
 It would require a long chapter, written by an ob- 
 serving physician, to give an account of the diseases 
 of the country. I shall only remark in passing, that 
 diseases of the lungs are less frequent than at the 
 North. The general type of the disorders is bilious. 
 When the fevers are continued, they are terrible, and 
 too often fatal. But most of the fevers are either re- 
 mittents or intermittents, and when skilfully managed 
 are seldom mortal. Intermittent fevers are common 
 and very troublesome. They are easily managed, but 
 are apt to return. Their frequent returns, and the 
 course of medicine necessary to check them, soon 
 break down the constitution. Rheumatism and drop- 
 sical affections are common in the country. The two 
 grand remedies, and what almost completes the list of 
 medicines used here, are bark and calomel. 
 
 In looking into the condition of the emigrants in 
 the northern section of the valley of the Mississippi, 
 in hearing numberless narratives from the people, of 
 their condition in the regions from which they emi- 
 grated, in remarking the strong affection which they 
 almost universally retain for their own country, and 
 the place of their birth, in the almost universal betray- 
 ing of feelings of regret, and a disposition to consider 
 their place of residence as a banishment, — feelings that 
 are often transmitted to their children, — I have been 
 often led in my own mind to contrast the apparent ad- 
 vantages and disadvantages of emigration to this 
 country. The advantages of the ancient residence, I 
 have laid in the portions of the Atlantic country with 
 which I am most acquainted, the New England states, 
 and I may add, New York. Nor let any of my read- 
 ers smile at such speculations, as belonging to the tire- 
 some and common-place declamations about happiness, 
 
241 
 
 which eke out so many sermons and essays. One 
 hundred thousand New Englanders, resident in these 
 regions, have already made their election ; and thou- 
 sands more will continually be following. If a fair and 
 faithful balance could be struck, between the real 
 amount of comfort and enjoyment of these people, be- 
 fore and after their immigration, it would be very far 
 from being an abstract question about happiness. It 
 might form the basis of a calculation, that would de- 
 termine those who were in suspense about emigration, 
 either to go or stay. And fortunately for New Eng- 
 land, the increasing demand for manufacturers will 
 find employment for her sons, if they prefer the land 
 where are the graves of their fathers and mothers, 
 without coming to these distant regions. 
 
 The disadvantages of immigration are of a mixed 
 character, partaking partly of a physical, and partly, 
 but much more, of a moral nature. The inducements 
 to emigration arise, as most of our actions do, from 
 mixed motives. There is more of the material of po- 
 etry than we imagine, diffused through all the classes 
 of the community. And upon this part of the charac- 
 ter it is, that the disposition to emigration operates, 
 and brings in aid the influence of its imperceptible but 
 magic power. Very few, except the Germans, em- 
 igrate simply to find better and cheaper lands. The 
 notion of new and more beautiful woods and streams, 
 of a milder climate, deer, fish, fowl, game, and all 
 those delightful images of enjoyment, that so readily 
 associate with the idea of the wild and boundless 
 license of new regions ; all that restless hope of finding 
 in a new country, and in new views and combinations 
 of things, something that we crave but have not. — 
 1 am ready to believe, from my own experience, and 
 31 
 
242 
 
 from what I have seen in the case of others, that this 
 influence of imagination has no inconsiderable agency 
 in producing emigration. Indeed, the saturnine and 
 illiterate emigrant may not be conscious that such mo- 
 tives had any agency in fixing him in his purpose. 
 But I need not observe, that those who examine most 
 earnestly what passes in their own minds, are not 
 always aware of all the elements of motive that de- 
 termine their actions. They arrive, after long and 
 diversified, but generally painful journies, painful, es- 
 pecially if they have young and helpless members in 
 their families, in the region for which they started. 
 The first difficulty, and it is not a small one, is, among 
 an infinite variety of choices, whereto fix. The spec- 
 ulator, the surveyor, the different circles, all propose 
 different places, and each vaunts the exclusive excel- 
 lence of his choice. If the emigrant is a reader, he 
 betakes himself to the papers, and in the infinity of 
 advertisements, his uncertainty is increased. Some, 
 under these circumstances, try all places. I lodged at 
 the house of a Baptist exhorter, a very aged man, who 
 had made seven distant removes in less than three hun- 
 dred miles, being too short a distance to give him a 
 new trial. 
 
 After the long uncertainty of choice is finally fixed, 
 — which is not till after the expenses and the lapse of 
 a year, — a few weeks' familiar acquaintance with the 
 scene dispels the charms and the illusions of the im- 
 agination. The earth, the water, and the wood of 
 /" these distant lands, are found to be the same well 
 known realities of his own country. .Hunting, though 
 the game be plenty, is a laborious and unproductive 
 business, and every thing visionary and unreal gradu- 
 ally gives way to truth and reality. Apart from the 
 
243 
 
 pain of breaking off ties that were knit with our exist- 
 ence, I know not if others feel in any degree as I do? 
 the melancholy sensations resulting from seeing every 
 thing about me new and strange. Bat I feel as 
 though in the midst of a nature aud objects long famil- 
 iar to me, there were some secret sympathy between 
 that nature and myself. If others feel this to be so, 
 and I think they do, the immigrant experiences not only 
 the gloom of seeing himself among strangers to him- 
 self, to his country, to his opinions, and habits/ but he 
 is even in the midst of a nature that looks upon him 
 as an intruder. What an affecting circumstance is 
 that of the Jews depositing the body in a position 
 directed towards Jerusalem, and putting into the grave 
 a handful of earth from that fondly remembered land. 
 
 It would seem puerile, perhaps, to relate what a 
 current of recollections has been excited in me in 
 autumn, on seeing flocks of our northern robins in the 
 woods of Missouri. Near the house of Mr. Jamieson 
 at Bonhomme, I saw early in the spring a flock of 
 those merry and chattering birds, that we call 
 bob-a-link, or French black-bird. They were seen 
 that season for the first time in Missouri. Every one 
 at the North knows, that they are the delight of our 
 meadows, about the season of planting, that they 
 chatter almost to tiresomeness, and with every northern 
 man, they are associated with the most delightful 
 remembrances of his boyhood. I cannot describe, 
 how long and painfully these notes turned my thoughts 
 upon my own country. Many of these recollections 
 are continually intruding to recall the feelings and the 
 thoughts of a distant home, never to be seer* 
 again. 
 
244 
 
 Then the emigrant in the pride of his remembrances 
 begins to extol his own country, its laws, habits, and 
 men. The listener has the same prejudices. The 
 pride of the one wounds that of the other. The 
 weakness of human nature is never more obvious, 
 than in meetings of immigrants from different coun- 
 tries, each extolling his own, as the best and happiest 
 in the world. Every person who has passed the same 
 number of years in the same country with myself, 
 can supply a thousand recollections. No doubt, 
 there are people here, zealous and honest patriots, 
 who love these new and adopted states, as well as the 
 New-England er loves his own country. But we well 
 know, that love of country, like love of parents, is an 
 innate and deeply rooted feeling ; and when we leave 
 our native country, like a tree torn up by the roots, it 
 does not instantly flourish in another. A kind of des- 
 olation of heart, that results from feeling himself an 
 alien in a strange land, long afflicts the resident in 
 these new countries. 
 
 I think too, that the character of our feelings in 
 retrospection contributes to the same issue. In re- 
 membering the past, we forget the painful and re- 
 collect the pleasant. It is this probably which ren- 
 ders the delights of youth so dear to the remembrance. 
 All the vivid perceptions of enjoyment are keenlj- recol- 
 lected, the sorrows are overlooked or forgotten. The 
 distant birthplace, the residence of the years that are 
 gone, remembered amidst the actual struggles in form- 
 ing a new establishment, living in anew world, getting 
 acquainted with a new nature, and competing with 
 strangers, who in the mind of an emigrant, as they 
 did to an old Roman, seem much like enemies. 
 These remembrances, rendered more delightful by the 
 
245 
 
 actual contrast of the present, come up to embitter 
 the present. We cannot in any way understand so 
 fully the force of habit as in moving to a new coun- 
 try. We can hardly anticipate beforehand, how many 
 old enjoyments and ways of passing life, we are 
 obliged to forego, and even to take up new ones 
 in their room. Then there are new laws, new in- 
 stitutions, new ways of rearing children, supporting 
 schools, and in short a complete change of the whole 
 circle of associations, feelings, and habits. 
 
 To a regularly disciplined inhabitant of the North, 
 it is not among the smallest of deprivations, that there 
 is no church-going bell, no going to the house of God 
 in company. Preaching is uncommon, and when 
 heard, is altogether different from the calm and rea- 
 soning sobriety of the discourses which he used to 
 hear. There is a deficiency of those little circles of 
 company, into which he used to drop, to relax a day 
 or an evening, which it may be were not much prized 
 in the enjoyment, but which are severely felt in the 
 deprivation. He sees, too, his fellow mortal struggle 
 and die. The horror of the scene is not softened, 
 as at the North, by hearing the voice of prayer about 
 the bed. The mind is not soothed with the accents 
 of hope and the anticipations of immortality. It is 
 too often a scene of sullen submission on the one part, 
 and careless indifference on the other, and nothing 
 shocks him more, than to see the people assemble, 
 and carry the body to its long home, without prayer 
 or any religious ceremony. I need not go on to add 
 circumstances of regret, or of painful remembrance, 
 that suggest themselves to me, as parts of the unhappi- 
 ness of an immigrant, nor need I observe, that there 
 are hundreds of them, who have as little feeling upon 
 
246 
 
 all these points, as their brutes. But in hearing the 
 people from every country, who are well and com- 
 fortably situated, who have the conveniences and the 
 luxuries of life, so often speak of their condition in the 
 tone of repining; in hearing them so constantly culling 
 up the fond recollections of home, and, in so many in- 
 stances, looking through the vista of time, with the ulti- 
 mate hope of returning to spend their last days, and die 
 where their first days werespent, I have been aware 
 that feelings of the class above described must have 
 contributed to this state of mind. 
 
 There are some physical disadvantages. New dis- 
 eases, and the terror annexed to evils, that are coloured 
 by the imagination, the exhorbitance of the charges of 
 physicians, these are the most prominent physical diffi- 
 culties. 
 
 There is in all parts of this country a much warm- 
 er •summer, more debilitating and exhausting in its 
 effects, than the summer of the North. In some 
 parts, and in some seasons, musquitoes are excessive- 
 ly troublesome, while in others there are not more 
 than there are at the North. The grains are equally 
 good, perhaps better. The wheat is certainly larger, 
 and the flour finer and softer. Orchards flourish^ 
 and the trees bear much sooner than at the North, and 
 the fruit is larger and fairer, but less flavoured, and 
 more insipid ; and a proof of this is, that the cider 
 has not the same vinous strength, and requires boil- 
 ing to gain body enough to keep without passing 
 immediately through the vinous into the acetous fer- 
 mentation. Strange as it may seem, in this rich 
 soil, and under this powerful sun, all the roots and 
 vegetables are more tasteless, than those of the North. 
 It is instantly perceived, that the onion is more mild, 
 
247 
 
 the blood beet less deeply coloured, and this thing 
 holds good, as far as my experience goes, in the whole 
 vegetable creation. Take every thing into consid- 
 eration, this is not so good a country for gardens. 
 The Irish potatoe, the best of vegetables, is raised 
 in the states west of the Ohio, but not with the same 
 ease, or abundance, or goodness, as at the North. 
 The seed soon degenerates ; a bushel of maize is 
 raised much easier, than a bushel of potatoes. They 
 have a substitute, it is true, in the sweet potatoe. 
 Cabbages and peas, owing to the burning heat of the 
 sun, and the dryness of the seasons, are inferior in 
 quality and abundance. The tender vegetables of a 
 garden generally prefer a milder sun and cooler air. 
 There are people, who stoutly contest the point, 
 that the meats are not. inferior. It is generally con- 
 ceded, that beef is so, and my impression is, that all 
 the meats, not excepting fowls, are so. 
 
 But of all the physical inconveniences of the coun- 
 try, exposure to the ague is undoubtedly the worst. 
 This is not an universal evil, and will undoubtedly 
 lessen with the increase of improvement and cultiva- 
 tion. The difficulty of finding a market for the sur- 
 plus produce, is not a diminutive evil. There is not 
 that ease and certainty of raising a small sum of 
 money by sending the articles of the farm to a sure 
 market. The plan of sending in flat boats to New 
 Orleans the surplus of the farms, will not answer in 
 such an overstocked market as that, except when the 
 Mississippi boats can get down early, and before the 
 market is glutted. All articles of life in Illinois and 
 Missouri have been, for some years, below what the 
 planters could afford to raise them for, with any view 
 beyond domestic consumption. 
 
248 
 
 For the three past years the grain boats from Mis - 
 souri have scarcely paid the expense of their build- 
 ing and transport to New Orleans. The difficulty of 
 paying taxes, and finding money for those articles 
 which were originally luxuries, and have come by 
 use to be necessaries, is great. Hence even the afflu- 
 ent settlers in these states are obliged in a great 
 measure to forego wines and brandies, and to be very 
 moderate in the use of tea, coffee, and foreign sugar. 
 Many other little items of luxury and comfort come 
 too high and too hard for common use. There is a 
 great abundance and variety of wild fowl, and tur- 
 keys, prairie hens, and partridges, and in their sea- 
 son, wild geese and ducks. And on the other hand, 
 the fish, though near the Mississippi in sufficient 
 abundance, are coarse and tasteless. The salted shad 
 and mackerel of the North are here brought to the 
 table as luxuries. Such are some of the obvious in- 
 conveniences of the country. 
 
 We may justly remark, that man is every where a 
 dissatisfied and complaining animal ; and if he had 
 a particle of unchanged humanity in him, would find 
 reasons for complaining and repining in paradise. It 
 is to be observed, that most of the causes of dissatis- 
 faction and disquietude are in the mind and in the 
 imagination, are unreal, and may be overcome by that 
 effort, equally called for by common sense, philosophy, 
 and religion, which is made to vanquish all sorrow but 
 that which is unavoidable and incurable. In my 
 view, after all the evils of the condition of an immi- 
 grant are considered, there is a great balance of real 
 and actual advantages in his favour. There is much 
 in that real and genuine American independence, 
 which is possessed by an industrious and frugal plant- 
 
249 
 
 er in a great degree. A Missouri planter, with a 
 moderate force and a good plantation, can be as in- 
 dependent as it is fit that we should be. He can 
 raise the materials for manufacturing his own clothing. 
 He has the greatest abundance of every thing within 
 himself; an abundance in all the articles, except 
 those which have been enumerated, as not naturally 
 congenial to the climate, of which a northern farmer 
 has no idea. One of my immediate neighbours, on 
 the prairie below St. Charles, had a hired white 
 man, a negro, and two sons large enough to begin to 
 htlp him. He had an hundred acres enclosed. He 
 raised, the year that I came away, two thousand four 
 hundred bushels of corn, eight hundred bushels of 
 wheat, and other articles in proportion, and the num- 
 ber of cattle and hogs that he might raise was indefi- 
 nite ; for the pasturage and h vy were as sufficient for a 
 thousand cattle as for twenty. If the summer be hot, 
 the autumns are longer and far more beautiful, and the 
 winters much milder and drier, than at the North, and 
 the snow seldom falls more than six inches. Owing 
 to the dryness and levelness of the country, the roads 
 are good, and passing is always easy and practi able. 
 Any person, able and disposed to labour, is forever 
 freed from the apprehension of poverty ; and let phi- 
 losophers in their bitter irony pronounce as many 
 eulogies as they may on poverty, it is a bitter evil, 
 and all its fruits are bitter. We need not travel 
 these wilds in order to understand what a blessing it 
 is to be freed forever from the apprehension of this 
 evil. Even here there are sick, and there is little 
 sympathy; no poor laws, no resource but in the char- 
 ity of a people not remarkable for their feeling. 
 32 
 
250 
 
 Thence it results, that there are the more induce- 
 ments to form families, and those ties, which are tSie 
 cause, that while one is sick the rest are bound for bis 
 nursing and sustenance. A father can settle his chil- 
 dren about him. They need not be 6i hewers of wood 
 and drawers of water." A vigorous and active young 
 man needs but two years of personal labour to have 
 a farm ready for the support of a small family. 
 There is less need of labour for actual support. The 
 soil is free from stones, loose and mellow, and needs 
 no manure, and it is very abundant in the produc- 
 tions natural to it, the principal of which are corn, 
 fruits, and wheat. The calculation is commonly 
 made, that two days in a week contribute as much 
 to support here, as the whole w ? eek at the North. 
 Plenty of hay can be cut in the prairies to answer for 
 working cattle and horses in the periods when the 
 season is too severe, and where the rushes and pea- 
 vines are eaten out, and, in the more southern districts, 
 the cane, so as to require the cattle to be fed. 
 
 The objection commonly made is, that this ease of 
 subsistence fosters idleness. But it is equally true, 
 that this depends entirely on the person, and a man 
 of good principles and habits will find useful and 
 happy employment for all that time, which the wants 
 of actual subsistence do not require. The orchards, 
 if the fruit be not so highly flavoured, are much easier 
 created ; the fruits are fairer and more abundant. 
 The smaller fruits, plumbs, peaches, quinces, and the 
 fruit-bearing shrubs, are indigenous, and are raised 
 with great facility. If the garden is inferior in some 
 respects, it is superior in others, as in the size of the 
 tap-rooted vegetables, especially beets, parsnips, car- 
 rots, and radishes. I have seen one of the latter per- 
 
25\ 
 
 fectly fair, taper, and of a fine colour, as large as a 
 man's leg, and weighing seven pounds. The fields 
 are made at once, and are the second year in their 
 highest state of productiveness. For sickness, more 
 can he done in this country by way of preventive, 
 than by way of remedy. Every family ought to have 
 a good author upon domestic medicine, if such can be 
 found, and a medicine chest. People who take this 
 precaution suffer, perhaps, as little from sickness 
 here, as elsewhere. For, as I have remarked in an- 
 other place, the disorders are more manageable than 
 at the North. With respect to society, all that the 
 emigrant has to do is to bridle his tongue and his 
 temper, cultivate good feelings and kind affections, 
 and meet every advance of his neighbours with an 
 honest disposition to reorganize in the deserts, — 
 where they have met from distant regions and coun- 
 tries, — an harmonious and affectionate interchange of 
 mutual kind offices. 
 
 As it respects that nationality, which forms so strik- 
 ing a feature in the people of the western country, 
 men of education and enlargement of mind are every 
 day operating upon the community to lay aside their 
 prejudices, such as judging of men by their coun- 
 try, or being prepossessed for or against them on ac- 
 count of the place of their birth. One of the first 
 things that a man, who is capable of learning any 
 thing iu this country, learns, is the folly of selecting 
 his associates according to their country, or of having 
 his friends and companions of the same country with 
 himself. He sees good and bad, promiscuously, from 
 all countries, and soon learns to try and weigh men 
 hy their character, and not by the place of birth. 
 During the ten years of my acquaintance with the 
 
252 
 
 country, I have discovered these feelings lessening 
 in every place. Educated men and women are alike, 
 and have many feelings and thoughts in common, 
 come from what country they may. The time will 
 come and is rapidly approaching, when all local par- 
 tialities will be merged in the pride of being a citizen 
 of our great and free country, a country which is 
 destined shortly to make a most distinguished figure 
 among the nations. 
 
 For myself, the western country is endeared to me 
 by a thousand recollections. Its beautiful scenery has 
 left iraces in my memory, which will never be effaced. 
 The hospitality of its inhabitants to me, and to those 
 who are most dear to me, has marked on my heart 
 deep impressions of gratitude. I hail the anticipation, 
 that in a century to come it will be a great and pop- 
 ulous country, as great in a moral point of view, as it 
 is at present rich in natural resource and beauty. 
 And taking leave of the upper country, where I have 
 suffered and enjoyed so much, I might say w salve, 
 magna parens/ 5 or, in a still higher phrase, " peace 
 be within thy walls." 
 
 LETTER XXII.— ARKANSAS. 
 
 May 5, 1819. We were swept round by the strong 
 current of the Mississippi in our keel-boat between 
 two green islands covered with rushes and cotton- 
 wood trees, into a small bay which receives the 
 waters of White River. This is all a region of deep 
 and universal inundation. There was from six to ten 
 feet water over all the bottoms ; and we had a wide 
 
253 
 
 display of that spectacle so common in the spring on 
 the Mississippi,— a dense forest of the largest trees, 
 vocal with the song of birds, matted with every spe- 
 cies of tangled vegetation, and harbouring in great 
 numbers the turkey buzzard, and some species of 
 eagles ; and all this vegetation apparently rising from 
 the bosom of dark and discoloured waters. I have 
 never seen a deeper forest except of evergreens. The 
 channel of White River was distinguished by its cur- 
 rent, the green colour of its waters, compared with 
 the Whitewaters of the Mississippi, and by an open 
 channel, marked by willows in full foliage, which so 
 nearly resembled the leaves of the peach -tree, that I 
 asked one of the boatmen who was familiar with the 
 country, what kind of tree it was, who answered with 
 much solemnity, that it was the wild peach. It was a 
 new order of things to stem the current, and go up 
 stream, after floating five hundred miles before the 
 heavy current of the Missouri and Mississippi. The 
 current came down the river at the rate of three miles 
 an hour. It seemed about three hundred and fifty 
 yards in width, and at this time had fifty feet of water 
 in depth. In ascending we were struck with the 
 grandeur of the forest, the immense size of the trees, 
 and their dark green foliage. The inundation ex- 
 tends itself almost indefinitely on all sides. It is late 
 in the season before the floods recede : and fever, 
 musquitoes, alligators, serpents, bears, and now and 
 then parties of hunting Indians, are the only tenants 
 of these woods. 
 
 The river received its name from the Indians, on 
 account of its pellucid waters. They are in appear- 
 ance rather green than white ; and we could see the 
 huge cat-fish gamboling in the waters, among multi- 
 
 A 
 
254 
 
 tudes of fishes of all classes. We eagerly threw them 
 the hook and line ; but the flooded streams and swamps 
 offered them such an abundance of food, that we tried 
 to tempt them with our bait in vain We made our 
 way up this opening in the dark forest between five 
 and six miles, when we discovered a lateral opening 
 to the left. We rowed into it, and at its mouth were 
 whirled round by an eddy. Presently, to our aston- 
 ishment, the current took us through the lateral open- 
 ing, which was nearly at right angles with the course 
 of the river, and had nearly the same width and ap- 
 pearance with the river itself. We continued to float 
 on through this deep and inundated forest six or 
 seven miles, w T hen at right angles to our course we 
 discovered another opening. It was the Arkansas, 
 moving on with a majestic current of waters of the 
 colour of Arnotto die. 
 
 This is, next to the Missouri, the largest and most 
 interesting tributary of the Mississippi, and from its 
 mouth by its meanders to the mountains, is commonly 
 computed about two thousand miles. Its course ^as 
 been traced in these mountains at least five hundred 
 miles, and it is believed that the sources of the Ar- 
 kansas have not yet been explored by our people. 
 One singularity distinguishes this river from any 
 other of the United States. Where it winds along 
 among the mountains, all agree that it is a broad and 
 deep river, and carries a great volume of water. 
 But no sooner does it emerge from the shelter of 
 woods and mountains, into a boundless and arid plain, 
 — composed to a great depth of quicksands, — than it 
 begins to disappear ; and in a hundred miles from 
 the very elevated mountain, near which it enters up- 
 on the plain, it is fordable during the summer. Still 
 
255 
 
 lower down it is a stream, according to the well- 
 known phrase of this country, " sunk in the sand ; v 
 that is, ir trickles amidst the banks of sand and peb- 
 bles, so as in many places to exhibit a dry channel of 
 burning sand from bank to bank. Here, on these 
 vast sandy plains, which will for ages be the Syrtes 
 of America, the home of elks and buffaloes, are the 
 wide fields of those rich native grapes, that all travel- 
 lers in these regions have spoken of in terms of such 
 admiration. They are said to be conical in shape, 
 large, of a beautiful blue, and transparent. T^he 
 driving sands rise round the stem that advances still 
 above the sand. This sand performs the best office 
 of pruning, covering the superfluous growth and foli- 
 age, inflicting no wounds, and affording a most admi- 
 rable method of ripening the clusters in the highest 
 perfection by the reflection of the sun from the sand. 
 In the Expedition of Major Long, the extreme sweet- 
 ness of these grapes is recorded, and other travellers 
 have borne the same testimony. They speak of vast 
 tracts covered with these rich clusters. I shall have 
 occasion elsewhere to speak of the classes of this 
 native grape, which are so much extolled in the in- 
 ternal provinces of Spain. They are common through 
 the pine-woods of Louisiana, and known by the name 
 of the pine-woods grape. 
 
 Another peculiarity of the Arkansas is, that it tra- 
 verses the immense extent of country through which 
 it passes, receiving fewer tributaries than any other 
 stream that has so long a course. The upper regions 
 of this river are remarkably sterile, containing great 
 tracts of moving sands, and in the islands of verdure, 
 a rich, short, and fine grass, very different from the 
 coarse prairie-grass of the prairies of Missouri, and 
 
i5B 
 
 of the country of the Arkansas lower down. This 
 grass seems to be peculiarly adapted to be the food of 
 ruminating and grazing animals; and there are vast 
 droves of buffaloes and other wild animals, and in the 
 regions a little more south, and in the Spanish coun- 
 try, countless numbers of wild horses. Providence 
 seems to have provided that man can hardly subsist 
 among them, and that these shall continue to be their 
 retreats for ages. The river itself is generally skirted 
 with a timbered bottom, which widens, as the river 
 descends. Over the whole of these vast plains salt 
 seems to be distributed, even on the surface. In fact, 
 one of the peculiar features of the w hole country west 
 of the Mississippi, is these licks, — places where the 
 wild and domestic cattle have beaten firm roads in all 
 directions round them ; and by continually licking for 
 the salt, intermixed with the clay, which they swallow 
 with the salt, there are often wide cavities, sometimes 
 to a considerable depth, occasioned by the consump- 
 tion by. this continual licking. There are said to be, 
 and there are, doubtless, on the waters of the Arkan- 
 sas, wide plains, where this saline matter, dissolved 
 by moisture, rains, or dews, sublimes and rises on the 
 surface in appearance like hoar frost, or mountain 
 snow. There seems to be a kind provision in this 
 order of things, for the support of the numberless ani- 
 mals that feed upon these plains. 
 
 This river seems to mark the distinct outline of an- 
 other climate. About the latitude of thirty-three, and 
 from that to thirty-four degrees, seems to be the out- 
 line of the region of the profitable raising and growing 
 of cotton. It is equally marked by new classes of 
 vegetables, and different species of sensitive plants ; 
 the running vine, which bears a beautiful species of 
 
257 
 
 passion-flower ; and among the robuster vegetable 
 tribes, the Muscadine grape ; and among trees the 
 singular and beautiful tree called yellow-wood, or 
 " bois d ? arc. n But for an accurate view of the tribes 
 of plants and trees that are peculiar to this interesting 
 river, it will be necessary to consult Nuttall, who 
 treats the subject with the precision of a natural histo- 
 rian. 
 
 The soil of the alluvions of this river is much like 
 that of the valley of Red River, which has become so 
 extensively known as the finest cotton country. This 
 river, when it is high, is very turbid, and carries along 
 a great quantity of extremely fine sand and loam of 
 a reddish colour, a little fainter than Spanish brown. 
 The valley of this river is all composed of a soil of 
 this colour, and it is well known that such is the col- 
 our of the soil of the valley through which Red River 
 runs. 
 
 This river, too, is the first, in advancing south, that 
 is never frozen quite over, though ice is often formed on 
 its shores. The winters are, indeed, very cold, as 
 measured by the sensations. But it is well known that 
 in a moist and relaxing climate, where the summer 
 heats are high, and long continued, the sensations 
 indicate a very different temperature from the ther- 
 mometer. They require, during a considerable part 
 of the winter, much the same amount of fuel, and 
 thickness of clothing here, as at the North. And the 
 northern man finds himself astonished, as late in au- 
 tumn he looks round, and sees every thing in the gar- 
 dens and in the woods untouched by frost, and in all 
 the freshness of summer verdure, while his feelings 
 indicate a very uncomfortable degree of cold. But 
 the vegetable creation clearly designates this to be a 
 33 
 
258 
 
 different climate from the contiguous state of Missouri. 
 Snow seldom falls, and when it does fall, it is little 
 more than a hoar-frost, which the first clear shining 
 of the sun dissolves, be the temperature of the air what 
 it may. In February, frequently, and generally in 
 March, the flowering trees and shrubs are in blossom. 
 The grasses, the garden herbs, are all in full vigour 
 and verdure, and the amount of snow, ice, and frost, 
 comparatively so small, that here you feel yourself 
 leaving the empire of winter. 
 
 An appearance, more or less common to all the 
 western and southern rivers, struck me as being more 
 distinctly marked in this river, than in any that I 
 have seen. It is the entire uniformity of the mean- 
 ders of the rivers, called, in the phrase of the coun- 
 try, u points and bends." On this river tbey are de- 
 scribed almost with the precision, with which they 
 would have been marked off by tho, sweep of the 
 compass. The river sweeps round a regular curve 
 nearly the half of a circle, and is precipitated from the 
 point in a current across its own channel, to a curve of 
 the same regularity upon the opposite side. In the 
 bend, the main force, or what is called the thread of the 
 current, is within a few feet of the shore. Between 
 this thread and the shore there are generally counter 
 currents, or eddies; and in the crumbling and ten- 
 der alluvial soil, the river is generally making in- 
 roads upon its banks on the bend side. Opposite the 
 bend there is always a sand-bar ; its convexity al- 
 ways matched to the concavity of the bend, and it is 
 on these bars that those striking cotton-wood groves 
 arise, so regular, and rising so gradually, according 
 to their order of formation, always producing the im- 
 pression of a pleasure-ground, made of trees disposed 
 
259 
 
 m * 
 according to their age, and rising from the sapling of 
 the present year to the huge trees of the bottom. So 
 regular are these curves in all the rivers of the lower 
 country, that the hunters and the Indians calculate 
 distances by them. As, for instance, when our boat 
 hailed boats coming down the river, the question was, 
 How far have you come to day ? and the answer, 
 so many points ; and in turn we were told, that we 
 could make such a point before night. I observed 
 this conformation on White River, and on the St. 
 Francis. It is remarkably regular for a great dis- 
 tance on the Arkansas, and equally so, but with much 
 smaller circles, on Red River ; making the turns very 
 frequently, and the angles sharp, so that the view of 
 the river, half a mile ahead, is often completely 
 closed. 
 
 There are, I think, on the Mississippi, three reach- 
 es between the mouth of the Ohio and the Guif of 
 Mexico. These reaches, — as they are called by the 
 boatmen, — are places where the river is nearly 
 straight, and deviates from its accustomed sinuosities. 
 They are equally distinguished on the lower course of 
 the Ohio. Even in the upper Mississippi, where the 
 river washes the base of high perpendicular bluffs of 
 stone, you see the same tendency, as a general law, with 
 a great number of deviations when its course is among 
 bluffs and hills. Even the Missouri, sweeping and 
 terrible as it is, throwing down masses of forest on 
 one hand, and depositing them on the other, shews its 
 inclination for points and bends. In fact, the most 
 majestic bend, which is a third part of a circle, in- 
 cluding forty miles in its curve, is bounded in the 
 greater part of this curve by a very high perpendic- 
 ular stone bluff. 
 
260 
 
 I have heard various demonstrations given, the re- 
 sult of which was to show, that a moving mass of 
 water, on the principles of such a kind of moving 
 force, will sweep a curve in one direction, be project- 
 ed from the point of the curve, and then sweep one 
 in the other. But they were unsatisfactory demon- 
 strations to me, and it has always seemed to me, that 
 in a tender and alluvial soil, and under the same cir- 
 cumstances, a moving mass of water ought to take the 
 direction of a right line. Nor does it afford a solu- 
 tion in my view to say, that the river finds an obstacle 
 which gives it a diagonal direction, and that, when 
 this course is once established by uniform laws, it 
 continues this alternation of curves. The course of 
 all the western rivers, in making points and bends, 
 is far too uniform to be produced by an accidental 
 cause. It appears clearly to me that the deviations 
 from this rule are accidental, and that the law which 
 creates this arrangement is uniform. I know not but it 
 may be the same with the Atlantic rivers, but I never 
 saw it so conspicuous as to remark it. Here 
 it is one of the first phenomena that impresses the 
 traveller. 
 
 At the distance of fifteen miles below the Post 
 of Arkansas, settlements begin to be thinly estab- 
 lished along the river ; and from this distance to the 
 mouth, about forty miles, the bottoms of the river are 
 too much and too long inundated to be susceptible of 
 cultivation. In fact, up to the first bluffs, by the 
 course of the river, is a hundred miles. This singular 
 river has a very narrow skirt of soil, sometimes but a 
 few rods in width, and then extending half a mile 
 back, which is elevated so as to be above the ordinary 
 inundations. At the distance of a mile or two from 
 
261 
 
 the river, there are first thick cane brakes, then a se- 
 ries of lakes, exactly resembling the river in their 
 points and bends, and in the colour of their waters. 
 When the river is high, it pours its redundant waters 
 into these lakes and Bayous, and the water is in mo- 
 tion for a width of twenty miles. These lakes are 
 covered with the large leaves, and in the proper sea- 
 son the flowers of the " nymphea nelumbo," the largest 
 and most splendid flower that I have ever seen. I 
 have seen them of the size of the crown of a hat ; the 
 external leaves of the most brilliant white, and the 
 internal of a beautiful yellow. They are the enlarged 
 copy of the New England pond' lily, which has al- 
 ways struck me as the most beautiful and fragrant 
 flower of that country. These lakes are so entirely 
 covered with these large conical leaves, nearly of the 
 size of a. parasol, and a smaller class of aquatic plant, 
 of the same form of leaves, but with a yellow flow- 
 er, that a bird might walk from shore to shore without 
 dipping its feet in water ; and these plants rise from 
 all depths of water up to ten feet. 
 
 Beyond these lakes, there are immense swamps of 
 cypress, which swamps constitute a vast proportion of 
 the inundated lands of the Mississippi and its wa- 
 ters. No prospect on earth can be more gloomy. 
 The poetic Styx or Acheron had not a greater union 
 of dismal circumstances. Well may the cypress have 
 been esteemed a funereal and lugubrious tree. When 
 the tree has shed its leaves, for it is a deciduous tree, 
 a cypress swamp, with its countless interlaced branch- 
 es, of a hoary grey, has an aspect of desolation and 
 death, that often as I have been impressed with it, I 
 cannot describe. In summer its fine, short, and deep 
 green leaves invest these hoary branches with a dra- 
 
262 
 
 pery of crape. The water in which they grow is a 
 vast and dead level, two or three feet deep, still leaving 
 the innumerable cypress tft knees," as they are called, 
 or very elliptical trunks, resembling circular bee-hives, 
 throwing their points above the waters. This water 
 is covered with a thick coat of green matter, resem- 
 bling green burl velvet. The musquitoes swarm 
 above the water in countless millions. A very 
 frequent adjunct to this horrible scenery is the moc- 
 cason snake with his huge scaly body lying in folds 
 upon the side of a cypress knee ; and if you approach 
 too near, lazy and reckless as he is, he throws the 
 upper jaw of his huge mouth almost back to his neck, 
 giving you ample warning of his ability and will to 
 defend himself. I travelled forty miles along this riv- 
 er swamp, and a considerable part of the way in the 
 edge of it ; in which the horse sunk at every step half 
 up to his knees. I was enveloped for the whole distance 
 with a cloud of musquitoes. Like the ancient Aver- 
 nus, I do not remember to have seen a single bird in 
 the whole distance except the blue jay. Nothing 
 interupted the death-like silence, but the hum of mus- 
 quitoes. 
 
 There cannot be well imagined another feature to 
 the gloom of these vast and dismal forests, to finish 
 this kind of landscape, more in keeping with the rest, 
 than the long moss, or Spanish beard, and this fune- 
 real drapery attaches itself to the cypress in preference 
 to any other tree. There is not, that I know, an object 
 in nature, which produces such a number of sepul- 
 chral images as the view of the cypress forests, all 
 shagged, dark, and enveloped in the hanging festoons 
 of moss. If you would inspire an inhabitant of 
 New England, possessed of the customary portion of 
 
263 
 
 feeling, with the degree of home-sickness which . 
 would strike to the heart, transfer him instantly from 
 the hill and dale, the bracing air and varied scenery 
 of the North, to the cypress swamps of the South, 
 that are covered with the long moss. 
 
 This curious appendage to the trees is first visible in 
 the cypress swamps at about thirty-three degrees, and 
 is seen thence to the Gulf. It is the constant ac- 
 companiment of the trees in deep bottoms and swam- 
 py lands, and seems to be an indication of the degree of 
 humidity in the atmosphere. I have observed that in 
 dry and hilly pine woods, far from streams and stag- 
 nant waters, it almost wholly disappears ; but in the 
 pine woods it reappears as you approach bottoms, 
 streams, and swamps. I have remarked too, that 
 where it so completely envelopes the cypress, as to show 
 nothing but the festoons of the dark grey moss, 
 other trees are wholly free from it. It seems less in- 
 clined to attach itself to the cotton wood trees, than 
 to any other. 
 
 This moss, called, by what authority I know not, 
 tillondsia usneaides, is a plant of the parasitical spe- 
 cies, being propagated by seed, which forms in a cap- 
 sule that is preceded by a very minute, but beau- 
 tiful purple flower. Although when the trees that 
 have cast their leaves are covered with it, they look 
 as if they were dead, yet the moss will not live long 
 on a dead tree. It is well known that this moss, 
 when managed by a process like that of preparing 
 hemp, or flax, separates from its bark, and the black 
 fibre that remains is not unlike horse-hair, elastic, 
 incorruptible, and an admirable and cheap article for 
 mattresses, of which are formed most of the beds of 
 the southern people of this region. 
 
264 
 
 For some distance below the Post, the strip of land 
 on each side of the river that is above the inundation, 
 is of considerable width, affording a depth sufficient 
 for a number of cotton plantations that are contiguous 
 to on.e another, and from the resemblance of this 
 part of the shores of the river to the lands on the low- 
 er part of the Mississippi, it is called the coast. 
 
 The Post of Arkansas is situated on a level tract 
 of land, which has a slight elevation above the ad- 
 jacent bottom. It lies between two Bayous, that are 
 gullied very deep, on the bend of the river. The soil 
 about the town is poor and heavy, and covered with 
 shrub oaks and persimon trees. So perfectly level 
 is the country, that there is not a hill or a stone in 
 forty miles distance. The highest point of land in 
 all this extent is scarcely ten feet above the highest 
 inundations of the river. The court-house is situated 
 within three hundred yards of the river in front, 
 and about the same distance in the rear from a 
 swamp> into which, in high water, White River flows, 
 which is distant thirty miles. In all directions the 
 country is a dead level, and there are innumerable 
 communications between the rivers, in high water, by 
 one of which, a little below the Post, a canoe has gone 
 out of the Arkansas into the Washita, and from that 
 again into Red River, and from that into the Bayou 
 Chaffatio, and from that into the Gulf of Mexico, a 
 communication eight hundred miles in extent. 
 
 A short distance west of the town commences a 
 prairie of various breadth, but its medial width I 
 would suppose five miles. It stretches west a hun- 
 dred miles, preserving much the same distance from 
 the river the whole way, and what is surprising is, that 
 in its regular curves of points and bends it corres- 
 
265 
 
 ponds very accurately to the same changes in the riv- 
 er. There are scattered over this vast prairie, as 
 over all the other alluvial prairies, islands and clusters 
 of trees, which have a singular effect in the landscape. 
 This prairie is of a soil very inferior to those in the 
 upper country. Instead of the black and friable soil 
 there, it is generally a heavy grey clay, and indented 
 on the surface, with innumerable little cones of earth 
 raised by the crawfish, a circumstance which is well 
 known to indicate a cold and wet soil. The lands, that 
 will yield crops without manure, lie at the points of 
 the bends of the prairies, where the soil is uniformly 
 much richer than the average quality of the prairie. 
 But as these prairies are always skirted on their edges 
 with young cane, affording winter range, as the sum- 
 mer range for cattle is inexhaustible ; as these open 
 plains are more swept by the winds, andfare more free 
 from musquitoes, and healthier than the bottoms ; all 
 the planters, who prefer raising cattle to cotton, are 
 settled on the edges of the prairies. 
 
 When I first arrived at the Post, the population of 
 the territory, — for it had been recently separated 
 from Missouri, as a territory, — amounted, probably, 
 to about ten thousand. These were in long and de- 
 tached lines, the one along the Mississippi, called the 
 St. Francis settlement ; the other on the Mississippi 
 below the mouth of the river, called point Ohico set- 
 tlement, the settlement on the waters of White River, 
 a settlement far up the Arkansas, called Mulberry set- 
 tlement, and the settlements on the table land between 
 the Arkansas and Red Rivers, called Mount Prairie. 
 
 I did not travel as extensively here as in Missou- 
 ri : but I travelled enough to see an ample speci- 
 men of the people and the country. The valley of the 
 34 
 
266 
 
 Arkansas, with very little exception, is sickly. Re- 
 mittents and intermittents are so common, that when 
 a person has no more than simple fever and ague, he 
 is hardly allowed to claim the immunities of sickness, 
 and it is remarked that he has only the ague. The 
 autumn that I was there, it appeared to me that more 
 than half the inhabitants, not excepting the Creoles, 
 had the ague. 
 
 South of the thirty- fourth degree the lands are fine 
 for cotton. I have no where remarked finer fields of 
 cotton, than at the settlement of Bairdstown, about 
 forty miles above the Post, on the river. The season 
 cannot be quite so long as it is on Red River, but the 
 cotton seemed not inferior in luxuriance of growth. 
 They affirmed, too, that the staple was equally good. 
 The uplands of the country are, with few exceptions, 
 miserable; being either flint knobs, bare hills, or 
 shrubby plains. Mount Prairie is a most interesting 
 exception. This is a circular eminence of table land, 
 perhaps sixteen miles in diameter, rising considerably 
 above the adjacent country. The soil is of a tex- 
 ture of marl and clay, as black as ink, rather inclined 
 to bake and open in fissures, but very rich. Through 
 this extraordinary stratum of earth, apparently the 
 deposit of a lake or swamp, they dig nearly an hun- 
 dred feet in order to find water in their wells. What 
 is still more extraordinary, on this curious mound, 
 nearly equidistant between Red and Arkansas Rivers, 
 and at five hundred miles distance from the Gulf of 
 Mexico, are found large marine shells, bleached to the 
 purest white, and in the greatest abundance. And 
 these shells are found equally intermixed with the soil 
 to the bottom of the wells. Being in a state of decay, 
 they yield a very unpleasant taste, and it is supposed 
 
267 
 
 rather unhealthy properties to the waters. It is an 
 extremely rich and productive soil. 
 
 As soon as you reach the high lands north of the 
 Arkansas, the hilly regions, watered by White River 
 and its numerous branches, the country is broken into 
 barren knobs, is generally precipitous and poor, but, 
 as if in return, is delightfully watered, and has hun- 
 dreds of pure spring branches winding among the 
 hills, which, upon the falling of a shower, rise and 
 overflow their banks, and inundate their cane bot- 
 toms. They would be beautiful situations for mills, 
 were they not exposed to sudden inundation ; as it 
 is, this is the natural position for the manufacturing 
 establishments of the country. It is rather too much 
 exposed to frosts to be favourable to the culture of 
 cotton, But it is fine for corn and sweet potatoes. 
 Where it has been tried, it is affirmed that even 
 wheat succeeds well, and it is unquestionable that 
 rye yields a fine crop in southern regions, where 
 wheat entirely fails. On the numberless exposed 
 slopes, that occur in this land of hills and springs, 
 must certainly be the home of the cultivated grape. 
 At present, strange as it may seem, in this high coun- 
 try, where springs occur almost every mile, where 
 there are no swamps, and where the air, in ascending 
 from the boundless, marshy swamps of the Arkansas, 
 has a balsamic influence upon the organs, it is said, 
 that fevers are to the full as fatal as in the bottoms; 
 and they, who ascend in the season of fever from 
 those low plains, have the course of their disorder 
 precipitated. It breaks out at once, and proves still 
 more unmanageable than it would have been in the 
 region where the seeds of it originated. 
 
268 
 
 The plains far up the Arkansas, and at a sufficient 
 distance from the influence of its waters, are very dry, 
 have an atmosphere of great purity, and must be 
 healthy. They are the resorts of the Osage and 
 Cherokee Indians. Still farther up, the Pawnees of 
 the northern waters of the Arkansas meet those of 
 the southern waters of the Missouri ; and they are 
 sometimes joined by the wandering tribes of the inte- 
 rior provinces of Spain. Here their principal object 
 is to hunt the bufTaloe, which is here found in greater 
 numbers than in any other region. These immense 
 naked plains, reaching from the Gulf of Mexico in 
 the internal provinces to the Chepywan mountains 
 west, and beyond the Missouri north, are almost uni- 
 versally untimbered. They are sufficient in extent for 
 large empires, are the wide range of buffaloes, elks, 
 and bears, and will in ages to come be the resorts of 
 shepherds. 
 
 On a stream denominated the Six Bull, which comes 
 in from the north side of the Arkansas, is situated the 
 mission family ; of the situation and prospects of 
 which, the public is sufficiently informed. Not very 
 far from this station, — which is in a measure connect- 
 ed by the Six Bull and the Osage with an establish- 
 ment of the same kind on the Missouri, — is the milita- 
 ry station on the Main River, and about six hundred 
 miles from its mouth. 
 
 In the vicinity of that station is the settlement called 
 Mulberry. It is understood that the boatable waters 
 of the Osage approach w ithin an hour's walk of those 
 of the Six Bull ; and thus the rivers Missouri and Ar- 
 kansas might easily be interlocked. Indeed, the facil- 
 ity with which all the western rivers, that are not in 
 this way actually connected, might be united, is a cir- 
 
269 
 
 cumstance of astonishment to a person, acquainted 
 only with the Atlantic rivers. 
 
 I was at Arkansas at the setting up of the territorial 
 government ; and it exhibited a scene sufficiently pain- 
 ful and disgusting. Our government cannot be sup- 
 posed to be omnipresent or omniscient. Yet if all 
 favouritism were avoided in the appointment of offi- 
 cers in these distant regions ; if they took pains to 
 learn how these organs of their will performed their 
 functions, things would be different. But as it is, the 
 recommendations are made by members of congress, 
 who have cousins perhaps qualified, but who perhaps 
 have been a burden on their hands, and they are happy 
 to get rid of them by sending them to these remote re- 
 gions to fill the new offices, created by the erection of 
 a territorial government. The persons who procured 
 the appointment have an interest in withholding un- 
 favourable views, and the parties are not disposed to 
 betray themselves ; and these men, dressed out in a 
 66 little brief authority," perform deeds to make u the 
 high heavens w T eep." 
 
 They were re-enacting in that distant and turbulent 
 region, what they would call " the blue laws 5? of old 
 Virginia, relating to gambling, breach of the Sabbath, 
 and the like ; and having promulgated these laws, on 
 the succeeding Sabbath, — hi the face of their recent or- 
 dinances, and of a population who needed the enforce- 
 ment of them, — the legislators and judges would fall to 
 their usual vocation of gambling through the day. 
 
 The people of this region are certainly more rough 
 and untamed than those of the state of Missouri, or 
 of the more northern and western regions. But yet, 
 even the inhabitants here were far from deserving the 
 character that has generally been given to the best of 
 
270 
 
 the population of these countries. The redeeming in- 
 fluence of American feelings, laws, and institutions, was 
 sufficiently infused into the new government to carry it 
 into quiet effect throughout the country. Courts were 
 established, aud whatever were the character and ex- 
 ample of the judges, the decisions of those courts were 
 respected. There were, indeed, some murders com- 
 mitted in the remote extremities of this country. In 
 one instance the murderer was brought to the Post, 
 and discharged because it was an interregnum be- 
 tween the dissolution of the Missouri authority and 
 the setting up of the new one. Two persons, who 
 were supposed to have murdered their partner on the 
 saline far up the Arkansas, under circumstances of 
 atrocious barbarity, were brought to the Post while I 
 was there. Never were seen more diabolical counte- 
 nances. I spoke seriously to them, but they held all 
 council, reproof, and fear, in utter derision. They 
 were imprisoned, and would undoubtedly have been 
 executed, but they contrived in a few days to escape. 
 
 Many amusing traits of the government of the 
 Spanish regime were related. They exhibited a very 
 great analogy to their modes of managing elsewhere. 
 The government consisted, as usual, of the priest, a 
 few soldiers, and the commandant ; and the Ameri- 
 cans who came under their jurisdiction were consider- 
 ed as a dangerous species of animal, with whom the 
 commandant entangled himself as little as possible. 
 I saw a noble looking Quawpaw chief, rather advanc- 
 ed in age, who was universally reported to have per- 
 formed a noble action for the last Spanish command- 
 ant. It seems that a party of the Muskogee Indians, 
 — as the Creek sare called by the other tribes, and by 
 themselves, — had penetrated to the Post, found the 
 
271 
 
 only child of the commandant, — but just advanced 
 beyond the age of infancy, — so unguarded or so far 
 from the house, that they seized on him and carried 
 him off. The commandant, upon learning the fact, 
 was, as may naturally be supposed, in an agony. The 
 Quawpaw in question proposed, for some trifling com- 
 pensation, to follow the party down the Arkansas, and 
 recover the child ; and he fulfilled his promise in this 
 way : — he descended behind them to the grand " cut- 
 off," the Bayou that unites White River and the Ar- 
 kansas ; and at the point of the vast island made by 
 this Bayou, the Arkansas, and the Mississippi, he 
 found the savages encamped, holding high jubilee over 
 the roasted carcase of a bear. It is the custom of the 
 savages of these regions to send forward some noted 
 warrior, like the herald of the Romans, who, at the 
 commencement of the first battle, threw a javelin into 
 the enemy's camp, and devoted them to the infernal 
 gods. This warrior, as the " avant courier " of his 
 tribe, rushes upon the enemy, singing the war-song, 
 and shouting defiance. So did this intrepid Indian, — 
 and the Muskogees, supposing the united Spanish and 
 Quawpaws to be behind, sprung to their canoes, leav- 
 ing their utensils, their unfinished feast, their whiskey, 
 and the child, behind, and the crafty savage immedi- 
 ately seized the child, and began his return up the 
 river. The same savage performed an office, scarcely 
 less dangerous, for me, in recovering a valuable yawl 
 from the ferocious Choctaws, who had stolen it and 
 carried it far up the river. 
 
 The remaining period which I spent in this country 
 was, from a hundred circumstances, a time of gloom 
 and dejection. Every member of my family was vis- 
 ited with fever, except myself. The lives of two were 
 
272 
 
 in jeopardy for a number of days. All the neighbours 
 were sick, and many were dying about me. A negro 
 child died in my family. Our only servant was sick, 
 and in this season of general distress no other could be 
 procured. The only physician in whom we had con- 
 fidence, and who had been a member of my family, was 
 sick. The air was excessively sultry, and the mus- 
 quitoes troublesome to a degree, which I have not ex- 
 perienced before nor since. I was obliged to rise from 
 my bed at least ten times a night, for forty nights. I 
 slept under a very close musquitoe curtain. I would 
 soon become oppressed for want of breath under the 
 curtain, and when I drew it up and attempted to inhale 
 a little of the damp and sultry atmosphere, the musqui- 
 toes would instantly settle on my face in such num- 
 bers that I was soon obliged to retreat behind my 
 curtain again. Thus passed those dreadful nights, 
 amidst the groans of my family, calls for medicine 
 and drink, suffocation behind my curtain, or the agony 
 of musquitoe stings, as soon as I was exposed to the 
 air. These were gloomy days indeed ; for during the 
 day the ardours of the sun were almost intolerable. 
 My accustomed walk, to change the scene and to diver- 
 sify the general gloom a little, was down a beach to- 
 wards the upper Bayou,, under the shade of some lofty 
 cypress trees ; and even here, the moment I was out 
 of the full heat of the sun, the musquitoes, which, dur- 
 ing the heats of the day, took shelter in the shade, 
 would rise in countless swarms from the grass to at- 
 tack me. 
 
 During all this gloomy summer, we could not take 
 our food until a fire, kindled with the most offensive 
 materials, and under the table, dispersed its suffocating 
 fumes to drive them away. Even when I wrote a 
 
273 
 
 letter, it was necessary that some one should be at 
 hand to brush off the musquitoes. In truth, the lower 
 course of the Arkansas is infested with these torment- 
 ing insects in a degree in which I have never seen 
 them elsewhere. 7'he inhabitants, while jesting upon 
 the subject, used to urge this incessant torment as an 
 excuse for deep drinking. A sufficient quantity of 
 wine or spirits to produce a happy reverie, or a dozing 
 insensibility, had a cant, but very significant name, — 
 " a musquitoe dose." 
 
 There is an unknown depth of power to sustain 
 suffering, which is never felt in its extent, until it is 
 tried. Jt seems to me in retrospection, that such a 
 frail nature as mine could not have endured the 
 watching, the anxiety, the debility, the heat, musqui- 
 toes, and privations of that summer. But this I did 
 endure, unfriended, unaided, and with days elapsing 
 without seeing an individual, except the sick members 
 of my family. 
 
 I had preached regularly every Sabbath, in the 
 court-house, up to the time when my family was 
 taken sick. My congregation was principally French, 
 and although at that time my pronunciation of their 
 language was defective, I attempted in the best man- 
 ner in my power to address them in their own lan- 
 guage. They are always in such circumstances polite, 
 and seem attentive. But in regions like this, where 
 the habits, unchecked by any serious influence, unaw- 
 ed by any example, have been gathering stability for 
 an age, a few sermons, be they impressive or other- 
 wise, cannot be expected to have much effect. One 
 thing has been indelibly impressed in my mind by 
 deep conviction ; — that religion nowhere has much in- 
 fluence unless its rites have some degree of uniformity, 
 35 
 
274 
 
 unless the associations of awe, of tenderness, and of 
 piety, are established by frequent and long repetition. 
 Hence it is, that the transient labours of itinerants, 
 manifested in earnestness and exclamation, seem to 
 operate on a region over which it passes like the 
 flames of a stubble field. There is much appearance 
 of flame and smoke ; but the fire passes slightly over 
 the surface, and in a few days the observer sees not a 
 trace of the conflagration left. I did not flatter my- 
 self that my services were of much utility. 
 
 The French people generally came to the place of 
 worship, arrayed in their ball-dresses, and went direct- 
 ly from worship to the ball. A billiard room was 
 near, and parts of my audience sometimes came in tor 
 a moment, and after listening to a few sentences, re- 
 turned to their billiards. Nor is here the only place, 
 where the preacher has to endure the heart- wearing 
 agony of having an audience interchanging their at- 
 tention repeatedly between the sermon and the bil- 
 liard-room, in the delivery of one discourse. 
 
 All the conversation of my family, during their con- 
 valescence, was of returning either to New England, 
 or to Missouri. Either country, conten plated in the 
 strong contrast of hope and of memory, seemed to us 
 the happiest place of deliverance. Circumstances 
 that the reader can easily imagine, determined us, as 
 soon as our convalescence would allow us, to go on 
 board a boat to return to the upper country, which 
 alone appeared to us capable of restoring our health, 
 and dispelling our gloom. I could relate many inci- 
 dents of this period, but they all partook of the gloomy 
 colouring of my residence in that region, and are 
 therefore omitted. 
 
275 
 
 Before I left the country, I crossed the river to view 
 the wretched remains of that singular class of enthusi- 
 asts, known in this country by the name of the 44 Pil- 
 grims." This whole region, it is true, wears an aspect 
 of irreligipn ; but we must not thence infer, that we do 
 not often see the semblance and the counterfeit of 
 religion. There is no country where bigotry and en- 
 thusiasm are seen in forms of more glaring absurdity, 
 and, at the same time, of more arrogant assumption. 
 There were, I think, six persons of them left,: — the 
 " prophet," so called, and his wife, and another wo- 
 man, and perhaps three children. They were sick and 
 poor ; and the rags with which they were originally 
 habited to excite attention, and to be in keeping with 
 their name and assumption, were now retained from 
 necessity. The " prophet " was too sick to impart 
 much information, and the others seemed reluctant to 
 do it. I3ut from the wife of the prophet I gleaned 
 the information which follows, of their origin, pro- 
 gress, and end. I have collated her information with 
 the most authentic notices of them, which I obtained 
 at every stage on the Mississippi where they were 
 seen, and where they stopped. 
 
 It seems that the fermenting principle of the socie- 
 ty began to operate in Lower Canada. A* few re- 
 ligious people began to talk about the dead n ess and 
 the unworthiness of all churches, as bodies, and they 
 were anxious to separate from them, in order to 
 compound a more perfect society. The enthusiasm 
 caught in other minds like a spark fallen in iiax. 
 A number immediately sold every thing, and prepared 
 to commence a course towards the southwest. In 
 their progress through Vermont they came in contact 
 with other minds affected with the same longing with 
 
276 
 
 themselves. There can be no doubt that most of them 
 were perfectly honest in their purpose. The " pro- 
 phet," a compound, like the character of Cromwell, of 
 hypocrite and enthusiast, joined himself to them, and 
 from his superior talents or contributions to the com- 
 mon stock of the society, became their leader. They 
 went on accumulating through New York, where 
 their numbers amounted to nearly fifty. Here they en- 
 countered the Shakers, and as they had some notions 
 in common, a kind of coalition was attempted with 
 them. But the Shakers are industrious and neat to a 
 proverb, and are more known to the community by 
 these traits, than any other. But industry made little 
 part of the religion of the Pilgrims, and neatness still 
 less ; for it was a maxim with them to wear the 
 clothes as long as they would last on the body, with- 
 out washing or changing ; and the more patched and 
 particoloured the better. If they wore one whole 
 shoe, the other one, — like the pretended pilgrims of 
 old time, — was clouted and patched. They made it a 
 point, in short, to be as ragged and dirty as might be. 
 Of course, after a long debate with the Shakers, — in 
 which they insisted upon industry, cleanliness, and 
 parting from their wives, proving abundantly and 
 quoting profusely that it ought to be so ; and the Pil- 
 grims proving by more numerous and apposite quota- 
 tions, that they ought to cleave to their dirt, rags, 
 laziness, and wives, and that they ought to go due 
 southwest to find the New Jerusalem, — the logoma- 
 chy terminated as most religious disputes do ; each 
 party claimed the victory, and lamented the obduracy, 
 blindness, and certain tendency to everlasting destruc- 
 tion of the other ; and they probably parted with these 
 expectations of each other's doom. 
 
277 
 
 I knew nothing of their course from that place to 
 New Madrid below the mouth of the Ohio. They 
 were then organised to a considerable degree, and had 
 probably eight or ten thousand dollars in common 
 stock. The prophet was their ruler, spiritual and 
 temporal. He had visions by night, which were ex- 
 pounded in the morning, and determined whether they 
 should stand still or go on ; whether they should ad- 
 vance by land or water ; in short every thing was set- 
 tled by immediate inspiration. Arrived at New 
 Madrid, they walked ashore in Indian file, the old 
 men in front, then the women, and the children in the 
 rear. They chanted a kind of tune, as they walked, 
 the burden of which was u Praise God ! Praise God ! n 
 
 Their food was mush and milk, prepared in a trough, 
 and they sucked it up, standing erect, through a perfo- 
 rated stalk of cane. They enjoined severe penances, 
 according to the state of grace in which the penitent 
 was. For the lower stages the penance was very se- 
 vere, as to stand for four successive days without re- 
 clining or sitting, to fast one or two days. In fact 
 fasting was a primary object of penance, both as severe 
 in itself, and as economical. They affected to be rag- 
 ged, and to have different stripes in their dresses and 
 caps, like those adopted in penitentiaries as badges of 
 the character of the convicts. So formidable a band 
 of ragged Pilgrims, marching in perfect order, chant- 
 ing with a peculiar twang the short phrase i6 Praise 
 God ! Praise God ! 99 had in it something imposing to 
 a people, like those of the West, strongly governed by 
 feelings and impressions. Sensible people assured 
 me that the coming of a band of these Pilgrims into 
 their houses affected them with a thrill of alarm which 
 they could hardly express. The untasted food before 
 
278 
 
 them lost its savour, while they heard these strange 
 people call upon them, standing themselves in the pos- 
 ture of statues, and uttering only the words, " Praise 
 God, repent, fast, pray." Small children, waggish 
 and profane as most of the children are, were seen to 
 shed tears, and to ask their parents, if it would not be 
 fasting enough, to leave off one meal a day. Two of 
 their most distinguished members escaped from them 
 at New Madrid, not without great difficulty, and hav- 
 ing been both of them confined to prevent their escape. 
 One of them, an amiable and accomplished woman, 
 whose over-wrought imagination had been carried 
 away by their imposing rites, died soon after, worn 
 down by the austerities and privations which she had 
 endured. The husband had an emaciated look, like 
 the Shakers, a sweet voice for sacred music, and was 
 preaching in union with the Methodists. At Pilgrim 
 Island, thirty miles below, and opposite the Little 
 Prairie, they staid a long time. 
 
 Here dissensions began to spring up among them. 
 Emaciated with hunger, and feverish from filth antl the 
 climate, many of them left their bones. They were 
 ordered by the prophet, from some direct revelation 
 which he received, to lie unburied ; aud their bones 
 were bleaching on the island when we were there. 
 Some escaped from them at this place, and the sheriff 
 of the county of New r Madrid, indignant at the star- 
 vation imposed as a discipline upon the little children, 
 carried to them a pirogue of provisions, keeping of! 
 with his sword the leaders, who would fain have pre- 
 vented these greedy innocents from satiating their ap- 
 petites. 
 
 While on this island, a great number of boatmen 
 are said to have joined, to take them at their, profes- 
 
279 
 
 sion of having no regard for the world, or the things of 
 it, and robbed them of all their money, differently* 
 stated to be between five and ten thousand dollars. 
 From this plaee, reduced in number by desertion and 
 death, in their descent to the mouth of the Arkansas, 
 there were only the numbers surviving, which I saw. 
 When I asked the wife of the prophet, why, instead 
 of descending in the summer to the sickly country, 
 they had not ascended to the high and healthy re- 
 gions of Cape Girardeau, in order to acclimate them- 
 selves before their descent ; their answer was, that 
 such calculations of worldly wisdom were foreign to 
 their object; that they did not study advantage, or 
 calculate to act as the world acts upon such subjects, 
 but that suffering was a part of their plan. When 
 I asked them, why they deserted their station at the 
 mouth of the Arkansas on the Mississippi ; they an- 
 swered, that they could neither get corn, pumpkins, nor 
 milk, at the mouth of the river, as the people there 
 had neither fields nor cows ; that they could obtain all 
 these things in the region where they were, and 
 had come thither for this purpose. When I ob- 
 served to them that this was reasoning precisely of a 
 character with that, which I had been recommending to 
 them, in respect to ascending the river to Cape Gi- 
 rardeau, and that, unknown to themselves, they were 
 acting upon the universal principle of attempting to 
 better their condition ; they discovered that they had 
 committed themselves, and had proved, that they act- 
 ed from motives contrary to their avowed principles, 
 and replied, that they were not used to such discus- 
 sions, and that they reasoned as differently from the 
 world, as they acted. This history of the delusion, 
 and destruction of between thirty and forty people, 
 
280 
 
 most of them honest and sincere, left a deep and melan- 
 choly impression of the universal empire of bigotry, and 
 its fatal influences in all ages and countries. To this 
 narrative I shall only add, that I heard an aged man, with 
 a long beard, preaching, as they called it, at New Ma- 
 drid. He descended the Mississippi a year after these 
 unfortunate people, and he also called himself a Pil- 
 grim. He was as wild and visionary as they were, 
 and talked and acted like a maniac. He was descend- 
 ing the Mississippi, as he said, to the real Jerusalem 
 in Asia. He appeared deeply impressed, that by 
 going on in that direction he should finally reach that, 
 city. There was a numerous audience, and I heard 
 many of them expressing their admiration of his 
 preaching. Let none think that the age of fanati- 
 cism has gone by. 
 
 I will record in this place another narrative that 
 impressed me deeply. It was a fair sample of the 
 cases of extreme misery and desolation, that are often 
 witnessed on this river. In the Sunday school at New 
 Madrid we received three children, who were intro- 
 duced to that place under the following circumstances. 
 A man was descending the river with these three children 
 in his pirogue. He and his children had landed 
 on a desert island, on a bitter snowy evening of De- 
 cember. There were but two houses, which were 
 at Little Prairie., opposite the island, within a great-dis- 
 tance. He wanted more whiskey, although he had 
 already been drinking it too freely. Against the per- 
 suasions of his children he left them, to cross over 
 in his pirogue to these houses, and renew his sup- 
 ply. The wind blew high, and the river was 
 rough. Nothing would dissuade him from this dan- 
 gerous attempt. He told them that he should return 
 
281 
 
 to them that night, left them in tears, and exposed 
 to the pitiless pelting of the storm, and started 
 for his carouse. The children saw the boat sink, 
 before he had half crossed the passage. The man 
 was drowned. These forlorn beings were left with- 
 out any other covering, than their own scanty and 
 ragged dress, for he had taken his last blanket with 
 him. They had neither fire, nor shelter; and no 
 other food than uncooked pork and corn. It snowed 
 fast, and the night closed over them in this situation. 
 The elder was a girl of six years, but remarkably 
 shrewd and acute for her age. The next was a girl 
 of four, and the youngest, a boy of two. It was af- 
 fecting to hear her describe her desolation of heart, as 
 she set herself to examining her resources. She made 
 them creep together and draw their bare feet under her 
 clothes. She covered them with leaves and branches, 
 and thus they passed the first night. 
 
 In the morning the younger children wept bitterly 
 with cold and hunger. The pork she cut into small 
 pieces and made them chew corn with these pieces. 
 She then persuaded them to run about by setting 
 them the example. Then she made them return to 
 chewing corn and pork. It should seem as if Prov- 
 idence had a special eye to these poor children, for 
 in the course of the day some Indians landed on the 
 Island, found them, and as they were coming up to 
 New Madrid, took them with them. 
 
 In a cabin at the mouth of the Arkansas, I saw a 
 woman, apparently very sick of fever and ague, lying 
 on the floor of the cabin, on a bear skin, with an 
 infant b&be also sick by her side. She had been 
 evidently a beautiful woman, and by her countenance, 
 and her manner, as well as bv remnants of tattered 
 36 
 
382 
 
 lace and finery, I saw that she had not been born and 
 reared in this country. I asked her for her story 
 With great labour and exhaustion, and with accents 
 often interrupted, she told me the following tale. She 
 was born in London, and had married a sergeant in the 
 British army. He had been ordered on the service 
 against New Orleans. After the defeat of the eighth 
 of January, he was a prisoner, and chose to remain in 
 the country She had crossed the Atlantic in pursuit 
 of her truant husband, had landed at New York, and 
 made her way to Cincinnati ; being here in extreme 
 misery and want, and in despair of ever finding her 
 husband, she had, as the horrid but familiar phrase of 
 this country is, u taken up with a man " at Cincinnati, 
 by whom she had this child. After living with her a 
 few months, he had deserted her. She then came 
 down in a boat, until within sixty miles of the Arkansas, 
 had then and there been taken extremely ill of fever 
 and ague, and had been taken in by a family who 
 kept her as long as she had any clothes or trinkets 
 left. The men of the family had then taken her from 
 bed after sunset, put her in a pirogue, and rowed her 
 down during the night to the mouth of the river, and 
 there left her on the sand-bar. The bank which it 
 was necessary to mount, before arriving at a house, 
 was sixty feet high. She made various attempts, as 
 the morning sun began to beat upon her head, to 
 mount this bank, in hope of finding either a house, or 
 shelter. All her exertions failed, and she laid herself 
 down and tried to resign herself to die. 
 
 It happened that some men, who cut wood for the 
 steam- boats, boarded at the house above the bank. 
 They were crossing the river a third of a mile above 
 the mouth, to go to their morning task. They heard 
 
283 
 
 the wailings of the infant that was lying by its moth- 
 er. One of the men insisted that the cries were those 
 of a child. The rest ridiculed the idea, and insisted 
 that it was the scream of owls, that in these countries 
 often utter their notes in the morning. He would not 
 he ridiculed out of his persuasion, crossed back to the 
 side of the river from which he started, descended it 
 to the mouth, and there on the bar found the woman 
 and her babe. She was taken in at the house on the 
 bank, and treated as kindly as their circumstances 
 would admit. We gave her counsel, and a small sum 
 of money, collected in common from all who heard 
 her story, and left her. I know nothing of her histo- 
 ry beyond that time. 
 
 When we arrived at the mouth of the river, we found 
 the Mississippi lower than it had been for thirty years. 
 No steam- boat was expected for some time, at least not 
 until the river should rise. We concluded, as we had 
 a comfortable boat, to make use of our sails when the 
 wind would serve, and make as much of our way as we 
 could with only two hands. We went on securely, 
 though slowly, to the mouth of the St. Francis, nearly 
 a hundred miles, and it was a work of twelve days. 
 The season was more beautiful than I can describe, 
 and the moon shone sweetly on the clean white sand- 
 bars. 
 
 At the St. Francis settlement, we were acquainted 
 with an opulent family of the name of Phillips. They 
 hospitably urged us to spend the winter there. Mr. 
 Phillips offered us part of his house, an apartment 
 sufficiently large and commodious. Considering the 
 circumstances of my family at this time, it was my 
 wish and my advice to stay. Mrs. F. was so ex- 
 tremely anxious to reach the upper country, that we 
 concluded to go directly on. 
 
284 
 
 Soon after we left the St. Francis, both our hands 
 were taken ill of fever and ague, and we were oblig- 
 ed to leave them behind. We were now left with 
 none but my own family, in the midst of the wilder- 
 ness, the heavy current, of the Mississippi against us, 
 and more than four hundred miles still before us. 
 The river was so low, that steam boats were scarce 
 on it, and the few that attempted to ascend it were 
 aground on the sand bars. In fact, no boats were 
 seen ascending or descending, and it seemed impossi- 
 ble for us to procure hands in lieu of those who had 
 left us on account of sickness. The wind generally 
 blew up the stream, and was favourable for sailing, ex- 
 cept in the curves, or bends of the river, which were 
 often so deep as to cause that the wind, which was 
 directly in favour at one point of the bend, would be 
 directly against us at the other. We made use of our 
 sail, when it would serve, and of our cordelle, when 
 it would not ; and in this way we went on cheerfully, 
 though with inexpressible fatigue to myself, to the 
 point between the first and the middle Chickasaw 
 bluff. In arriving here, we had the most beautiful 
 autumnal evenings that I ever witnessed. We were 
 " a feeble folk," alone in the wilderness. The owls, 
 forty in concert, and in every whimsical note, from 
 the wailings of an infant babe, to the deep grunt of 
 a drunken German, gave us their serenade. Ever and 
 anon, a wolf would raise his prolonged and dismal 
 howl in the forests. The gabbling of numberless 
 water fowls of every description on the sand-bars, 
 was a kind of tambourine to the grand accompaniment 
 of the owls and the wolves. The swan you know nat- 
 urally plays the trumpet. My family had the ague, and 
 the paroxysm creates a kind of poetical excitement, 
 
285 
 
 so that a person who is just rising from the fit, is in 
 the highest degree capable of enjoyment, in a state of 
 mind not unlike that produced by the agency of 
 opium. Then, when we were made fast in a cove on 
 the wide sand-bar : when the moon, with her circum- 
 ference broadened and reddened by the haze and 
 smoke of Indian summer, rose, and diffused, as Cha- 
 teaubriand so beautifully says, the " great secret of 
 melancholy over these ancient forests — after our 
 evening prayers, and the favourite hymn, u The day is 
 past and gone," &c. I have spent hoqrs in traversing 
 the sand-bars entirely alone. 
 
 But I hasten to matters more appropriate to my 
 narrative. I could describe to you two days of exces- 
 sive fatigue, in which we made repeated attempts to 
 pass a rapid place in the river, too rapid to be passed 
 with oars, too muddy to afford bottom for poles, and 
 the shore a quagmire for a mile in extent, and of course 
 not admitting the use of a cordelle. We tried to sur- 
 mount this place for two days, and failed, exhausted 
 in every attempt. We crossed the river, and attempt- 
 ed to ascend on the bend side, to a point, where fall- 
 en-in timber forbade our going higher. We then re- 
 crossed, and both times fell below the impassable place. 
 Discouraged and wearied out, we gave up the attempt, 
 and expected to lie there, until a rise in the river 
 should enable us to pass the place, or until a passing 
 steam-boat might tow us up. How often do we find 
 relief at a moment of the deepest despondency ! Just 
 as we had agreed to lie by, and had resigned ourselves 
 to our lot, a fine breeze sprang up, we hoisted our sail, 
 and passed the difficult place with perfect ease. 
 
 A difficulty stiil more formidable now awaited us. 
 We had expected to be able each day to replenish 
 
286 
 
 our stock of provisions from the descending boats. 
 The season was sultry, and we took with us no more 
 than could be preserved from day to day. We were 
 in this wilderness eight days without seeing a single 
 boat pass. You can easily imagine what followed. 
 Fortunately we at length descried a flat boat descend- 
 ing ; we hailed her, and she told us to come on board. 
 We did, and were lashed beside her. She instantly 
 discovered our situation, and made her own calcula- 
 tions ; and we paid thirty dollars for a barrel of pork 
 and one of flour, meanwhile descending the river three 
 miles, which we were obliged, with great toil, to re- 
 mount, in order to gain the point where we hailed the 
 boat. 
 
 We arrived opposite to the second Chickasaw bluff 
 on the twenty-sixth of November. The country on 
 the shore receives and deserves the emphatic name of 
 " wilderness." At ten in the morning we perceived 
 indications of a severe approaching storm. The air 
 was oppressively sultry. Brassy clouds were visible 
 upon all quarters of the sky. Distant thunder was 
 heard. We were upon a wide sand bar far from any 
 house. Opposite to us was a vast cypress swamp. At 
 this period, and in this place, Mrs. F. was taken in 
 travail. My children, wrapped in blankets, laid them- 
 selves down on the sand-bar. I secured the boat in 
 every possible way against the danger of being driven 
 by the storm into the river. At eleven the storm burst 
 upon us in all its fury. Mrs. F. had been salivated 
 during her fever, and had not yet been able to leave 
 her couch. I was alone with her in this dreadful sit- 
 uation. Hail, and wind, and thunder, and rain in tor- 
 rents poured upon us. I was in terror, lest the wind 
 would drive mv boat, notwithstanding all her fasten- 
 
287 
 
 ingSj into the river. No imagination can reach what 1 
 endured. The only alleviating circumstance was her 
 perfect tranquillity. She knew that the hour of sor- 
 row, and expected that of death, was come. She was 
 so perfectly calm, spoke with such tranquil assurance 
 about the future, and about the dear ones that were at 
 this moment w 'biding the pelting of the pitiless storm " 
 on the sand-bar, that I became calm myself. A little 
 after twelve the wind burst in the roof of my boat, and 
 let in the glare of the lightning, and the torrents of 
 rain upon my poor wife. I could really have ex- 
 postulated with the elements in the language of the 
 poor old Lear. I had wrapped my wife in blankets^ 
 ready to be carried to the shelter of the forest, in case 
 of the driving of my boat into the river. About four 
 the fury of the storm began to subside. At five the 
 sun in his descending glory burst from the dark masses 
 of the receding clouds. At eleven in the evening 
 Mrs. F. was safely delivered of a female infant, and 
 notwithstanding all, did well. The; babe, from pre- 
 ceding circumstances, was feeble and sickly, and I saw 
 could not survive. At midnight we had raised a blaz- 
 ing fire. The children came into the boat. Supper 
 was prepared, and we surely must have been ungrate- 
 ful not to have sung a hymn of deliverance. There 
 can be but one trial more for me that can surpass the 
 agony of that day, and there can never be on this 
 earth a happier period than those midnight hours. 
 The babe staid with us but two days and an half, and 
 expired. The children, poor things, laid it deeply to 
 heart, and raised a loud lament. We were, as I have 
 remarked, far away from all human aid and sympa- 
 thy, and left alone with God. We deposited the body 
 of our lost babe. — laid in a small trunk for a coffin, — 
 
288 
 
 in a grave amid the rushes, there to await the resur- 
 rection of the dead. The prayer made on the occa- 
 sion by the father, with the children for concourse and 
 mourners, if not eloquent, was, to us at least, deeply 
 affecting. The grave is on a high bank opposite to the 
 second Chickasaw bluff, and I have since passed the 
 rude memorial which we raised on the spot ; and I 
 passed it, carrying to you my miserable and exhausted 
 frame, with little hope of its renovation, and in the 
 hourly expectation of depositing my own bones on the 
 banks of the Mississippi. But enongh, and too much, 
 of all this. 
 
 After this disaster, we found two excellent hands, 
 whom we engaged to assist us to work our boat to 
 the upper country. Little occurred between this and 
 our reaching that country, worth relating. You are 
 aware that for the sake of something a little like ar- 
 rangement, in these desultory remarks, I have thrown 
 together the events that happened to us after our re- 
 turn, and that they have been already related under 
 the general head of our first residence in the upper 
 country. I remember being deeply impressed with 
 the view of the Missouri at St. Charles, after an ab- 
 sence of two years. It has been always a 'most im- 
 pressive spectacle to me. You, perhaps, will smile, 
 that the sight of this river produced one of those poetic 
 explosions, that have so seldom occurred to me as to 
 be eras. To transcribe the result to you, would be the 
 jackdaw croa^king to the swan. You know that I 
 never assumed to be acquainted with the muses, and 
 never flattered myself that I possessed more than the 
 madness, without the inspiration, of poetry. But you 
 have charged me to tell all. So here you have lines 
 occasioned by revisiting the Missouri. 
 
289 
 
 REFLECTIONS ON CROSSING THE MISSOURI. 
 
 Missouri, king of floods ! my pilgrim course 
 Once more has led me to thy turbid wave. 
 Thy broad expanse, re-opening on my eye, 
 Calls up anew the fading images, 
 And shifting scenes of joy and sorrow felt 
 In long sojourn, while wandering on thy shores. 
 How oft at solemn eve I 've heard the roar 
 Gigantic of thy sweeping tide, among 
 The funeral columns of thy fallen sons, 
 Who erst in filial piety held ot. 
 Their verdant arms to shade thy banks ; 
 Till, undermined by thee, with thundering crash ? 
 They fell, imbedded deep beneath thy wave. 
 Oft have I seen thy feathered chiefs moor in 
 Their frail canoe from the far distant west ; 
 Or hunter's bark, responsive to the song 
 Of sturdy oarsmen, measured to the oar. 
 Imagination, kindled by thy course 
 Interminous, thy rapid-whirling tide, 
 Has traced thy devious channel to its source. 
 Where from a thousand snow-topt piles 
 Precipitous of nameless mountains, vast 
 And drear, a thousand urns pour down 
 Thy tribute, clear, pellucid as the air ; 
 Till, mingling with thy level world below, 
 Thou tak'st the stain that such alliance gives. 
 Borne on thy bosom I have coursed thee down, 
 'Midst hills, and cliffs, and outstretched prairies smooth, 
 Where antelopes, and bounding elk, and buffaloes 
 Lave in thy stream, and from afar espy 
 The ascending bark, and at the unwonted view 
 Of man, they snufFthe air of liberty, 
 And hie away, where traces of his feet 
 37 
 
290 
 
 Are never seen. And I delight to view 
 The dress fantastic, and the giant forms 
 Of varying hordes, thy wandering foresters, 
 Who rise, mature, and die, amidst thy vales 
 Unknown ; unconscious that the pride of man 
 Has called for more than thou canst give. 
 And still thy volume swells, advancing on 
 With added tribute from a hundred streams 
 That wind amidst their own vast solitudes ; 
 Till, far away from those hoar hills and rocks, 
 Whence thou didst spring, great nature's reign T 
 In thy rich intervals and forests deep, 
 I hear the tinkling bell, the woodman's axe, 
 The baying dogs, the lowing herds, and see 
 The first faint efforts rude of social toil. 
 
 And then anticipation, rapt away, 
 Forestals thy future glory, when thy tide 
 Shall roll by towns, and villages, and farms, 
 Continuous, amidst the peaceful hum 
 Of happy multitudes, fed from thy soil ; 
 When the glad eye shall cheer at frequent view 
 Of gilded spires of halls, still vocal with the task 
 Of ripening youth ; or churches sounding high, 
 Hosannas to the living God. Mark now ! 
 Sure harbinger of thy renown in days to come, 
 Against thy mighty force moves proudly on 
 The gay steam-boat ; tracing her path in foam, 
 And from her croaking tube emitting high 
 The curling smoke. The wild uproar suspends 
 The mellow whistle of thy favourite bird, 
 That marks his frighted course 'mid the green leaves, 
 In living, purple light. Thou, mighty stream ! 
 Not only nourishes^ the beauteous mead, 
 That teems with flowers of every scent and hue, 
 And forests dark and deep; but thou giv'st birth 
 To solemn thought, and moral musings high; 
 For I remember well, when from the gates 
 Of death arising, feeble, faint, and wan, 
 
291 
 
 And trembling on my staff, I gained thy bank, 
 And first inhaled again thy cooling breeze ; 
 I drew strong contrast of thy mighty force, 
 With human feebleness; thy lengthened path 
 And everlasting roll, with life's short span. 
 Thy current, too, still urging on to meet 
 The ocean-wave, suggested clear to me 
 My own brief passage down the tide of time 
 To thy dread shore, Eternity ! the place 
 Of union with those dear and distant friends, 
 Who started with me at life's opening dawn. 
 
 I have touched already on the sickness that myself 
 and all my family experienced on our arrival in the 
 " point," below St. Charles, where we afterwards 
 cultivated a small farm. In this position, and in this 
 period of dismay, we received from you, and from that 
 friend, so noble, so disinterested iu his kindnesses, 
 proofs of a remembrance so different from the com- 
 mon tokens of friendship, that I dare not trust my pen 
 or my heart in the expression of my feelings. If my 
 career and my sufferings have been somewhat differ- 
 ent from the common lot, my friends have differed still 
 more from those of the e very-day class, that are called 
 by that name. I have, perhaps, my share of pride. 
 But gratitude is not a proud feeling. Were it not that 
 I have a dear family, who will, I hope, survive me, I 
 would tell all. I would at least do one good thing for 
 my age and country. I would prove by unquestion- 
 able fact, that in an age when selfishness and avarice 
 seem to increase with the increasing refinement of the 
 day, and with the increasing ability of wealth to pur- 
 chase enjoyment, there are at least some minds, which 
 " modern degeneracy has not reached." 44 Age, mac- 
 
292 
 
 te'virtute." The doings of such minds need not be 
 blazoned. " They are satisfied from themseives." 
 By the help and the advice of those friends, in the 
 autumn of 1822 we descended the Mississippi to New 
 Orleans. 
 
 LETTER XXIII. — JVETV ORLEANS. 
 
 The fourth of Oct. 1822, Mr. Willam Postell, a re- 
 spectable citizen of St. Charles, and myself having 
 built a flat boat in company, and fitted it for the re- 
 ception of a family, we began to descend the upper 
 Mississippi for New Orleans. We had descended but 
 a few miles, when we were brought up by a sand bar, 
 on which we lay four days. Having unloaded the 
 boat, and got off the sand-bar, we passed the mouth 
 of the Missouri, and arrived at St. Louis on Saturday 
 evening. On the Sabbath I preached to a very seri- 
 ous audience a farewell discourse. Many circum- 
 stances concurred to give solemnity to this parting. 
 From this place to the mouth of the Arkansas nothing 
 material occurred ; and having passed through this 
 region and attempted to describe it before, it is un- 
 necessary to add any thing here. We passed this 
 river the last of October. There is a settlement fifty 
 miles below its mouth, called Point Ohico. With 
 this small exception, the greater proportion of the 
 country is an unbroken and inundated wilderness, 
 for nearly two hundred miles. At Point Ohico, or 
 the great Cypress Bend, we first discover that very 
 singular drapery that appends itself to the forests, 
 and gives them such a funereal gloom, the long 
 
293 
 
 moss. About the same place we first see that we are 
 in a new climate, by witnessing the palmetto, or fan 
 palm, a beautiful evergreen, having a character ap- 
 parently between a shrub and an herb, and of which I 
 shall hereafter attempt a description. I have per- 
 haps remarked, that there is but one bluff visible on 
 the west shore of the Mississippi, from Cape Girar- 
 deau to Aew Orleans. That is the St. Francis bluff. 
 On the eastern shore, the bluffs appear, bounding the 
 river, or in many places in the distance. Below the 
 mouth of the Ohio there come in no important riv- 
 ers, until you arrive at the mouth of the Yazoo, of 
 famous memory in the ancient Georgia land specula- 
 tions. Soon after you pass the mouth of that river, 
 your eye is cheered with the green heads of the Wal- 
 nut Hills. They are beautiful and rich eminences, 
 clad with an abundance of those trees whose name 
 they bear. Here, too, you begin to see the southern 
 style of building, the indications of being among the 
 opulent cotton-planters. The stranger inquires the 
 object and use of a cluster of little buildings that lie 
 about the principal house, like bee-hives. These are 
 the habitations of the negroes. When I descended the 
 Mississippi, there was no village on the eastern shore 
 of the river, above Warrenton. A very considerable 
 village has arisen between that time and this, at some 
 distance above ; and from the number of houses and 
 stores, and of boats lying in the harbour, I should sup- 
 pose it a place of considerable trade. A town in this 
 region, with a fortunate location, is like Jonah's gourd, 
 the growth of a night. 
 
 As a general remark it may be observed, that from 
 the commencement of the Walnut Hills to Baton 
 Rouge, between two and three hundred miles, the 
 
294 
 
 bluffs cither bound the river, or approach very near to 
 it on the eastern shore. They have every variety of 
 form, and are often of the most whimsical conforma- 
 tion, and crowned with beach and hickory trees. 
 Here also you begin to discover ihe ever- verdant laurel 
 magnolia, with its beautiful foliage of the thickness 
 and the feeling of leather. The holly and a variety of 
 evergreens begin to show themselves among the other 
 trees. On the opposite shore, you still have the som- 
 bre and inundated forest, deep covered with its drape- 
 ry of crape, and here and there indented with its 
 plantation. 
 
 Warrenton is the first considerble village below 
 New Madrid. Indeed there are two villages com- 
 menced, the one on the high bluff, formely called Fort 
 Pickering, and now Memphis, in Alabama, and anoth- 
 er at the St. Francis bluffs, in the territory of Arkansas. 
 They are both inconsiderable. At Warrenton there are 
 regular streets, brick buildings, and good houses and 
 stores, and I should suppose nearly one hundred 
 dwellings. In descending, we passed part of a day 
 and a night here. I inquired if there were, in the 
 village, any profeesors of religion ; and I was directed 
 to a young lady, whose husband had something of 
 the appearance of a dandy, and who answered m^ 
 inquiries about the profession of his wife, with a 
 shrug, and a half-suppressed smile, informing me that 
 she was a Methodist, but would be glad to converse 
 with any person who wore the garb and appearance 
 of a minister. He gave me clearly to understand that 
 it was no affair of his, and that 1 must converse with 
 her alone. She spoke discouragingly about the wil- 
 lingness of the people to assemble for public worship. 
 I retired, considering it as a hopeless attempt, and in- 
 
295 
 
 tending to pass on without any public exercise. But 
 in the course of the evening a number of the citizens 
 came on board, offering their houses, and wishing to 
 have public worship. There was a full house and 
 apparently an attentive audience. When we left, the 
 next morning, the people expressed regret, that in so 
 considerable a village, in the midst of an opulent set- 
 tlement, whence very considerable quantities of cot- 
 ton were shipped, the people should have so little 
 public spirit, and so little religious feeling, as to have 
 no place of public worship. 
 
 Natchez is romantically situated, in two divisions. 
 The river business is transacted at the town, " under 
 the hill," as it is called, a repulsive place, the centre 
 of all that is vile, from the upper and lower country. 
 At the proper season a thousand boats are lying here 
 at the landing, and the town is full of boatmen, mu- 
 lartoes, houses of ill fame, and their wretched tenants, 
 in short, the refuse of the world. The fiddle screaks 
 jargon from these faucibus orci. You see the 
 unhappy beings dancing ; and here they have what are 
 called " rows," which often end in murder. The 
 town is situated on the summit of a bluff, three hun- 
 dred feet in height, from which you look upon the 
 cultivated strip of Concordia, on the opposite shore, 
 in the state of Louisiana, and the boundless and level 
 summits of the cypress swamps beyond. On the 
 eastern side, the country is waving, rich, and beautiful ; 
 the eminence is crowned with neat country houses. 
 The town itself is quiet, the streets broad, some of 
 the public buildings handsome, and the whole has the 
 appearance of comfort and opulence. It is the prin- 
 cipal town in this region for the shipment of cotton, 
 with bales of which, at the proper season, the streets 
 
296 
 
 are almost barricaded. Some of the planters who re- 
 side here are opulent. I remember to have heard a 
 Mrs. Turner spoken of, as possessing a great planta- 
 tion, and " force," as the phrase is. The income of 
 the planters is, in some seasons, from ten to forty 
 thousand dollars a year. The Baptists, Methodists, 
 and Presbyterians, have eath a church here. The 
 Presbyterian church and society is large and respecta- 
 ble. A stranger is kindly received by the opulent 
 people of this town, — city I should say, for they call it 
 so. It has a ( harming aspect of quietness and repose. 
 Here too, you see the ruins of Fort Rosalie, and the 
 scene of the wild, but splendid and affecting romance 
 of Atala. You can refer to the census for the num- 
 ber of the inhabitants. You know that I write " with- 
 out book." I should suppose that both towns, the 
 upper and lower, might contain seven or eight thousand 
 inhabitants. Notwithstanding its cleanliness, ele- 
 vation, and apparent purity of atmosphere, it has had 
 repeated and severe visitations of yellow fever. 
 
 On the opposite shore, the state of Louisiana is 
 bounded by the western shore of the Mississippi, a 
 considerable distance above this ; the limits between it 
 and the territory of Arkansas being 33°. The state 
 of Mississippi extends on the eastern shore for a con- 
 siderable distance below. The scenery has little va- 
 riation. You are struck with the curious stripes of 
 red, yellow, and white, in the earth of the bluff banks 
 on the eastern shore. They mark the strata of the 
 soil, and are of wonderful regularity. The planta- 
 tions, too, become more common, and the streets of 
 little buildings, that cluster about the principal one, in- 
 dicate a greater number of negroes. Eighty miles be- 
 low Natchez, on the western, or Louisiana side, comes 
 
297 
 
 in Red River, of which I mean to speak in another 
 place. Not far from the point opposite to the mouth of 
 this river, the state of Louisiana is bounded by Missis- 
 sippi, and the river runs wholly in that state to the 
 Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 At about one hundred and fifty miles above New 
 Orleans commences the levee, on the western shore. 
 It is an artificial mound of earth, of considerable ele- 
 vation, raised to prevent the inundation of the river. 
 It commences, too, on the eastern shore, a little below 
 this, and is continued on both sides to New Orleans. 
 Were it not for these mounds, this rich, beautiful, and 
 productive strip of soil, called " the coast," would be 
 annually inundated. At Point Coupe, the coast 
 commences in its beauty. Here you begin to see 
 orange groves, and the spreading, and verdant branch- 
 es of the live-oak. Here, too, you see that mag- 
 nificent plant, which the French call " peet," with its 
 foliage perfectly green during the winter, and the 
 extremities of its leaves terminating with a thousand 
 thorny points. In this village lived, and died, Mr. 
 Poydras, greatly distinguished for his wealth and 
 benevolence. Let the great have columns, and their 
 names be " written on a pillar," when they die ; for 
 me, I would covet, above all things, the monument of 
 Poydras. He endowed orphan asylums in the city 
 of New Orleans ; he gave the proceeds of a hand- 
 some property, twenty thousand dollars, I believe, 
 to be distributed in marriage portions to a num- 
 ber of poor girls in the adjoining parishes ; ;md he 
 left various other magnificent chanties. He left in 
 particular an ample endowment to the school in his 
 own parish. • 
 38 
 
298 
 
 Opposite to this place is the town of St. Francisville, 
 a considerable village, in which is published a weekly 
 paper. It is the seat of justice for the parish of Feli-' 
 eiana, a parish affording fine plantations, and possessing 
 a broken but very rich soil. There are about this town 
 many delightful plantations and houses. The owners 
 have had the taste and discernment to leave beautiful 
 groves of trees about their houses. Here the different 
 species of laurel trees begin to make a considerable 
 proportion of the whole forest. The planters in this 
 vicinity are " novi homines " — men who have made 
 their own fortunes. Many of them are very opulent, 
 and vast quantities of cotton are shipped from this 
 place. 
 
 Below here you begin to discover that a new and 
 most beautiful species of cultivation, — the sugar cane, 
 — alternates with the cotton- fields. Baton Rouge is a 
 village charmingly situated on the eastern bank of the 
 Mississippi, one hundred and fifty miles above New 
 Orleans. It is the last of the bluffs on the eastern 
 shore. It does not, like the bluffs above, rise perpen- 
 dicularly from the river, but by a gentle and gradual 
 swell. The United States barracks are built in a fine 
 style, and are, I should suppose, among the most com- 
 modious works of that class. From the esplanade, 
 the prospect is most delightful, including a great ex- 
 tent of the coast, with its handsome houses and rich 
 cultivation below, and commanding an extensive view 
 into the back country at the east. There are general- 
 ly two or three companies of United States troops 
 stationed here, under high discipline, and with a fine 
 band of music. On the parade stands a beautiful 
 monument of white marble, consecrated to the mem- 
 ory of some officers of the garrison, who deceased 
 
299 
 
 4 
 
 here. It is not an expensive, but a very striking mon- 
 ument ; and the inscription is worth recording, as tend- 
 ing, perhaps, to show how very important a being 
 man is in these regions, where disease and mortality 
 are so common. As far as my memory serves me, 
 these are the verses after the record of the names and 
 ages of the deceased : 
 
 " Like bubbles on a sea of matter borne, 
 We rise, we burst, and to that sea return." 
 
 It is matter of regret, that in a country professedly 
 christian, any inscription should ever find a place on a 
 funeral monument, that bears no allusion to our hope 
 of immortality. 
 
 In the winter of 1823, in January, I ascended the 
 Mississippi. The verdure of the country about this 
 town, as seen from the steam-boat, was brilliant ; and 
 the town itself, rising with such a fine swell from the 
 river, with its singularly shaped French and Spanisli 
 houses, and green squares, looked in the distance 
 like a fine landscape painting. The village is com- 
 pact, and probably contains two or three thousand 
 inhabitants. I might remark, that, below the mouth 
 of Red River, below this town, at different points 
 between this and the Gulf, there burst out of the 
 Mississippi what are called Bayous, which ibrm very 
 considerable rivers, and carry off no inconsiderable 
 portions of the waters of the river by their own sepa- 
 rate channels to the Gulf of Mexico. Some of them 
 are boatable, and, like the parent stream, have high 
 and cultivated banks. 
 
 Below Baton Rouge the banks on both sides of the 
 river become uniform. The levee is continuous. The 
 cultivation of cotton, sugar-cane, and rice, has become 
 regular. The breadth of the cultivated lands is gene- 
 
300 
 
 rally two miles ; a perfectly uniform strip, conforming 
 to the shape of the river, and every where bounding 
 the deep forests of the Mississippi swamp with a regu- 
 lar line. In the whole distance to New Orleans, 
 plantation touches plantation. I have seen in no part 
 of the United States such a rich and highly cultivated 
 tract of the same extent. It far exceeds that on the 
 banks of the Delaware. Noble houses, massive su^ar- 
 hou^es, neat summer-houses, and numerous negro 
 villages succeed each other in such a way, that the 
 whole distance has the appearance of one continued 
 village. The houses are airy and neat, some of them 
 splendid, and in the midst of orange groves and pretty 
 gardens, in which are the delicious cape jessamine, a 
 flowering shrub, multitudes of altheas, bowers of the 
 multillora rose, and a great variety of vines and flower- 
 ing shrubs, that flourish in this mild climate. Among 
 the noblest of the plantations is that of General Hamp- 
 ton, one of the questionable heroes of the late war. 
 
 It produces a painful sensation in the mind of a seri- 
 ous Protestant, that there is not discoverable in all the 
 distance from St. Francisville to New Orleans, on 
 either shore, a single Protestant house of worship. 
 We need not cross the ocean to Hindostan to find 
 whole regions destitute of even the forms of christian 
 worship. The Catholics have, indeed, churches here ; 
 and the spires, seen at intervals of six or seven miles, 
 cheer the eye. In ascending or descending through 
 this richest agricultural district in the Union, the trav- 
 eller has an eager curiosity during the first passage. 
 There is a novelty and freshness in the picture which 
 keeps alive curiosity. But the cquntry is so level, the 
 mansions so uniform, the fields so exactly alike, and 
 the whole aspect has such a tiresome sameness, that a 
 
301 
 
 traveller is apt to sail a second time past this rich land- 
 scape without interest or curiosity. It is indeed al- 
 ways pleasant to see the fields, the gardens, the fine 
 houses, apparently moving past as you descend, like 
 the landscapes in a magic lantern. There is one 
 curious circumstance worthy of notice in this descent, 
 especially if the river rises to its banks. You seem to 
 move on an elevated plain, and you look down on the 
 subjacent plantations some feet below you. The 
 strokes of the axe and the report of guns have a sin- 
 gular sound in the ear, as though the noise com- 
 menced under water. 
 
 One hundred .miles from the mouth of the Mississippi, 
 and something more than a thousand from the mouth 
 of the Ohio, just below a sharp point of the river, w 
 situated on its east bank, the city of New Orleans, 
 the great commercial capital of the Mississippi val- 
 ley. The position for a commercial city is unri- 
 valled, 1 believe, by any one in the world. At a prop- 
 er distance from the Gulf of Mexico, — on the banks 
 of a stream which may be said almost to water a 
 world, — but a little distance from Lake Ponchartrain, 
 and connected with it by a navigable canal, — the im- 
 mense alluvion contiguous to it, — penetrated in all di- 
 rections either by Bayous formed by nature, or canals 
 which cost little more trouble in the making, than 
 ditches, — steamboats visiting it from fifty different 
 shores, — possessing the immediate agriculture of its 
 own state, the richest in America, and as rich as any in 
 the world, with the continually increasing agriculture of 
 the upper country, its position far surpasses that of 
 Ne w.York itself. It has one dreary drawback — the in- 
 salubrity of its situation. Could the immense swamps 
 between it and the bluffs be drained, and the improve- 
 
302 
 
 merits commenced in the city be completed ; in short, 
 could its atmosphere ever become a dry one, it would 
 soon leave the greatest cities of the Union behind. 
 
 Great efforts are making towards this result. Un- 
 happily, when the dogstar rises upon its sky, the yel- 
 low fever is but too sure to come in its train. Not- 
 withstanding the annual, or at least the biennial visits 
 of this pestilence ; although its besom sweeps off mul- 
 titudes of unacclimated poor, and compels the rich to 
 fly ; notwithstanding the terror, that is every where as- 
 sociated with the name of the city, it is rapidly ad- 
 vancing in population. When I visit the city, after 
 the absence of a season, I discover an obvious change. 
 New buildings have sprung up, and new improvements 
 are going on. Its regular winter population, between 
 forty and fifty thousand inhabitants, is five times the 
 amount which it had, when it came under the Ameri- 
 can government. The external form of the city on 
 the river side is graduated in some measure to the 
 curve of the river. The street that passes along the 
 levee, and conforms to the course of the river, is cal- 
 led Levee street, and is the one in w r hich the great- 
 est and most active business of the city is transacted. 
 The upper part of the city is principally built and in- 
 habited by Americans, and is called the " fauxbourg 
 St. Mary." The greater number of the houses in 
 this fauxbourg are of brick, and built in the American 
 style. In this quarter are the Presbyterian church 
 and the new theatre. The ancient part of the city, 
 as you pass down Levee street towards the Cathedral, 
 has in one of the clear, bright January mornings, that 
 are so common at that season, an imposing and bril- 
 liant aspect. There is something fantastic and unique 
 in the appearance, I am told, far more resembling Eu- 
 
303 
 
 ropean cities, than any other in the United States. 
 The houses are stuccoed externally, and this stucco is 
 white or yellow, and strikes the eye more pleasantly 
 than the dull and sombre red of brick. There can be 
 no question, but the American mode of building is at 
 once more commodious, and more solid and durable, 
 than the French and Spanish ; but I think the lat- 
 ter have the preference in the general effect upon the 
 eye. Young as the city is, the effect of this humid 
 climate, operating upon the mouldering materials, of 
 which the buildings are composed, has already given 
 it the aspect of age, and to the eye, it would seem 
 the most ancient city in the United States. The 
 streets are broad, and the plan of the city is perfectly 
 rectangular and uniform. There are in the limits of 
 the city three malls,' or parade grounds, of no great 
 extent, and not yet sufficiently shaded, though young 
 trees are growing in them. They serve as parade 
 grounds, and in the winter have a beautiful carpet of 
 clover, of a most brilliant green. Royal and Charter 
 streets are the most fashionable and splendid in the 
 city. The parade ground, near the basin, which is 
 a harbour, dug out to receive the lake vessels, is the 
 most beautiful of the parades. 
 
 Its most conspicuous public buildings, are the cathe- 
 dral, the Presbyterian church, the charity hospital, 
 and the New Orleans college. The cathedral, to 
 me who profess to know nothing of architecture, is a 
 most imposing fabric, not so much from its size, as 
 its structure, the massiveness of its walls, and within, 
 its wonderful adaptation in my mind to excite relig- 
 ious feelings. Under its stone pavements are deposit- 
 ed the illustrious dead. In niches and recesses are 
 figures of the saints, in their appropriate dress, and 
 
304 
 
 with those pale and unearthly countenances, that are 
 so fully in keeping with the ideal image which I 
 have formed of them. The walls are so thick, and so 
 constructed, that although in the very centre and bus- 
 tle of the noise and business of the city, you hear 
 only a kind of confused whisper within, and are almost 
 as still as in the centre of a forest. This deep and 
 unalterable repose, in the midst of noise and life, fur- 
 nishes a happy illustration of the state of a religious 
 mind, amidst the distractions of the world. You go 
 but a few paces from the crowds that are pressing 
 along Levee street, and from the rattle of carriages 
 that are stationed near this place, and jou find your- 
 self in a kind of vaulted apartment, and in perfect 
 stillness ; the tapers are burning, and some few are al- 
 ways kneeling within, in silent prayer. Images of 
 death, of the invisible world, of eternity, surround 
 you. The dead sleep under your feet. You are in 
 the midst of life, and yet there reigns here a perpet- 
 ual tranquillity. To me there is something in this 
 stillness, within these massive walls, in this apartment 
 so dimly lighted, and in these finishings of imperisha- 
 ble and shapeless stone, more congenial to religious 
 feeling, than in the brilliant and highly finished, and 
 strongly ligjited interior of Protestant churches. 
 
 The Presbyterian church is of brick, and is a very 
 large and handsome building. The Episcopal church 
 is small, but light and neat in its structure. The jail 
 and the French theatre are very large, and, externally, 
 disagreeable buildings ; though the coup d'ceil of the 
 view in the interior of the French theatre is very bril- 
 liant. The charity hospital, though not a verjt beauti- 
 ful building, has a moral beauty of the highest order. 
 It is probably one of the most efficient and useful char- 
 
305 
 
 ities in the country. New Orleans is of course expos- 
 ed to greater varieties of human misery, vice, disease, 
 and want, than any other American town. Here 
 misery and disease find a home, clean apartments, 
 faithfid nursing, and excellent medical attendance. 
 Under this roof more miserable subjects have been shel- 
 tered, more have been dismissed cured, and more have 
 been carried to their long home, than from any other 
 hospital among us. 
 
 The college has hitherto been of very little utility 
 to literature, though it has swallowed up ample funds. 
 It has been recently organized and constituted anew 
 under a learned president, and it is hoped will redeem 
 the past, and give a new character to the literature of 
 the city. There is a convent of Ursuline nuns, with 
 whose interior regulations I am not acquainted, though 
 I understand that they receive clay scholars, and board- 
 ers, for the various branches of rudimental instruction. 
 The female orphan asylum is a most interesting chari- 
 ty, dating its efficient operations from the charity of 
 the benevolent Poydras. When I visited this place, 
 there were between seventy and eighty female chil- 
 dren under sober and discreet instructresses, all plainly 
 and neatly clad, all engaged either with their sewing 
 or their book, and all rescued from a condition the 
 most completely forlorn and destitute. There is a 
 iberaliry in their religious instruction, about the merits 
 of which people of course will differ. They are 
 dossed in uniforms of domestic cotton, and plain 
 white bonnets, and under their instructresses they 
 worship one part of the time in the cathedral and the 
 other in the Presbyterian church. They have com- 
 menced an institution of the like character, for desti- 
 39 
 
306 
 
 tute boys ; and various other charities are in com- 
 mencement or contemplation. 
 
 The police of the city is at once mild and energetic. 
 And notwithstanding the multifarious character of the 
 inhabitants, collected from every country and climate, 
 notwithstanding the multitudes of boatmen and sail- 
 ors, notwithstanding the mass of people that rushes 
 along the streets is of the most incongruous materials, 
 I have seen fewer broils and quarrels here than in any 
 city where I have resided so long. For all the evils 
 that naturally arise among such a people, the munici- 
 pal court finds a prompt if not a proper remedy. 
 Nothing so effectually operates to prevent larcenies 
 and broils in such a place, as administering prompt 
 j ustice. They have not to complain here of the " law's 
 delay" in all these matters. 
 
 They have been at great expense in erecting steam 
 works to supply the city with water. That of the 
 Mississippi, when filtered, is admirable. The streets 
 are also washed, and the sewers cleansed, by water 
 from the river. When these works are carried into 
 complete operation, no city in the Union will be more 
 amply supplied with better water than this place. The 
 taverns and hotels are numerous, some of them splen- 
 did, and on as respectable footing as the best in the 
 Atlantic states. 
 
 In respect to the manners of the people, those of the 
 French citizens partake of their general national char- 
 acter. They have here their characteristic politeness 
 and urbanity ; and it may be remarked, that ladies 
 of the highest standing will shew courtesies that 
 would not comport with the ideas of dignity enter- 
 tained by the ladies at the North. In their convivial 
 meetings there is apparently a great deal of cheerful 
 
307 
 
 familiarity, tempered, however, with the most scrupu- 
 lous observances, and the most punctilious decorum. 
 They are the same gay, dancing, spectacle-loving 
 race, that they are everywhere else. It is well known 
 that the Catholic religion does not forbid amusements 
 on the Sabbath. They fortify themselves in defending 
 the custom of going to balls and the theatre on the 
 Sabbath, by arguing that religion ought to inspire 
 cheerfulness and that cheerfulness is associated with 
 religion. 
 
 That all the citizens do not think alike upon this 
 subject, will appear from an anecdote which I will 
 take leave to relate. The French play-bill for the 
 play of Sabbath evening was posted, as usual, on Sab- 
 bath morning at the corners of all the streets. To- 
 wards evening of the same Sabbath, I observed that a 
 paper of the same dimensions, and the same type, but 
 in English, was every where posted directly under the 
 French bill. It contained appropriate texts from the 
 scriptures, and was headed with these words ; " Re - 
 member the Sabbath day to keep it holy,' ; and men- 
 tioning that there would be divine service at a place 
 that was named, in the evening. * 
 
 The Americans come hither from all the states. 
 Their object is to accumulate wealth, and spend it 
 somewhere else. But death, — which they are very lit- 
 tle disposed to take into the account, — often brings them 
 up before their scheme is accomplished. They have, 
 as might be expected of an assemblage from different 
 regions, mutual jealousies, and mutual dispositions to 
 figure in each other's eyes ; of course the iNew Or- 
 leans people are gay, gaudy in their dress, houses, fur- 
 niture, and equipage, and rather fine than in the best, 
 taste. 
 
308 
 
 There are sometimes fifty steam-boats lying in the 
 harbour. A clergyman from the North made with me 
 the best enumeration that we could, and we calculated 
 that there were from twelve to fifteen hundred flat 
 boats lying along the river. They would average 
 from forty to sixty tons burden. The number of ves- 
 sels in the harbour from autumn to spring is very 
 great. More cotton is shipped from this port than 
 from any other in America, or perhaps in the world. 
 I could never have formed a conception of the amount 
 in any other way, than by seeing the immense piles of 
 it that fill the streets, as the crop is coming in. It is 
 well known that the amount of sugar raised and ship- 
 ped here is great, and increasing. The produce from 
 the upper country has no limits to the extent of which 
 it is capable ; and the commerce of this important city 
 goes on steadily increasing. 
 
 This city exhibits the greatest variety of costume, 
 and foreigners ; French, Spanish, Portuguese, Irish in 
 shoals, in short, samples of the common people of all 
 the European nations, Creoles, all the intermixtures 
 of Negro and Indian blood, the moody and ruminating 
 Indians, the inhabitants of the Spanish provinces, and 
 a goodly woof to this warp, of boatmen, " half horse 
 and half alligator;" and more languages are spoken 
 here, than in any other town in America. There 
 is a sample, in short, of every thing. In March the 
 town is most filled ; the market shows to the greatest 
 advantage ; the citizens boast of it, and are impress- 
 ed with the opinion that it far surpasses any other. In 
 efTect this is the point of union between the North and 
 the South. The productions of all climes find their 
 way hither, and for fruits and vegetables, it appears to 
 me to be unrivalled. In a pleasant March forenoon, 
 
309 
 
 you see, perhaps, half the city here. The crowd cov- 
 ers half a mile in extent. The negroes, muiattoes, 
 French, Spanish, Germans, are all crying their several 
 articles in their several tongues. They have a won- 
 derful faculty of twanging the sound through their 
 noses, as shrill as the notes of a trumpet. In the midst 
 of this Babel trumpeting, u un picalion, un picalion," 
 is the most distinguishable tune. 
 
 Much has been said about the profligacy of man- 
 ners, and morals here ; and this place has more than 
 once been called the modern Sodom. Amidst such a 
 multitude, composed in a great measure of the low 
 people of all nations, there must of course be much 
 debauchery, and low vice. Where it appears in this 
 form, it is so disgusting, and the tippling houses, and 
 other resorts of vice, have such an aspect of beastli- 
 ness and degradation, as to render them utterly unbeara- 
 ble. Perhaps the tenants of these houses, without 
 intending it, do a good office to the inhabitants in 
 general, acting as the Helotes, to the Spartan children, 
 rendering these exhibitions of vice, and degradation 
 more odious and disgusting. Society here is very 
 much assorted. Each man has an elective attraction 
 to men of his own standing and order. It is a ques- 
 tionable point, and has excited discussion here, wheth- 
 er it is/iot disgraceful to the city, to license gambling, 
 and other houses of ill fame. Much is said in de- 
 fence of this'practice, that since vice will exist, they 
 had better have a few houses filled, than all spoiled ; 
 they had better bring vice as much together as pos- 
 sible, and compel it to act under the trammels of law 
 and order, and that by devoting the great funds, that 
 arise from this license, to the charity hospital, and oth- 
 er benevolent purposes, they compel, in the phrase of 
 
310 
 
 the country, "the devil " to pay tribute to virtue. I 
 have never, of course, seen the interior of the " tem- 
 ple of fortune." But I have often heard it described. 
 Every thing that can tempt avarice or the pas- 
 sions is here. Here is the "roulette," the wheel 
 of fortune, every facility for gambling, and in all 
 quarters piles of dollars, and doubloons, as nest cg£s, 
 to make new gulls Jay to them. Here is every thing 
 to tempt the eye, and inflame the blood. Here the 
 raw cullies from the upper country come, lose all, 
 and either hang themselves, or get drunk, and perish 
 in the slreets. A spacious block of buildings was 
 shown me, which was said to have been built by a 
 gambler from the avails of his success. One night 
 he lost every thing, and the next morning suspended 
 himself from the roof of an upper apartment. 
 
 Much has been said about certain connexions that 
 are winked at with the yellow women of this city. I 
 know not whether this be truth or idle gossiping. 
 The yellow women are often remarkable for the per- 
 fect symmetry of their forms, and for their fine ex- 
 pression of eye. They are universally admitted to 
 have a fidelity and cleverness as nurses for the sick, 
 beyond all other women. When a stranger is brought 
 up by the prevailing fever, the first object is to con- 
 sign him to the care of one of these tender and faithful 
 nurses, and then he has all the chance for life, that the 
 disorder admits. 
 
 On the whole. I judge from an observation at differ- 
 ent times, of thirty weeks, that this city, as it respects 
 people who have any self-estimation, is about on a foot- 
 ing with the other cities of the Union in point of morals. 
 There are many excellent people here, many people 
 who mourn over the prevailing degeneracy. Among 
 
311 
 
 the Protestants, when I was there, there were many 
 unions for religious purposes, female religious societies, 
 efforts making to erect a mariners 5 church, a Bethel 
 flag flying, and apparently much excitement of reli- 
 gious feeling. And nothing can be more desirable, 
 than that this place, which is the common centre of 
 the West, and has such an immense bearing upon the 
 fashions, opinions, and morals of the inhabitants of the 
 Mississippi valley, should have salt thrown into its 
 fountains. Multitudes of reflections on this subject 
 crowd upon me, which the brevity of my plan excludes 
 from this work. 
 
 With regard to the unhealthiness of this city, it is 
 undoubtedly estimated according to the fact. The 
 hearse is seen passing the streets at all hours. During 
 the prevalence of the epidemic, the destroying angel 
 carries in his hand a besom. Multitudes of the poor 
 Catholic Irish, with their ruddy faces, without proper 
 nursing, in crowded apartments, poor strangers of all 
 nations, and the northern young men in preference to 
 all the rest, are swept away with unpitying fury. 
 During the sickly season of the year in which I arriv- 
 ed there, there had been numbered more than two 
 thousand deaths, besides multitudes of cases where 
 the patient died unnoticed and unrecorded. I have 
 heard details of misery and suffering, thrilling tales of 
 whole families of poor, unable to help themselves, or 
 procure help, falling together, which have chilled the 
 blood in the relation. The chance for an unacclimat- 
 ed young man from the North surviving the first sum- 
 mer, is by some considered only as one to two. Yet 
 no provisions that humanity can devise, or benevolence 
 carry into effect to alleviate these evils, are left unat- 
 tempted. But in such sweeping calamities, there must 
 
 V 
 
necessarily be much misery which no human exertions 
 can alleviate. 
 
 When the river is full, the common level of the city 
 is but a few feet above that of the river. Of course, 
 the graves that are dug four feet deep will have one 
 or two feet of water. One of the circumstances 
 dreadful to the imagination of a sick stranger, is the 
 probability of being buried in the water. To prevent 
 this, all that decease, whose estates are sufficient, have 
 their remains deposited in tombs or vaults above the 
 ground. The old Catholic cemetery is completly cov- 
 ered either with graves or monuments. The monu- 
 ments are uniformly either of white marble, or plais- 
 ter, or painted white, and by the brilliant moonlight 
 evenings of this mild climate, this city of the dead, or 
 as the more appropriate phrase of the Jews is, of the 
 living, makes an impressive appearance. Here, in 
 these evenings, I have delighted to wander. Here, 
 where the hearse deposites its contents at every hour 
 of the day ? and sometimes of the night, I have consid- 
 ered how transient, how uncertain is the dream of life ; 
 how vain is that of wealth, which brings so many ad- 
 venturers from foreign climes to die here. Among the 
 multitudes of the monuments here, a curious, collec- 
 tion of inscriptions might be made. The remembrance 
 of two only have so far remained on my memory, as 
 that I can recal the substance of them. The eastern 
 external w all of the cemetery is composed of contig- 
 uous monuments in two tiers. On one of the upper 
 tier, with a handsome slab, and with gilded letters, it 
 is recorded u II moruit victime d'honneur ; " meaning 
 that the person died in a duel ; a circumstance, which, 
 at the North, would have been reserved only for the 
 private instruction of friends. Here it is apparently 
 
313 
 
 recorded as matter of eulogy. The inscription on an- 
 other plain but respectable monument was to me af- 
 fecting. It purports to be erected as a grateful record 
 of the long, faithful, and affectionate services of a 
 black slave. The whole inscription wears a delight- 
 ful simplicity, and honours the master that erected it, 
 as much as the slave. In the Protestant burial- 
 grounds I was affected to read great numbers of names 
 of men who died in the prime of life, from Boston, 
 Salem, and vicinity. Multitudes of the adventurous 
 and promising young men from New England have 
 here found rest, and it is generally recorded that they 
 died " du fievre jaune," of the yellow fever, or the 
 prevailing epidemic. 
 
 The communications from this city with the interi- 
 or, are easy, pleasant, and rapid, by the steam-boats. 
 More than a hundred are now on these waters. Some 
 of them, for size, accommodation, and splendor, ex- 
 ceed any that I have seen on the Atlantic waters. 
 The Washington, Feliciana, Providence, Natchez, and 
 various others, are beautiful and commodious boats. 
 The fare is sumptuous, and passages are comparative- 
 ly cheap. I have also uniformly found the passengers 
 obliging and friendly. Manners are not so distant or 
 stately as at the North ; and it is much easier to be- 
 come acquainted with your fellow passengers. A trip 
 up the Mississippi at the proper season of the year is 
 delightful. 
 
 On the whole this is an interesting town. Its im- 
 portance as a commercial capital is very great. You 
 can no where have more or better opportunities of 
 becoming acquainted with human nature. And a 
 stranger can find means to render a stay of a few 
 40 
 
314 
 
 weeks, during the healthy season, as pleasant and as 
 instructive as in any other town in the United States. 
 
 The same line of contiguous plantations on each 
 side of the river, as we have described above, is con- 
 tinued for some distance below the city. The coun- 
 try then becomes too low and inundated to admit of 
 plantations. At the north part of the city is the ba- 
 sin, a harbour which has been dug to admit vessels 
 from the lake. There is a canal perfectly straight, 
 which leads from this basin to the Bayou St. John, 
 a sluggish stream flowing from the swamps above 
 into lake Pontchartrain. The canal is two miles in 
 length, and the distance from the mouth of the canal 
 to the lake is four miles more. There are some very 
 pleasant plantations, gardens, and orange groves, on 
 the Bayou St. John, and where it enters the lake, 
 there are thirty or forty houses, occupied by fishermen, 
 who draw great seines in the lake, and supply the city 
 with fish. Near the mouth of the Bayou, is a huge 
 old Spanish fort of brick, with cannon of vast calibre. 
 The fort is so ruinous, that a discharge of one of the 
 guns would probably shatter the walls. The making 
 of the canal, and the clearing out of the Bayou, and 
 deepening the channel over the bar, at what is called 
 u the pickets," was a work of great expense. The toll is 
 heavy, and is complained of by the owners of the 
 lake vessels as a great grievance. By this channel, the 
 city communicates with the country on the lakes, with 
 the lower parts of the state of Mississippi, with west 
 Florida, and with Mobile. There are, I believe, near- 
 ly thrje huridrecl schooners engaged in this trade, and . 
 the commerce of New Orleans, by this channel alone> 
 would be sufficient to form a considerable city. 
 
315 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 You are acquainted with the circumstances that in- 
 duced me not to return to New England, as I had 
 proposed. I became acquainted with some of the 
 • respectable citizens of New Orleans, whose represen- 
 tations concurred with these circumstances, and in- 
 duced me, on the approaching summer, after my arri- 
 val there, to go over lake Pontchartrain, to take 
 charge of a seminary there, and to supply, as a min- 
 ister, the two villages of Madisonville and Covington. 
 It was a dark and stormy March evening, when my 
 family embarked on the lake. The lake is justly 
 dreaded, as subject to frequent storms, having but few 
 harbours, and those difficult to make. The waves are 
 short, and the swell of that angry and dangerous char- 
 acter, called a u ground swell," owing to the shallow- 
 ness of the water. The lake is thirty miles wide, and 
 no where more than twenty feet in depth. It has a 
 great abundance and variety of fish. The approach 
 to it by the Bayou St. John, is through a creeping 
 marshy stream, as sluggish as the " Cocytus " and the 
 dead swamp around it, and the blasted trees, covered 
 with long moss, have a most disheartening aspect of 
 desolation. The borders of the lake are so nearly on 
 a level with its surface, that when the lake is rough, 
 the surf breaks far into the swamp. When the lake is 
 calm, its surface has an appearance altogether different 
 from any water I ever saw. A covering, as of a coat- 
 ing of paint of various hues, overspreads the surface. 
 This covering is opening, shifting, and changing its col- 
 
316 
 
 ours under your eye, displaying the most singular sport 
 of this kind that can be imagiued. When the water is 
 drawn up, this coating disappears, or is only discern- 
 ible in a slight precipitation, that seems subsiding to 
 the bottom. I judge it to be vegetable matter, brought 
 in by the Bayou, by which the lake communicates 
 with the Mississippi, and like that singular appearance 
 on the northern lakes, called " fever and ague blos- 
 soms." From the centre of the lake, the land is so 
 low on all its shores, that the air must be very trans- 
 parent to enable you to discern land. As you ap- 
 proach the Florida side, the aspect is, if possible, more 
 sombre and funereal, than on the New Orleans shore. 
 You are now out of the region of the Mississippi al- 
 luvion. You are approaching the region of sterility, 
 sand, and pine forests. The beach is just above the 
 surface of the lake, and is a belt of sand, of almost 
 snowy whiteness. If you have come down the Mis- 
 sissippi, you may have come two thousand miles with- 
 out seeing a pine tree. Here, every thing is pine. 
 The green border is rendered more dark, in contrast 
 with the whiteness of the beach, and the festoons of 
 crape, in the form of long moss, that hang down like 
 mourning weeds from the trees. 
 
 You enter over a bar with only five feet water, a 
 broad placid stream called ChifFuncta, and you sail up 
 this stream, still bounded by a dead swamp, two miles 
 to Madisonville, a small village, to which the citi- 
 zens repair for health, in the summer months, from 
 New Orleans. There is one large hotel, and a num- 
 ber of neat and comfortable houses for entertainment, 
 which in the sickly months are generally full. Some 
 cotton is shipped from this village, and a number of 
 packet schooners ply between it and New Orleans. 
 
317 
 
 The sailors employed in this desultory and slavish trade 
 are generally of that class, that have been sifted out of 
 all better employment, and are the most abandoned 
 and blasphemous of the profession. The rivers that 
 run through these level and swampy pine forests, are 
 called, in the Indian language, "Bogue," with some 
 attribute denoting the character of the stream; for in- 
 stance, " Bogue Chitto," " Bogue Falaya," denoting 
 the river of laurels, or chincopins. The people are a 
 peculiar race of " petits paysans/' small planters, en- 
 gaged in the lumber trade, in making tar and char- 
 coal, or shepherds engaged in raising cattle. The 
 wealth of a young lady about to be married is mea- 
 sured by the number of her cows, as in the planting 
 part of the state, it is by her negroes. Some have 
 two thousand cattle; and the swamps afford ample 
 winter range, while the pine woods furnish grass in 
 the summer. 
 
 There are a number of Bogues that are navigable 
 by schooners for some distance into the country. The 
 most considerable village is Covington, the seat of jus- 
 tice for the county of St. Tammany. You ascend the 
 Bogue Falaya, twenty miles by water, and six by 
 land, from Madisonville to this village. It contains 
 about a hundred houses, employs a considerable num- 
 ber of schooners, and as it is the head of navigation 
 on the river, ships very considerable quantities of cot- 
 ton, from Pearl River, Florida, and the lower part of 
 the state of Mississippi. Goods in return from New 
 Orleans are deposited here, to be conveyed to their 
 destination in the country by waggons. There is a 
 navy -yard between Madisonville and this place, where 
 it was proposed to build gun-boats. Much money 
 was expended here, and the place is now abandoned. 
 
318 
 
 There is nothing worthy of notice in the village of 
 Covington, except that, contrary to the common prac- 
 tice, they have a burial-ground substantially and hand- 
 somely enclosed ; and that, equally out of the fashion 
 of the country, the people were united and punctual 
 in their attention to religious worship. 
 
 All that part of Florida that I have seen, has one 
 aspect, and from information I judge that to be a fair 
 sample of all the rest. It is divided into savannas, or 
 low grass prairies, pine woods, or inundated swamps 
 on the margins of the rivers. The soil is no where 
 beyond second rate, and, even in the richest alluvions, 
 pine trees make their appearance among the laurels, 
 beeches, and oaks, that compose the mass of the tim- 
 ber on the lands capable of cultivation. The swamps, 
 as every where in this country, are occupied by the 
 cypress, and loblolly pine, and for animal life, by alli- 
 gators, moccasin snakes, and musquitoes. Nine tenths 
 of the country are covered with the long-leaved pitch 
 pine, which rises before you, as you ride along, in 
 countless millions, as straight and as uniform as a file 
 of soldiers. The country is so level, and every where 
 so exactly uniform, that I have never been in a region 
 where it was so easy to get lost, and so difficult to find 
 your way again. u Haud inexpertus loquor." This 
 I have found to my cost. Thirty miles from the sea, 
 which is every where bounded by white sand beaches, 
 the pine Jands become rolling and dry. 
 
 Such is the general face of the country in West 
 Florida. It possesses in its swamps a considerable 
 quantity of live oak, and masts and spars enough for 
 all the navies in the world. It is capable of furnish- 
 ing inexhaustible supplies of pitch, tar, &c. The high 
 grass, which grows every where among the pine trees, 
 
319 
 
 opens an immense range for cattle. There are some 
 tolerable tracts of land along the rivers ; but generally 
 the land is low, swampy, and extremely poor. The 
 people, too, are poor and indolent, devoted to raising 
 cattle, hunting, and drinking whiskey. They are a 
 wild race, with but little order or morals among them ; 
 they are generally denominated " Bogues," and call 
 themselves " rosin heels/ 5 The chief town is Pensa- 
 cola, which grew rapidly, and received an increase of 
 many inhabitants and handsome houses, until the fatal 
 summer of 1822, when it suffered so severely from 
 yellow fever, since which it has declined. It has a 
 fine harbour, and the government has made it a na- 
 val depot, which will probably raise it once more. 
 
 We passed a tranquil and pleasant summer at Co- 
 vington, in the discharge of duties so uniform in char- 
 acter as to furnish nothing of interest for relation. In 
 the autumn we crossed the lake, and returned to 
 New Orleans. Ministers of different denominations 
 established a series of weekly lectures, in which I took 
 an active part, and they were numerously attended. 
 It became with me a matter of painful solicitude, 
 whether it was the way of duty and expediency to 
 settle at New Orleans. You are aware of the views 
 which I always entertained of city life. This, too, 
 was a place of such a character as to require removal 
 from it every summer, at least for all that were not 
 either reckless of life, or unable to move. I had many 
 friends who advised me to stay, and who judged that 
 our acclimation was sufficient to give us confidence to 
 reside in the city through the summer. During this 
 state of suspense, I was requested to take charge of 
 the seminary over which I now preside, which had 
 become vacant by the death of the Rev. Mr. Hull. 
 
320 
 
 We finally concluded to accept the appointment, and 
 to move to Alexandria on Red River. We took an 
 affectionate leave of our friends, and went on board 
 the steam-boat Spartan, which we chartered for the 
 purpose of conveying our family to their destination. 
 We lay in the same place where the year before I had 
 seen depart the steam-boat Tennessee, and the cir- 
 cumstance brings to my recollection the disastrous fate 
 of that boat. It was a beautiful morning when she 
 started. Her deck was absolutely crowded with pas- 
 sengers, not less, I was told, than three hundred being 
 on board. They cheered the multitude, waved their 
 hats, fired their swivel repeatedly, and went off with 
 unusual demonstrations of gaiety. Above Natchez, in 
 a dark and sleety night, and in one of the furious cy- 
 press bends of the river, the boat struck a snag. She 
 began to fill, and every thing was consternation and 
 despair. One wretch seized a skiff and paddled round 
 the boat calling on a passenger to throw his saddle- 
 bags into the skiff, informing with great agony, that 
 all his money was in them. He might have saved a 
 dozen persons, but he kept so far aloof that no one 
 could get on board. We sometimes see, in the very 
 same crisis, that one man will exhibit the dignity and 
 benevolence of an angelic nature, and another will dis- 
 play the workings of a nature almost infernal. The 
 engineer, who was greatly beloved, was invited to 
 save himself in the yawl. His reply was noble ; — 
 44 Who will work the engine, if I quit ? I must do my 
 duty." They tried in vain to run her on a bar. She 
 sunk, and this intrepid man, worthy of a statue, was 
 drowned in the steam-room. The passengers, men, 
 women, and children, separated, and in the darkness 
 were plunged in this whirling and terrible stream. 
 
321 
 
 The shrieks, the wailings, soon died away. I believe 
 it was not ascertained how many perished, but it was 
 known to exceed thirty persons. The rest made the 
 shore as they could. 
 
 We had a very pleasant, company on board our boat, 
 and made a quick and delightful trip to the mouth of 
 Red River. It is five or six miles above the outlet of 
 the Bayou Chaffatio, by which Red River in all prob- 
 ability formerly found its own separate channel to the 
 Gulf. Approaching nearer and nearer to the " father 
 of waters/' she finally merged her bloody current in 
 his broad channel. The river meets the Mississippi at 
 right angles, and for the first reach is wide, and 
 straight, and deep, like a canal. It is on all sides at 
 the point of junction an inundated swamp. You move 
 up the same broad and placid stream, through a dreary 
 and monotonous forest. Thirty or forty miles above 
 the mouth, you see a very narrow channel strike ofT to 
 the left. Here the river forks into Black River, 
 which has previously received the Washita. They 
 here unite their waters, and flow in one broad chan- 
 nel to the Mississippi. Above this junction, Red Riv- 
 er, though the largest in Louisiana, next to its parent 
 stream, seems no more than a serpentine and very deep 
 canal. It winds to every point of the compass. Its 
 waters, when full, are of a deep red tinge ; and when 
 low, its bars show shoals of alligators, great and small, 
 basking in the sun, or crossing the stream, as though 
 logs had found the power of locomotion. Not very 
 far above the forks, the river passes over rapids in low \ 
 water, which are not perceived when the river is high. 
 They are " rapions," and the passage in low stages of 
 the water is rather dangerous. 
 41 
 
322 
 
 In passing up you now and then see a solitary 
 wood -cutter's cabin in this lonely swamp. But there 
 are no settlements worthy of the name, until you reach 
 the u Avoyelles," where an extensive prairie comes up 
 to the river, with a high bank above the inundation. 
 This constitutes a parish, of a moderately rich soil, in 
 which some cotton is made. But the great employ- 
 ment of the people on these pleasant and grassy plains, 
 is the raising of cattle. The inhabitants are princi- 
 pally French, and say that before the Americans had 
 learned them how to manage 66 un procts," a lawsuit, 
 and to love whiskey, they were a race of grown up 
 infants, free from actual transgressions, and the very 
 Arcadian race, about which so much has been said and 
 sung. 
 
 Above the Avoyelles the banks of the river begin to 
 rise above the inundation, and at considerable inter- 
 vals you see a cotton plantation, and this is the usual 
 aspect of the banks, until you reach Alexandria. 
 This is a pleasant and neat village, on the western 
 bank of lied River, about one hundred and fifty miles 
 by the windings of the river from its mouth, and not 
 more than a third of that distance in a right line. 
 The road to the Mississippi is passable only in the 
 autumn. In the spring it is an inundated swamp. 
 Alexandria is handsomely situated, on a plain perfect- 
 ly smooth, and carpeted with the richest verdure. 
 The white houses show themselves with their piazzas 
 from under the shade of the beautiful China trees, 
 and Catalpas. The forest, beyond the village, and 
 beyond the cultivation, deep and magnificent, com- 
 posed of trees of vast size, and covered with the usual 
 drapery of long moss, and the ground under them, is 
 bright with the verdure of the palmetto. But the 
 
323 
 
 land, as is common on all these waters, soon descends 
 to the cypress swamp, the everlasting abode of alliga- 
 tors, snakes, and noxious animals. The swamp is here 
 from fifteen to twenty miles in depth. On the oppo- 
 site shore, pine bluffs come into the river. Just above 
 this village there is a rapid, composed of soft rock, 
 apparently in a state of formation from clay. The 
 pitch, at low water, may be ten feet, and over this pitch 
 pours the volume of waters, collected from mountains 
 two thousand miles above. It is a romantic view, and 
 the incessant roar in the village resembles in the ear 
 the distant roar of a sea beach, and lulls you pleasant- 
 ly to sleep. 
 
 This rapid is a great impediment to the navigation 
 of the river. Steam boats cannot surmount it-more 
 than two thirds of the year. Other boats ascend it 
 with difficulty, in low stages. The state legislature 
 has appropriated a very considerable sum, for the re- 
 moval of this obstruction, but the work has not yet 
 commenced. 
 
 The village of Alexandria is an important depot of 
 cotton, issues a weekly paper, has a number of res- 
 pectable lawyers and physicians, and many very 
 respectable citizens. It is a place of recent growth, 
 and yet three Presbyterian ministers have already laid 
 their ashes here. There are two banks and a hand- 
 some court house here, and it is the seat of justice of 
 the parish of Rapide, perhaps as rich a cotton raising 
 parish, as there is in the state. The college, as it is 
 termed, over which I preside, is a huge and tolerably 
 commodious, but rather ugly building, upon which 
 great sums of money have been expended, and to 
 which eight hundred dollars, besides the proceeds of 
 tuition, are annually appropriated. Literature is at a 
 
324 
 
 very low ebb. I have made assiduous efforts to ex- 
 cite a feeling of regard to it. But the people forti- 
 fy themselves against it, in the persuasion that an edu- 
 cation can be acquired only at the North. 
 
 The legislature has made as munificent appropria- 
 tions for the advancement of literature, according to 
 her population, as any other state in the Union. Eight 
 hundred dollars are annually appropriated to every 
 parish in the state for the support of schools. Put 
 the act is so darkly worded, and the modes of appro- 
 priation so indistinctly defined, that this noble provis- 
 ion has been hitherto not only inefficient, but has ex- 
 cited altercation and dispute. To which schools in 
 the parish it shall be appropriated, and in what pro- 
 portions, are knotty points to settle. In some it 
 lies in the treasury : in others, it is said, it has been 
 reserved to make up a purse for a horse-race. 
 
 Ail the appropriations of this state are respectable, 
 and indicate the views of a high-minded people. The 
 salaries are more ample, than even those of New 
 York. Nothing has been spared in attempting to 
 make something of the New Orleans college. They 
 are making great efforts to establish a college at Jack- 
 son. But as yet the people seem to feel as though 
 there were only three matters very important, to wit, 
 cotton, eugar, and dollars. 
 
 Just below the rapids, which I have mentioned, 
 comes in the Bayou Rapide, on the banks of which 
 are continued ranges of cotton plantations for twenty- 
 five miles 5 and on this Bayou, and that of Bayou Bceuf, 
 are as productive cotton farms, as any in the state. 
 The soil is of a red tinge, not unlike Spanish brown, 
 and of an exhaustless fertility. The weeds grow up 
 to die size of considerable shrubs. The land is level, 
 
325 
 
 and has a pleasant aspect of softness and fertility, that 
 renders the view of a cotton plantation, of itself a 
 beautiful object, when in full flower, a landscape 
 rich almost to gaudiness. 
 
 The cotton is an annual plant, with leaves not un~ 
 like those of the hollyhock. It branches considerably, 
 grows on the rich lands, as high as a man's head, and 
 bears a beautiful yellowish-white flower. The rows 
 are made perfectly straight, and six feet apart, and 
 kept entirely clean of weeds. In September the balls 
 begin to open, picking commences, and is continued, 
 until the stocks are ready to be pulled up, burned off, 
 and the plowing to commence anew. 
 
 Sugar-cane, the next important article of culture in 
 this state, is extending in cultivation every year. 
 There have long been noble plantations along the coast. 
 They are now extended to the Teche, a very impor- 
 tant Bayou, which breaks out of the Mississippi, and 
 runs through the fine and fertile parish of Attakapas. 
 They are also making sugar plantations along the 
 gulf, and in some of the islands near the shore. Suffi- 
 cient sugar might be made here for the consumption 
 of the United States. The plantations have been pro- 
 ductive for a number of years in succession. The on- 
 ly impediment to extending this species of cultivation is 
 the great capital that it requires to commence the 
 business profitably. A sugar establishment is neces- 
 sarily a very expensive one. The sugar houses on the 
 coast resemble our large cotton factory buildings at 
 the North. The process of manufacturing the sugar, 
 though expensive, is simple. The cane is planted the 
 latter part of the autumn in slips, and when in full 
 growth is not unlike a field of maize in appearance. 
 The stalk is about the size of that of southern corn, 
 
326 
 
 and the juice, though deemed a luxury here, has to 
 me rather an u pleasant sweetness. 
 
 Rice and indigo were formerly cultivated here to a 
 greater extent than at present. The rice of this coun- 
 try has a whiteness and fairness, that render it more 
 valuable than that of Georgia, and the indigo, that 
 was formerly made on Red River, is said to have been 
 not much inferior to Spanish float. Corn, sweet po- 
 tatoes, melons, and all northern fruits, with the excep- 
 tion of apples, flourish here ; though the planters find 
 the great staples, cotton and sugar, so much more profi- 
 table than any other kinds of cultivation, that many 
 of them calculate to supply themselves with provisions^ 
 almost entirely from the upper country. Figs are 
 raised here in great abundance and perfection. The 
 figtree grows luxuriantly, and is raised with ease. 
 Oranges, when I descended the Mississippi for the 
 first time, were lying under the trees as abundantly 
 as the apples fall in the North country. The bitter 
 orange, of which the French are fond, was far more 
 abundant than the sweet ; but that was abundant, and a 
 sufficient quantity raised, and of a very fine quality, for 
 the supply of all the Western states. The winter of 
 1823, the coldest that had been known in this coun- 
 try for twenty years, killed the trees generally, with a 
 few exceptions. New suckers have sprouted up, and 
 in a few years, the orange groves will have found re- 
 juvenescence, and wiil probably furnish an ample sup- 
 ply again. Nothing can have a grander, and more 
 rich appearance, than these delicious orange groves, 
 either when their blossoms yield their ambrosial per- 
 fume, or when their golden fruit, shows itself from 
 the beautiful evergreen foliage. The noble and spread- 
 ing live oaks, too, make a delightful appearance 
 
327 
 
 ab°u* the magnificent houses on the coast. No orna- 
 mental tree equals in beauty the China tree, except, 
 perhaps the catalpa. Both are conspicuous for their 
 splendid tufts of flowers. The magnolia grandiflora 
 is a fine tree, but has been vaunted, and especially its 
 flowers, too much. Its flowers are large, the fragrance 
 rather sickening, and a tree seldom puts forth many at 
 a time, but brings them along in succession for a long 
 time. The flowers of some of the other species, of 
 laurels, are more delicate and have a finer fragrance. 
 The wild honey-suckle, or meadow T -pink, is a most 
 delightful flowering shrub, fringing the banks in spring 
 with brilliant peach-blow blossoms, whose appearance 
 and fragrance are altogether delightful. The cultivat- 
 ed cape jessamine hag an unrivalled fragrance. The 
 yellow wild jessamine is a beautiful flower, and in 
 March, when nature is in blossom, the wild wood here 
 displays such a variety of flowers of every scent and 
 hue, that the gale is charged with fragrance, as if 
 from " Araby the blest." Millions of splendid flow- 
 ers waste their sweetness on the desert air. 
 
 Were I to go into any statistical details, my plan 
 would be frustrated, by extending these remarks be- 
 yond their intended brevity. The soil, that is cultivat- 
 ed in these regions, is exuberantly rich. In no other 
 place does the planter accumulate so fast from mere 
 agriculture. Louisiana undoubtedly exports more 
 value according to the extent of land cultivated, than 
 any other country. The cotton plantations yield from 
 ten to fifty thousand dollars a year, and many sugar 
 planters, probably, derive twice that sum from their 
 annual crop. It is a question, which is the better kind 
 of cultivation, cotton or sugar. Each has its parti- 
 sans. " Lis est sub judice." 
 
328 
 
 Of wild fruits, there are the pawpaw, the persimon* 
 the Chickasaw plum, and the pine woods grape, 
 This grape ripens in June, is cone-shaped, transpa- 
 rent, and delicious. It would probably be an admira- 
 ble grape to cultivate. There are also varieties of 
 autumnal grapes, and wonderful accounts are given of 
 the immense quantities of grapes that ripen on the 
 sand plains at the sources of Red River. The hun- 
 ters assert, that they are richer than any cultivated 
 grape. 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 Very mistaken ideas seem to have been entertained 
 respecting this state, as though it were in a great 
 measure composed of alluvion and swamp. It is true 
 it has more alluvion and swamp, in proportion, than 
 any other state, and of the alluvion, an uncommon 
 proportion is swamp. I should suppose that two 
 thirds of the state was covered with pine woods, of 
 the same character as those in Florida. These 
 woods have their millions of pine trees, and the soil 
 is covered with grass. They are finely undulated 
 with hill and dale, and in the valleys burst out innu- 
 merable springs. The streams that water them have 
 clear, transparent water, that runs over a white sand, 
 and are alive with trout and other fish. The soil is 
 comparatively poor. The bottoms are only second 
 rate land. They will bring three or four crops of 
 corn without manure, and are admirable for the sweet 
 potatoe. The people who live in the pine woods geii- 
 
329 
 
 erally support themselves by raising cattle, which they 
 number by hundreds. The planters in Atiakapas and 
 Opelousas have, in some instances, four or five thou- 
 sand cattle. Nothing can be easier than subsistence 
 in the pine woods. There being little call for labour, 
 the inhabitants labour little, and are content with in- 
 dolence, health, and poverty. For it may be observ- 
 ed, that, in general, the pine woods are healthy. All 
 families that can afford ic move from the alluvions on 
 the rivers and Bayous, where their plantations lie, in- 
 to the pine woods, during the summer. Here they 
 breathe a pure air, impregnated by the terebinthine 
 odour of the evergreens. A slight breeze always 
 sighs in the elevated tops of the pines, and the fleck- 
 ered mixture of light and shade creates a pleasant 
 appearance and a delightful freshness of air. Through- 
 out this country, the region of plantations is the re- 
 gion of wealth and sickness, and of the pine woods, 
 of health and poverty. The inhabitants of New Orleans 
 retire in the summer, either to the North or into the 
 pine woods. The pine woods, in the ear of a Loui- 
 sianian, is a synonyme with health. 
 
 Next in order to. the pine woods, are the prairies, 
 of which there is a vast extent, scattered over all the 
 region west of the Mississippi. The parishes of At- 
 takapas and Opelousas are principally prairie regions. 
 The former has many sugar and cotton plantations, 
 but is principally devoted to raising cattle. The prai- 
 ries differ little in appearance and character from those 
 in the upper country. 
 
 One circumstance in the history of the alluvions 
 strikes you as a wonderful singularity. All the rivers 
 and Bayous of this country, when full, run upon ele- 
 vated plains higher than the subjacent country. This 
 * 42 
 
330 
 
 circumstance probably results from the deposition of 
 the alluvial matter, carried along by the waters. The 
 sand, the coarser and heavier particles, subside first, and 
 near the banks. The finer particles remain suspended 
 longer and are deposited farther from the shores of the 
 rivers. We find in fact, that the soil on the banks is 
 loamy and more coarse, and as you recede farther, the 
 clay becomes finer and stiffer. It results from this cir- 
 cumstance, that almost all the cultivation of the coun- 
 try is in narrow and contiguous strips along the mar- 
 gin of the streams. The extent of cultivable land 
 varies from one to three miles in depth from the banks 
 of the river or Bayou. Beyond this are the cypress 
 swamps. You ascend a river or Bayou, and you pass 
 by all the plantations that belong to that region. 
 
 I have not inquired, as I ought, the derivation of 
 the term " Bayou" but it is understood here to mean 
 an alluvial stream with but little current, and some- 
 times running from the main river, and connected with 
 it again, as a lateral canal. It seems generally to im- 
 port a sluggish alluvial stream. In these vast alluvi- 
 ons, there are innumerable Bayous. Some, as I have 
 remarked, burst from the Mississippi. One leads 
 from that river to lake Maurepas, and through that 
 to lake Pontehar train. The Chaffatio, the Plaque- 
 mine, and the Teche, are the principal Bayous, that 
 burst out from the west side of the river. 
 
 Red River is, after the Mississippi, the most consid- 
 erable stream of Louisiana. Its sources have not 
 been fully explored. But it is traced for a length of 
 twenty-five hundred miles. It rises probably in the 
 same range of mountains with the Arkansas, and is 
 much of the same length and size, though not so wide. 
 But it makes up for this in greater depth. In its col- 
 
331 
 
 our, in the character of its alluvion, in the saltness 
 of its brackish and unpotable waters, it is the twin 
 brother of the Arkansas. It runs through the same 
 kind of country and has, like that river, its numberless 
 lakes and lateral Bayous, Unlike that stream, it of- 
 ten divides itself into numerous branches, which re- 
 unite. This takes place between Alexandria and 
 Natchitoches. Like the former river, it first runs 
 through an immense extent of sand prairies, and then 
 through a low and timbered region. 
 
 It has one striking peculiarity about a hundred miles 
 above Natchitoches — the great raft. Here the river 
 runs through a vast swamp. The river divides into in- 
 numerable channels. These channels are closed up, 
 by logs, carried along by the current and jammed to- 
 gether. This takes place for a length of eighty miles. 
 This is a great impediment to navigation. Steam- 
 boats may ascend at certain seasons, when the wa- 
 ter is high, but with great difficulty. Keel boats make 
 their way through it with severe labour of cutting 
 away logs, and mistaking their channel, and if they 
 succeed in making their way, are occupied four times 
 as long as would be requisite to ascend a clear river. 
 Above the raft, the river becomes a broad, deep, at d 
 placid stream. About eight hundred miles above 
 this raft, the United States have a garrison, two com- 
 panies of soldiers, and convenient barracks. What a 
 magnificent idea of the extent of our country ! Natch- 
 itoches is considered, at the North, as terra incognita. 
 Nine hundred miles above, on the Kiamesia, the Uni- 
 ted States have a garrison. 
 
 On an island in the midst of this swamp, a boatman 
 was left by mistake, and subsisted nine days on noth- 
 ing but one squirrel, and the bark of trees. Ho 
 
332 
 
 relates, that he cut up a handkerchief for a line, and 
 made a hook of a nail, which he had about him ; with 
 this fishing tackle, he took a fine cat-fish. He carried 
 it a little distance from the bank, and was cleaning it 
 to roast, for he had fire. As he went to the river, an 
 alligator started from the mud, and made for the fish. 
 In his extreme weakness, the alligator arrived first, 
 seized the fish, and swallowed it in a trice. He re- 
 lates, that in despair, he then laid himself down to die, 
 and slept for a great length of time. When he awoke, 
 the love of life returned upon him. He remembered 
 to have seen a canoe, that had a hole in the bottom, 
 which had been thrown by the stream upon the wreck 
 of logs. The little labour requisite to roll it into the 
 stream, caused him to faint repeatedly. But he final- 
 ly achieved the task, stopped the hole with moss and 
 his handkerchief, daubed it with mud, and committed 
 himself to the stream. Providentially, the boat took 
 the right channel. This canoe struck a log, and turn- 
 ed over. But he was enabled to hang to it, until he 
 floated down to a French house. The Frenchman 
 was milking his cows at night. The man was a liv- 
 ing skeleton. He grasped the pail of milk from the 
 Frenchman's hands, and had he not been prevented, 
 would have drunk his death. When he arrived at 
 Natchitoches, the people describe him as a perfect 
 Captain Riley, from the Arabian deserts. It is won- 
 derful how much human nature can endure, before 
 the thread of life is broken. 
 
 Washita is the next river in point of size to Red 
 River. It rises in the mountainous country between 
 the Arkansas and Red River, receives a number of 
 tributaries, runs by the celebrated warm springs in 
 the territory of Arkansas, passes through the parish of 
 
sss 
 
 Washita and Catahoola, in Louisiana, and mingles with 
 Red River, as I have observed, not a great way from 
 the Mississippi. The parish of Washita is fertile in 
 cotton, and has many wealthy planters. The river is 
 broad and deep, and furnishes good steam-boat navi- 
 gation to the Mississippi. Its comparative course may 
 be about nine hundred miles. 
 
 The Sabine is a considerable stream which rises in 
 the high prairies northwest of Louisiana, runs three 
 or four hundred miles, dividing that state from the 
 Spanish country, and two hundred miles below, where 
 the great road from Natchitoches to Mexico crosses it, 
 the river falls into the Gulf of Mexico. I conversed 
 with two very respectable officers of Cantonment. Jes- 
 sup, who had descended the river from the crossing to 
 the Gulf. They describe it as a deep stream, and ca- 
 pable, when the logs and impediments in the way- 
 should be removed, of steam-boat navigation from 
 that point to the Gulf. There are many smaller riv- 
 ers in this state, which the brevity of my plan forbids 
 me to notice. 
 
 This state being almost uniformly level, and extend- 
 ing from 30° to 33°, has a climate which might be nat- 
 urally inferred from its position. The summer is tem- 
 perate, the thermometer seldom indicating so much 
 heat as there often is at the same time at the North. 
 But the heat is uniform and unremitting, and this is 
 what renders the summer oppressive. The days are 
 seldom fanned by the northwestern breeze. The au- 
 tumn becomes cool, almost as early as at the North. 
 It is dry, and the atmosphere of that mild and delight- 
 ful blue, peculiar to a southern sky. This season, so 
 delightful elsewhere, is here continued three months. 
 The leaves are long in acquiring their mingled hues, 
 
334 
 
 of red, yellow, and purple. Frost sometimes occurs in 
 November, but not often before December. Then the 
 leaves yield to the wind, and drop into the pool, and 
 we have that season, that invites to "solemn thought, 
 and heavenly musing." January is chilly, with frosty 
 nights, but never sufficiently severe to freeze tender 
 vegetables in the house. A few flakes of snow some- 
 times fall, though I have seen none during my resi- 
 dence in the country. Even in this month there are 
 delightful days, when we sit with comfort at the open 
 window. The daffodil and multiflora rose are in full 
 blossom through the winter. The turnip patches are 
 yellow 7 with flowers, and the clover has a vigorous 
 growth, and a delightful green. I have eaten green 
 peas in January, and many garden vegetables are 
 brought to the market. In February the rainy season 
 commences, and spring begins to return. The night 
 brings thunder clouds and copious rain, often with 
 loud thunder. In March, the spring is in her gayest 
 attire. Planting commences with the first of the 
 month, and continues until July. In the first of the 
 summer, there are thunder showers, attended with 
 vivid lightning, and terrible peals of thunder. 
 
 The latter part of the summer is generally dry. 
 The diseases, except the New Orleans epidemic, differ 
 little from those of the upper country. The bowel 
 complaint is more common and fatal. The bilious 
 disorders commence earlier in the season, and run 
 more rapidly to their crisis. 
 
 The races of people here are as numerous as in 
 any other part of the western country. Of the In- 
 dians I have spoken. The French and the Americans 
 are nearly in equal proportions. In the country they 
 live in great harmony. Unfortunately in New Or- 
 
335 
 
 leans a great deal of party feeling exists between 
 them. This spirit infuses itself into their municipal 
 regulations, and their elections. It has threatened re- 
 cently to disturb the peace of the city. There are, on 
 the coast, many descendants of the Germans, who 
 were removed from what the French called Acadia, or 
 Nova Scotia. There are many poor Catholic Irish in 
 New Orleans. There remain in some places Spanish 
 families. In general all these different races live to- 
 gether in great harmony. 
 
 The opulent planters of this state have many amia- 
 ble traits of character. They are high-minded and 
 hospitable, in an eminent degree. I have sojourned 
 much among them, and have never experienced a 
 more frank, dignified, and easy hospitality. It is ta- 
 ken for granted, that the guest is a gentleman, and 
 that he will not make an improper use of the great 
 latitude, that is allowed him. If he do not pass over 
 the limits, which just observance prescribes, the more 
 liberties he takes, and the more at ease he feels with- 
 in those limits, the more satisfaction he will give to 
 his host. You enter without ceremony, call for what 
 you wish, and intimate your wishes to the servants. 
 In short you are made to feel yourself at home. This 
 simple and noble hospitality seems to be a general 
 trait among these planters, for I have not yet called at 
 a single house, where it has not been exercised to- 
 wards me. Suppose the traveller to be a gentleman, 
 to speak French, and to have letters to one respectable 
 planter, it becomes an introduction to the settlement, 
 and he will have no occasion for a tavern. 
 
 It results in some way from their condition, from 
 their ample income, or perhaps as they would say, 
 from the influence of slavery, that they are liberal in 
 
336 
 
 their feelings, as it respects expenditure, and are more 
 reckless of the value of money, than any people that 
 I have seen. The ladies no doubt have their tea-ta- 
 ble, or rather their coffee-table scandal. But I con- 
 fess, that I have seen less of that prying curiosity to 
 look into the affairs of neighbours, and have heard less 
 scandal here, than in other parts of the United States. 
 
 The luxury of the table is carried to a great ex- 
 tent among them. They are ample in their supply of 
 wines, though Claret is generally drunk. Every fam- 
 ily is provided with Claret, as we at the North are 
 with cider. I have scarcely seen an instance of in- 
 toxication among the respectable planters. In drink- 
 ing, the guests universally raise their glasses, and 
 touch them together instead of a health. In the mor- 
 ning, before you rise, a cup of strong coffee is offered 
 you. After the dessert at dinner, you are offered 
 another. It is but very recently, that the ladies have 
 begun to drink tea. During the warm months be- 
 fore you retire, it is the custom in many places 
 for a black girl to take off your stockings, and per- 
 form the ancient ceremonial of washing the feet. 
 
 They are easy and amiable in their intercourse with 
 one another, and excessively attached to balls and par- 
 ties. They certainly live more in sensation, than in 
 reflection. The past and the future are seasons, with 
 which they seem little concerned. The present is 
 their day, and ft dum vivimus, vivamus," in other 
 w ords, " a short life and a merry one," their motto. 
 Their feelings are easily excited. Tears flow. The 
 excitement passes away, and another train of sensa- 
 tions is started. In the pulpit they expect an ar- 
 dour, an appeal to the feelings, which the calmer and 
 more reflecting manner of the North would hardly 
 tolerate. 
 
337 
 
 An intelligent and instructed planter's family is cer- 
 tainly a delightful family in which to make a short so- 
 journ, and they have many of the lesser virtues exer- 
 cised in a way so peculiar, and appropriate to their 
 modes of existence, as to impress you with all the 
 freshness of novelty. Unhappily, as appertains to all 
 earthly things, there is a dark ground to the picture. 
 The men are " sudden and quick in quarrel." The 
 dirk or the pistol is always at hand. Fatal duels 
 frequently occur. They are profane, and excessively 
 addicted to gambling. This horrible vice, so intimate- 
 ly associated with so many others, prevails like an 
 epidemic. Money gotten easily, and without labour, 
 is easily lost. Betting and horse-racing are amuse- 
 ments eagerly pursued, and often times to the ruin of 
 the parties. A Louisianian will forego any pleasure, 
 to witness and bet at a horse-race. Even the ladies 
 visit these amusements, and bet w T ith the gentlemen. 
 
 It is true that there are opulent French planters, rear- 
 ed in the simplicity of the early periods of Louisiana, 
 who can neither read nor write. 1 have visited more 
 than one such. But it is also true, that the improv- 
 ing spirit of the age, the rapid communication by 
 steam-boats, which brings all the luxuries, comforts, 
 and instructions of society immediately to their doors, 
 is diffusing among the planters a thirst for information, 
 an earnest desire that their children should have all 
 the advantages of the improved modes of present in- 
 struction. They have, in many instances, fine collec- 
 tions of books. A piano is seen in every good house. 
 Their ear, taste, and voice, and their excitability of 
 character, fit the ladies for excellence in music. In 
 common with those in other parts of the Union, great 
 and too much stress is laid upon accomplishments 
 43 
 
333 
 
 merely external, and there is not attached sufficient 
 importance to that pa rt of education which fits for 
 rational conversation and usefulness. It is asserted 
 here, even to a proverb, and so far as my observation 
 extends, with great truth, that the Creole ladies are, 
 after marriage, extremely domestic, quiet, affectionate, 
 and exemplary wives and mothers. 
 
 It is a well known fact, that the human form devel- 
 opes more early in the South than in the North. It is 
 equally true, that the apprehension is quicker, the imi- 
 tative arts more easily acquired, and the faculties un- 
 fold earlier. Children born at the North have firmer, 
 and more staid habits, attain greater combination of 
 thought, and think more profoundly. But the Creole 
 learns more easily to write a fair hand, to sketch a 
 drawing, or copy a rose. Marriages take place when 
 the parties are very young, and mothers of fifteen are 
 not uncommon. The pernicious habit of novel-read- 
 ing, which is an appetite at the North, has here an in- 
 satiable craving. 
 
 An improving taste for literature has had, I am in- 
 formed, a very obvious influence not only on the moral 
 habits of the planters, but has introduced more liberal 
 pleasures, and a better way of spending the time, that 
 used to hang on their hands. Much of that time is 
 now spent in reading. The fruit of thus passing 
 their time, has had a happy influence upon the condi- 
 tion of a numerous class of people, of whom I pro- 
 pose shortly to speak — the slaves. Among their an- 
 cient amusements, which are still unchanged, is hunt- 
 ing. Their wide forests, their impenetrable swamps, 
 their tangled cane brakes, will harbour, for generations 
 to come, bears, deer, panthers, and a great variety of 
 game. They keep fine horses, and have their trained 
 
339 
 
 packs of hounds. The planter leads you to his ken- 
 nel, blows his bugle, and the hounds rush forth, raise 
 their noses, and utter their mingled cries of joy, from 
 the deep bass of the ancient leader, that carries the 
 bell, down to the whipster, whose voice is not yet form- 
 ed. The owners discuss the success and chances of 
 the chase and the breeding and qualities of the dogs, 
 their mode of feeding, and medicining them apparent- 
 ly in the knowing style. 
 
 Their most interesting hunts are practised by night, 
 and are called fire-huntings. The dogs are leashed to- 
 gether. One dog carries a bell. Two or three black 
 boys carry over their shoulders fire-pans, being a 
 grating of iron hoops, appended to a long handle, and 
 filled with blazing torches of the splinters of fat pine. 
 The light is brilliant and dazzling. A group of gen- 
 tlemen, clad in their hunting frocks, mounted on fine 
 horses, the joyous cry of the attending dogs, the 
 blacks with their fire-pans, the whole cavalcade as 
 seen at a distance by the flickering light among the fo- 
 liage of the trees, furnishes altogether a striking spec- 
 tacle. They scour the woods. The deer is tracked. 
 The hound that carries the bell is unleashed. The 
 other dogs know his note and chime in on his key. 
 The bell indicates where he is. The deer, dazzled and 
 appalled by the glare and the noise, arouses from 
 sleep, and gazes in stupid surprize. The eyes are dis- 
 covered, shining like balls of fire. The hunter aims 
 his rifle between the eyes, and the poor animal is sure 
 to fall. Such is the most common mode. They calcu- 
 late upon success with so much certainty, that 1 have 
 often been promised for the next day a haunch of veni- 
 son from a deer yet running in the wild woods. I 
 seldom failed to receive my promised present. 
 
340 
 
 It is justly said, that the protestant worship has less 
 hold of the people here, than in any other part of the 
 United States. 1 have personally found a very af- 
 fectionate and attentive audience in the place where I 
 reside, and friends who are justly dear to me. The 
 people too are as punctual in their attendance on pub- 
 lic worship as in other and more favoured regions. 
 But there are very few Protestant churches of any sort. 
 I have no minister, with whom I could interchange, 
 nearer than Natchez, a distance by the rivers of two- 
 hundred and thirty miles. The people in the villages 
 have not yet begun to feel, as they do in most of the 
 villages in other parts of the United States, that the 
 spire of a church is associated in the mind of the be- 
 holder with the respectability of the place. There 
 are perhaps three Baptist churches in the state, and 
 the Methodists labour with their customary zeal. 
 Their known feelings on the subject of slavery ope- 
 rate as an impediment to their usefulness. The Cath- 
 olics have a great many churches and societies, and 
 the influence of their worship here differs little from 
 that which it exercises in other places. Another 
 would say that this was the region of moral desolation. 
 My heart, indeed, withers in want of the society and 
 converse of some one like-minded with myself upon 
 this deepest of all concerns, this holiest and most in- 
 teresting of all subjects. But, while I see that relig- 
 ion is not in all their thoughts, and see a thousand 
 things to be amended in their general character, I 
 should do injustice to my own convictions, did I not 
 say, that I see many things in the character of this 
 people, that might be profitably transferred to the 
 more serious people of the North. A man, grossly 
 immoral, or grossly ignorant; is not welcomed in good 
 
341 
 
 society, merely because he is rich. I know of no 
 people among whom such a man would sink into more 
 certain contempt. The people have a great regard for 
 truth, are not addicted to scandal, and when a man 
 is discovered to have committed a cruel or a treacher- 
 ous act, he will no where experience an indignant ex- 
 pression of puhlic feeling more universally. 
 
 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 In attempting to give you some idea of the con- 
 dition of the slaves in the southern and western coun- 
 try, I feel assured, that you will not say, that my 
 heart has been hardened, or my sensibility benumbed 
 by the influence of southern feelings, or familiarity 
 with the spectacle before me. I have never had but 
 one feeling on this subject, and in the very regions 
 where I reside, I have never expressed but one senti- 
 ment. I have never owned a slave, and I would to 
 God, that there were not one on the earth. But when 
 I hear the opinions that are expressed in your region, 
 and see the bitter influence of misrepresentation upon 
 this subject, and read the intemperate and inflammatory 
 productions of the day, productions, which, I doubt 
 not, are in many instances got up merely for political 
 purposes, I tremble, in contemplating their probable 
 influence upon public feeling at the South. 
 
 Now was the happiest crisis, that has occurred since 
 the commencement of our government, for breaking 
 down sectional barriers, ano extinguishing sectional 
 feelings. The southern people were beginning to es- 
 
342 
 
 teem and regard the northern character. The term 
 yankee began to be a term rather of respect than re- 
 proach. It is easy to see how soon all this will be re- 
 versed, if we incautiously and rashly intermeddle in 
 this matter. The natural result of such an interfer- 
 ence is, to exasperate the masters, and to enhance the 
 sufferings of the slaves. 
 
 Let us hear, for a moment, the southern planter 
 speak for himself, for I remark that if you introduce 
 the subject with any delicacy, I have never yet heard 
 one, who does not admit that slavery is an evil and 
 an injustice, and who does not at least affect to de- 
 plore the evil. 
 
 He >^ys, that be the evil ever so great, and the thing 
 ever so unjust, it has always existed among the Jews, 
 in the families of the patriarchs, in the republics of 
 Greece and Rome, and that the right of the master in 
 his slave, is clearly recognised by St. Paul ; that it 
 has been transmitted down, through successive ages, to 
 the colonization of North America, and that it existed 
 in Massachusetts, as well as the other states. *i You," 
 they add, " had but a few. Your climate admitted 
 the labour of the whites. You freed them because it 
 is less expensive to till your lands with free hands, 
 th m with slaves. We have a scorching sun, and an 
 enfeebling climate. The African constitution can 
 alone support labour under such circumstances. We of 
 course had many slaves. Our fathers felt the neces- 
 sity, and yielding to the expediency of the case. They 
 have entaihd the enormous and growing evil upon us 
 Onr support, our very existence, as well as that of our 
 slaves, dfcpeftd upon their labour. Take them from us, 
 and you re nder the southern country a desert. You des- 
 troy the great staples of the country, and what is 
 
343 
 
 worse, you find no way in which to dispose of the 
 millions that you emancipate." If we reply, that we 
 cannot violate a principle, for the sake of expediency, 
 they return upon us with the question, " What is to 
 be done ? The deplorable condition of the emanci- 
 pated slaves in this country is a sufficient proof, that 
 we cannot emancipate the rest and leave them here. 
 Turn them all loose at once, and ignorant and reckless 
 as they ar^, ignorant as they are of the use or the 
 value of freedom, they would devour and destroy 
 the subsistence of years, in a day, and for want of 
 other objects upou which to prey, would prey upon 
 one; another. It. is a chronic moral evil, the growth 
 of ages, and such diseases are always aggravated by 
 violent and harsh remedies. Leave us to ourselves, 
 or point out the way in which we can gently heal this 
 great malady, not at once, but in a regimen of years. 
 The evil must go off as it came on, by a slow and 
 gradual method of cure. Even the grand scht- me of 
 sending them, when emancipated, to Ha) ti, or their na- 
 tive shores, does not altogether meet the difficulties ; 
 for negroes avail themselves of every opportunity to 
 return to their own country, and many of them have 
 in fact secreted themselves in the holds of the ships 
 returning, and showed themselves only when it was 
 too late to carry them back." To all this, and much 
 more of the same sort, I can only repeat their own 
 language, that it is a great and an increasing evil., 
 much easier to measure and weep over, than to heal, 
 ana that it is obviously unjust to reproach the people 
 of the South with this evil, without pointing out a 
 proper and practicable remedy. To me it clearly ap- 
 pears from actual and long observation, of the condi- 
 tion and character of the free negroes, that the efforts 
 
344, 
 
 of emancipation ought to be slow, cautious, and tested 
 by experience. 
 
 In this method oF cure, substitutes would be grad- 
 ually Found For their labour. The best modes oF in- 
 structing them in the value oF Freedom, and rendering 
 them comfortable and happy in the enjoyment oF it, 
 would be gradually marked out. They should be 
 taught to read, and imbued with the principles, and 
 morals oF the gospel. Every affectionate appeal 
 should be made to the humanity, and the better Feel- 
 ings oF the masters. In no instance should we ex- 
 pect to instil compassion in Favour oF their slaves into 
 their bosoms, by asserting that the practice is abomina- 
 ble, and that ihey are brutal tyrants to exercise their 
 power over them. Such arguments neither persuade 
 nor convince. Who knows but that gentle admoni- 
 tions, in the spirit and benevolence oF the gospel, might, 
 in the end, excite among them purposes to inquire For 
 the best plan, in which to commence an efficient effort 
 For their gradual, distant, but final emancipation ? 
 Certain it is, that the spirit in which this subject has 
 been discussed at the North, and by the Friends of 
 immediate emancipation among them, has had any ef- 
 fect rather than to conciliate the masters, and induce 
 them to set themselves to work in earnest, to melio- 
 rate the condition of the slaves. But I very willingly 
 dismiss a discussion, which would lead me Far beyond 
 m> Umits, and return to what is much surer ground — 
 the consideration oF the actual character and condition 
 oF the slaves. 
 
 I have elsewhere expressed my conviction, that 
 the negroes possess a gentle, susceptible, and affection- 
 ate nature. Their bosoms are more open to the im- 
 pressions oF religion, than those oF the whites. 
 
345 
 
 Wherever the Methodists come in contact with them* 
 their earnest and vehement address softens the obdura- 
 cy of the blacks at once. They have gained many 
 converts among the slaves. They use a language 
 that falls in with their apprehensions, and possibly 
 their popularity with them is enhanced by the preva- 
 lent impression, that the Methodists are the exclusive 
 friends of slaves, and of emancipation. 
 
 In the region where I live, the masters allow entire 
 liberty to the slaves to attend public worship, and as 
 far as my knowledge extends, it is generally the case 
 in Louisiana. We have regular meetings of the blacks 
 in the building where I attend public worship. I have, 
 in years past, devoted myself assiduously, every Sab- 
 bath morning, to the labour of learning them to read. 
 I find them quick of apprehension. They learn ihe 
 rudiments of reading quicker than even the whites, 
 but it is with me an undoubting conviction, that hav- 
 ing advanced them to a certain point, it is much more 
 difficult to carry them beyond. In other words, they 
 learn easily to read, to sing, and scrape the fiddle. 
 But it would be difficult to teach them arithmetic, or 
 combination of ideas or abstract thinking of any kind. 
 Whether their skull indicates this by the modern prin- 
 ciples of craniology, or not, I cannot say. But 1 am 
 persuaded, that this susceptible and affectionate race 
 have heads poorly adapted to reasoning and algebra. 
 
 I had heard, before I visited the slave states in the 
 West, appalling stories of the cruelty and barbarity of 
 masters to slaves. In effect I saw there instances of 
 cruel ami brutal masters. But I was astonished to find 
 that the slaves in general had the most cheerful coun- 
 tenances, and were apparently the happiest people 
 that 1 saw. They appeared to me to be as well fed 
 44 
 
316 
 
 and clothed, as the labouring; poor at the North. 
 Here I was told, that the (cruelty and brutality were 
 not here, but among the great planters down the Mis- 
 sissippi. So strongly is this idea inculcated, that it is 
 held up to the slave, as a bugbear over his head to 
 bind him to good behaviour, that if he does not behave 
 well, he will be carried down the river, and be sold. 
 When I descended to this country, I had prepared my- 
 self to witness cruelty on the one part, and misery on 
 the other. I found the condition of the slaves in the 
 lower country to be still more tolerable, than in that 
 above ; they are more regularly and better clothed, en- 
 dure less inclemency of the seasons, are more syste- 
 matically supplied with medical attendance and medi- 
 cine, when diseased, and what they esteem a great 
 hardship, but what is in fact a most fortunate cir- 
 cumstance in their condition, they cannot, as in the 
 upper country, obtain whiskey at all. 
 
 It is a certain fact, and to me it is a delightful one, 
 that a good portion of the lights of reason and human- 
 ity, that have been pouring such increasing radiance 
 upon every part of the country, have illumined the 
 huts of the slaves, and have dawned in the hearts of 
 their masters. Certain it is, that in visiting great 
 numbers of plantations, I have generally discovered in 
 the slaves affection for their masters, and sometimes, 
 though not so generally, for the overseers. It appears 
 to be a growing desire among masters, to be popular 
 with their slaves, and they have finally become im- 
 pressed, that humanity is their best interest, that 
 cheerful, v\ell fed and clothed slaves, perform so much 
 more productive labour, as to unite speculation and 
 kindness in the same calculation. In some plantations 
 they have a jury of negroes to try offences under the 
 
347 
 
 eye of the master, as judge, and it generally happens 
 that he is obliged to mitigate the severity of their sen- 
 tence. The master too has hold of the affection of 
 the slaves, by interposing his authority in certain cases 
 between the slave and the overseer. Where the mas- 
 ter is realy a considerate and kind man, the patriarchal 
 authority on the one hand, and the simple and affec- 
 tionate veneration on the other, render this relation of 
 master and slave not altogether so forbidding, as we 
 have been accustomed to consider it. 
 
 The negro village that surrounds a planter's house, 
 is, for the most part, the prototype of the village of 
 Owen of Lanark. It is generally oblong rows of 
 uniform huts. In some instances I have seen them 
 of brick, but more generally of cypress timber, and 
 they are made tight and comfortable. In some part of 
 the village is a hospital and medicine chest. Most 
 masters have a physician employed by the job , and 
 the slave, as soon as diseased, is removed there. Pro- 
 vision is also made for the subsistence and comfort 
 of those that are aged and past their labour. In this 
 village by night you hear the hurdy-gurdy, and the 
 joyous and unthinking laugh of people, who have no 
 care nor concern for the morrow. I enter among 
 them, and the first difficulty appears to arise from 
 jealousy, and mutual charges of inconstancy, between 
 the husbands and wives. In fact, the want of any 
 sanction or permanence to their marriage connexions, 
 and the promiscuous intimacies that subsist among them, 
 are not only the sources of most of their quarrels and 
 troubles, but are among the most formidable evils, to a 
 serious mind, in their condition. You now and then 
 see a moody and sullen looking negro, and if you in- 
 quire into the cause of his gloom, you will be informed 
 
348 
 
 that he has been a fugitive, that he has lived long in 
 the woods upon thieving, that he has been arrested 
 and whipped, and is waiting his opportunity to escape 
 again. Judging of their condition from their coun- 
 tenances, and from their unthinking merriment, I 
 should think them the happiest people here, and in 
 general, far more so than their masters. 
 
 It is a most formidable part of the evil of slavery, 
 that the race is far more prolific than that of the 
 whites, and that their population advances in a greater 
 ratio. They are at present in this region more nume- 
 rous than the w hites, and this inequality is increasing 
 every day. Thinking people here, who look to the 
 condition of their posterity, are appalled at this view of 
 things, and admit that something must be done to 
 avert the certain final consequences of such an order 
 of things. I remark, in concluding this subject, that 
 the people here always have under their eye the con- 
 dition and character of the free blacks. It tends to 
 confirm them in their opinions upon the subject. The 
 slaves are much addicted to theft, but the free blacks 
 much more so. They, poor wretches, have the bad 
 privilege of getting drunk, and they avail themselves 
 of it. The heaviest scourge of New Orleans is its 
 multitudes of free black and coloured people. They 
 wallow in debauchery, are quarrelsome and saucy, and 
 commit crimes, in proportion to the slaves, as a hun- 
 dred to one. 
 
 The population of Louisiana is supposed to be, at 
 present, between two and three hundred thousand. 
 After New Orleans, the most populous parishes are 
 B uon Rouge, Feliciana, Rapids, and Natchitoches. 
 Parishes in this region are civil divisions, derived from 
 the former French regime. They are often larger 
 
349 
 
 Chan our counties at the North. This country, from 
 the character of its soil, cannot have a dense popula- 
 tion, until the swamps are drained. The population, 
 except the sparse inhabitants of the pine woods, is 
 fixed along the margin of the water courses, and the 
 greater part of the planters can convey their produce 
 immtdiately on board the steam-boats. 
 
 I could not, without consulting books on the subject, 
 give you other than general ideas upon the manage- 
 ment of the government, and the administration of 
 justice. I have not touched upon these subjects, in 
 my remarks upon the upper country, because in all 
 these points there is so little difference between that 
 region and yours, as hardly to call for a description. 
 Here it is otherwise. The machine of government 
 is managed somewhat differently here. The legisla- 
 tive department is substantially the same with yours, 
 and is elected much in the same way. Your political 
 disputes turn upon principles. Here they turn upon 
 men. The speaker of the house, and the president of 
 the senate, ought to understand French, for half the 
 debates are in that language. The laws are promul- 
 gated equally in French and English. Motions are 
 put in both languages. Some of the French legisla- 
 tors are very animated speakers, and use a great deal 
 of gesture. Their speeches that I heard, however, 
 struck me as being rather florid, and in bad taste. 
 The French and American parties are nearly balanced. 
 Sometimes the one gains the ascendancy, and some- 
 times the other. 
 
 In the administration of justice, the civil code has 
 paramount authority, and common law is not supposed 
 to have weight. They quote it, I believe, in illustra- 
 tion of points and for precedeut. The courts are or- 
 
350 
 
 ganized, and justice administered in other respects as 
 with you, except that a most important ojficer in this 
 department is the 44 parish judge.?' He decides pro- 
 bate affairs, and holds a parish court, which takes cogni- 
 zance of a great variety of causes, He is said here 
 to be a kind of general heir to the estates of deceased 
 persons, from the great power entrusted to his hands 
 in the setting of successions. The office is very res- 
 ponsible, and the salary, as is the case in fact of all 
 the officers in the state, is ample. 
 
 I might say something of the distinguished men of 
 this state, but my limits are too narrow, and I know 
 them not sufficiently to speak with confidence. in 
 pur profession, the brilliant and pious Larned, who 
 has left such a deep impression at New Orleans, has 
 gone. His voice of music is still, and the lightning 
 of his eye is quenched. The present Presbyterian 
 minister has few compeers in the elegance of his fine 
 essay style. He is an instance of an extemporaneous 
 speaker, who lays sentence after sentence, and para- 
 graph after paragraph, entirely fit for the press, and 
 who trips seldomer than a person reading from notes. 
 The Rev. Dr. Dubourg, the Catholic bishop, has a 
 fine form, the most dignified manner, graceful gesture, 
 and the deep and mellow tones of an organ. From 
 him Protestant ministers might learn how manner 
 will recommend indifferent matter. Livingston, au- 
 thor of the new code, is a man of first rate powers. 
 I have not read more elegant or brilliant discussions, 
 than his preliminary defences of his code. The amia- 
 ble Hawkins, whose premature death was so deep- 
 ly lamented, and by none more than myself, was a 
 rising lawyer. General Ripley is sufficiently known 
 at the North as a brilliant man. There is much 
 
351 
 
 smartness and future promise in Eustis. Mr. Brown, 
 the minister to France, is spoken of as full, brilliant, 
 and profound i Among the Fretich, Mazzereau, and a 
 number of others, are fine speakers. Indeed there 
 seems to be in the men of this region an aptitude for 
 fine speaking. I might easily swell this catalogue, 
 and add here the names of men of this profession 
 with respect to whom I feel the partiality of friend- 
 ship. I speak only of those whom I have heard 
 speak. There are doubtless many others who are 
 equally distinguished. The bar has certainly great 
 power here. Fees are very great, litigation common, 
 and " wherever the carcase is, there will the eagles be 
 gathered." The bar has many brilliant men in the 
 region where 1 reside. The very great fortunes ac- 
 quired b\ r successful lawyers furnish the excitements, 
 that create and call forth whatever can be generated in 
 the mind. 
 
 1 shall only glance at the history of this country. 
 It was first explored by adventurers from Canada, 
 who extended their walks beyond the lakes, until, to 
 their astonishment, they found themselves on rivers 
 that flowed west, and in a direction opposite to the 
 great river of their own country. These rivers 
 brought them on the bosom of the mighty Mississippi. 
 As they sailed down its dark and silent forests, it is 
 carious to hear with what naivete they describe the 
 grandeur, the richness, and luxuriance of the scene. 
 The poor and sour grapes were to them grapes of 
 paradise ; the screaming blue-jay was a nightingale, 
 and every object furnished them a theme for exclama- 
 tion and delight. It was afterwards explored by 
 French navigators from the Atlantic shore, was set- 
 tled, and became the theatre of the fatal golden dreams 
 
352 
 
 of Law's speculation. I have seen three persons of 
 the gipsey race, said to be descended from a colony 
 from the Grecian islands, that was transported to the 
 bay of Biloxi to cultivate the olive and the vine. 
 This interesting colony perished. Tne settlement be- 
 came the scene of misery, disease, and starvation, was 
 broken up, and renewed. At one time, the Span-, 
 iards fell upon the French, and massacred them, not 
 as enemies, but as heretics, enemies of God and the 
 Virgin. The French retaliated upon the Spaniards, 
 not as enemies, but as traitors and cut-throats. The 
 whole colony, root and branch, was well nigh being 
 destroyed by a combination of Indians. 
 
 Under Iberville, the colony began to acquire per- 
 manence, and to establish those beautiful plantations, 
 that now adorn the country. In 1763, it was ceded 
 to the Spaniards, and after the French revolution, 
 transferred again to the French government. During 
 the administration of Mr. Jeff - son, it was purchased 
 by the United States from the French government, for 
 fifteen millions of dollars. It included all the country 
 west of the Mississippi, that is now divided into the 
 state of Louisiana, the territory of Arkansas, and the 
 state of Missouri. Under the American government* 
 the aspect of things changed rapidly. The lands in- 
 creased in value. New Orleans increased greatly in 
 population ; its sugar cultivation was much extended, 
 and its agriculture became extremely prosperous- 
 During the late war, it sustained a most formidable 
 attack by a large British force, under general Pack- 
 enham. Under the energetic and wise command of 
 General Jackson, on the eighth of January, 1815, the 
 American forces gained a very decisive victory over 
 the British, in which the British lost their leading gen- 
 
353 
 
 erals, and more than two thousand men. Louisiana 
 was soon after evacuated by the British, and has been 
 constantly advancing in wealth and prosperity since 
 that period. 
 
 The first year that I spent in Alexandria, passed 
 pleasantly in the discharge of uniform duties. My 
 society was small, but embraced some of the most 
 amiable families, with which I have been acquainted. 
 You are informed how I here came in contact with a 
 respectable citizen of Alexandria, of high standing in 
 the country, a graduate from our own alma mater, and 
 with whose father, a clergyman in my vicinity while 
 in New England, I had a long, intimate, and af- 
 fectionate intercourse. Such an acquisition was in- 
 valuable. If any one would know the value of a 
 companion, bred in the same region, formed to similar 
 habits, versed in all kinds of literature, a scholar, a 
 gentleman, and a man capable of sincere and ardent 
 friendship, let him wander without such a friend ten 
 years in the wilderness of the West, and then, where 
 such a thing was least expected, let him find such a 
 Triend. 
 
 The people, too, were attentive to my ministry. 
 We formed a singing society, and the people were be- 
 ginning to cultivate a taste for sacred music. My 
 residence was every way comfortable, and I was be- 
 ginning to hope for that repose, so necessary to a 
 frame, so exhausted by fatigue and disease as mine. 
 The climate, however, of this delightful village where 
 I reside, is fatal. It is embowered by china and 
 catalpa trees, is perfectly dry and level, and its streets 
 are kept clean, and every thing would seem to prom- 
 ise health. But in this pleasant village the unseen 
 seeds of disease are always sowing. In the latter 
 45 
 
354 
 
 part of the winter, I found that my severe duties, 
 concurring with the damp and sultry atmosphere, be- 
 gan to wear upon me. I made some inquiries 
 respecting the best place of retirement for the sum- 
 mer ; for the people here retire in the sickly months 
 to different points in the pine woods. I selected a 
 spot where two families had already fixed with the 
 same intentions. My particular friends built houses 
 in the vicinity of mine. In the latter part of May 
 I became seriously ill, and we moved into the pine 
 woods. I there soon regained comfortable health. 
 You have wished some details of our manner of pas- 
 sing our time there, and I will give them. 
 
 We are situated on a fine hill-slope, where the tall, 
 straight pines rise by thousands on every side. The 
 soil is a greyish gravelly sand, as dry in an hour after 
 the greatest rain, as before. We were obliged to fell 
 a hundred trees that were tall enough to have reached 
 our house. There are nine or ten houses occupied by 
 neighbours and friends, all within call. We have fine 
 springs and spring-branches, and the air has an aro- 
 matic and terebinthine odour, that is deemed healthy, 
 and at least is grateful. At a little distance from us 
 is a beautiful and clear stream, shaded with laurels 
 and grape-vine arbours, and yielding the greatest 
 abundance of fish of any stream that I ever saw 7 . 
 During the summer, I took more than two thousand 
 trout myself, besides pickerel and other fish. The 
 trout are beautifully mottled with white and gold, and 
 would weigh on an average a pound. We had pub- 
 lic chowder-parties, where sixty people sat down un- 
 der grape-vine arbours, to other good things beside 
 fish. 
 
355 
 
 But our own private way of getting along was still 
 more pleasant. There were three or four intimate 
 and endeared families, that had no ceremony in their 
 meeting, and we took our evening tea alternately at 
 each other's houses, in the morning we rose with the 
 sun, breathed the balsamic air of the pines, took our 
 angling rods, followed by our wives and children to 
 the brink of the stream. A carpet was spread under 
 the beeches, and close by a fine spring. We caught 
 the trout, and threw them over the bank to the black 
 girls, who had kindled a fire for cooking them. It 
 seldom cost us half an hour to take enough for twenty 
 people. The other necessary articles were supplied 
 as each guest furnished the proportions most conven- 
 ient to him. I have never made more delightful re- 
 pasts ; nor have I ever passed a summer more pleas- 
 antly. A kind of sad presentiment used to hang over 
 my mind, to embitter even this pleasant summer, an 
 impression, that as it was so delightful, it would be 
 the last pleasant one allotted to me on the earth. 
 When we left the pine woods the last of September, 
 for Alexandria, when, like the patriarchs, we had pre- 
 pared the line of march with our " stuff" and our 
 little ones, through the woods to our house in town, 
 the poetical paroxysm came on me again, and I pro- 
 duced the subjoined " Farewell to the Pine Woods." 
 I make no apology for adding also verses by my son, 
 on the same occasion. I hope it will not be a surfeit 
 of poetry, if I close the account with verses of his, 
 entitled " Reminiscences," as they also fall in with the 
 strain, and the object of this work. Perhaps you will 
 take into view his youth, and the inexperience of his 
 muse, and find them tolerable. 
 
356 
 
 FAREWELL TO THE PINE WOODS. 
 
 Hsemus, sweet stream, I've passed the sultry days, 
 
 Most pleasantly, along thy verdant banks; 
 
 And it befits me, ere I turn again 
 
 To life's hard toil, to pay thee tribute due. 
 
 For I remember well the scorching day, 
 
 When, weary, faint, and wan, I saw thee first, 
 
 Expecting soon to lay the load of life 
 
 Beneath the turf ; but thy cool wave 
 
 And healthful breeze inspired other hopes. 
 
 Thy fountains, springing midst the wavy pines, 
 
 Well from the hills, to join thee, o'er a sand 
 
 As pure as mountain-snow ; so bright, 
 
 That the gay red-bird tunes his note of joy, 
 
 Soon as he settles on thy laurel branch. 
 
 How often, ere the jocund morn had ting'd 
 
 Thy groves with gold, my anglifig rod in hand, 
 
 From thy pellucid wave I've dfawn the trout, 
 
 In all his pride of mottled white and gold, 
 
 And borne the cumbrous prize, triumphant, home. 
 
 And still, with each returning summer morn, 
 
 Thou didst supply the inexhausted feast; 
 
 And, while we've set us on thy cooling bank, 
 
 We've carolled, told the mirthful tale in joy, 
 
 As careless, as the roving Indian wild. 
 
 And we have had good store of courteous dames, 
 
 Who brought their little prattlers to our home, 
 
 Arching, and open, like the o'erhanging sky, 
 
 Unconscious of the jealous lock, or latch. 
 
 By joint consent with these dear friends we threw 
 
 Observance, form and state all to the winds ; 
 
 All unsophisticated, like the first pair. 
 
 And then, when evening from the azure east, 
 
 Threw her deep mantle o'er the dark-brown pine, 
 
357 
 
 W'eve sat, well pleased, to list the breezy moan, 
 Nature's Eolian harp, to sink, or swell 
 Along the boundless forest-tops, in strains, 
 That awe, impress, or counsel sleep : — 
 This vesper hymn prolong'd, till the bright moon, 
 Thron'd on her silver car, and twinkling stars 
 Seem but to float just o'er the forest lops. 
 Sudden the blazing torches rise around, 
 And pour their flickering light amidst the trees, 
 And spread illusions o'er our humble sheds, 
 As those, that mark enchantment's fabled tales. 
 Our cabins turn to palaces, and the dark pine, 
 Seen half in living light, and half in shade, 
 Half lucid verdure, and half deepening gloom, 
 Shows, like the light of Ufe, shut by the grave 
 From the dark regions of eternity. 
 
 WRITTEN ON LEAVING THE PINE WOODS. 
 
 Farewell, ye groves, that T am leaving, 
 Where I've spent the summer heats; 
 Autumnal gales now force us, grieving, 
 To resume our winter seats. 
 
 The breezes o'er thy pine tops playing, 
 Strike the ear with mimick roar ; 
 Like surges, which the storm conveying, 
 Dash madly on some rocky shore. 
 
 Oft hath their murmur lull'd me sleeping, 
 Heard amid the silent night ; 
 While solemn owls their vigils keeping, 
 Sang a requiem o'er the light. 
 
 Farewell, thou stream, from fountains springing, 
 Crystal waters form thy flood ; 
 
358 
 
 Grape-vine arbours, o'er thee flinging, ■ 
 Mark thy course amidst the wood.* 
 
 How oft thy grateful coolness courting, 
 In thy bosom did I lave ; 
 Or watch the finned tribes thick sporting, 
 In thy clear pellucid wave. 
 
 How oft along thy banks I've wandered, 
 Viewed thee rippling o'er the sand ; 
 And, lost in thought, how deeply pondered 
 On my distant, native land. 
 
 That land shall own each fondest feeling, 
 Twin'd about this swelling breast; 
 Till death, its hopes and fears concealing, 
 Sinks them both alike to /est. 
 
 Her granite cliffs, that breast the ocean, 
 Dashing back the Atlantic wave ; 
 Her sons, that o'er its wild commotion 
 Bid their country's banner wave : 
 
 Her vales with gentle slope descending, 
 Frequent with the glittering spire; 
 Her hills, where first our sires contending, 
 Bade their haughty foes retire : 
 
 Such were the subjects of my musing, 
 As I wandered down thy glade; 
 E'en now, myself in fancy losing, 
 From my subject 1 have strayed. 
 
 How oft, beneath yon empty dwelling, 
 Did we pass the cheerful day ; 
 While o'er yon hills, our music swelling, 
 Died in softest notes away. 
 
 * To an inhabitant of the valley of Red River, a clear running stream is a 
 rarity. 
 
359 
 
 When night, her dusky mantle throwing, 
 Clad the earth with sable vest ; 
 The cheerful torch-light brightly glowing;, 
 Showed a scene by magic drest.* 
 
 Each blazing torch is now extinguished, 
 Night and silence reign supreme ; 
 The cricket's chirp alone distinguished, 
 Yields another mournful theme. 
 
 Once more, ye groves and valleys smiling 
 Fast receding from my view; 
 With future hopes my grief beguiling, 
 1 must turn and say, adieu. 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 The following stanzas were written in the leisure hours of several days. 
 They are quite unconnected and unfinished, for I find the subject almost in 
 exhaustible. 
 
 A wanderer long in that wide spreading vale, 
 Through which with devious course and lengthened way, 
 The western Nile, through many a varied dale, 
 Through shifting scenes and changing clime doth stray, 
 From those hoar hills where crystal fountains play, 
 And form tne parent stream's transparent tide, 
 By mighty stieams, that each their tribute pay, 
 To where those gathered floods majesctic glide, 
 And mingle with the boundless waste of waters wide. 
 
 * We made use of no candles while in the pine woods, burning pitch-pine 
 knots, which were placed on stands at a little distance from the house, and 
 which when lighted up by night, gave a singular appearance to the houses, 
 and the surrounding woods. 
 
360 
 
 Nature, in every varied dress I've seen, — 
 From forests which returning winters blight, 
 To fairer fields clad in perennial green, — 
 From climes clothed in her snowy garb of white, 
 To those where southern suns with radiance bright. 
 On happier lands diffuse their softened ray, 
 From plains where vision only bounds the sight, 
 Which like a verdant sea, out-spreading lay, 
 To forests dark and dense, that half exclude the day, 
 
 I've met the Indian on his native wild, 
 Free and unfettered as the mountain wind. 
 And I have marked him as in scorn he smiled, 
 On the full city, with its arts refined. 
 Perchance compared it in his haughty mind 
 With his own solitudes far in the west, 
 Where free from laws, by limits unconfined, 
 He sought his game, where'er it liked him best, 
 As nature prompted, took his pleasures or his rest. 
 
 And those rude foresters, who lead the van, 
 Who through untrodden wilds the highway pave, 
 On which ihe march of civilized man 
 Roils steady onward to the western wave, 
 Reekless of law, but generous and brave, 
 They ever met with welcome kind, 
 Which I received as freely as they gave. 
 And oft beneath their cabins rude did find 
 That noblest guest, a happy, independent mind. 
 
 In these primeval scenes, there is a spell, 
 To me more dear, than all the mouldering heaps 
 On which imagination loves to dwell : 
 For there, beneath the crumbling ruin, sleeps 
 A buried world, o'er which the poet w T eeps, 
 While here, a bursting empire meets his eye, 
 The spreading wave of life still onward sweeps. 
 And as he views the mighty flood roll by, 
 His bosom beats with proud anticipation high : 
 
361 
 
 I love to rove beneath the spreading shade 
 Of mighty forests, whose grey columns stand, 
 From age to age, in hoary moss arrayed, 
 And cast their giant foliage o'er the land 
 In wild luxuriance. There I trace the hand, 
 That guides the rolling planets in their spheres, 
 That moulds a grain, and numbers every sand, 
 For there, unveiled, his powerful arm appears, 
 Whether in wrath it prostrates, or in mercy rears. 
 
 Whether he made the winged winds his steeds, 
 And on the dark tornado rode alone, 
 Majestic and sublime ; while crushed like reeds, 
 The sylvan monarchs in his path were strown, 
 Or on the midnight cloud, his gloomiest throne, 
 Let forth the angry lightnings from their cells, 
 And with his thunder drowned the sullen moan, 
 Which ever from the storm rocked forest swells, 
 As wails aloud the fiend who in the tempest dwells. 
 
 Or whether, borne upon the zephyr's wing, 
 From milder climes he held his joyous way j 
 While in his train, the rosy footed Spring, 
 Crowned with the flowery diadem of May, 
 Exulting came, or with the genial ray 
 Of that bright sun, where his effulgence glows, 
 Reared from the earth, the countless germs that 
 Within her breast; till, wakened from repose, 
 Around its sleeping sires an infant forest rose. 
 
 I felt his presence in the midnight storm, 
 Alike as in the balmy breath of Spring, 
 I saw his glance in radiant sunbeams warm 
 Its smile of gladness o'er the green earth fling ; 
 He bloomed in flowers, inspired the birds to sing, 
 His finger traced the river's endless course, 
 He bade its thousand streams their tribute bring, 
 And piled the snowy mountains at its source, 
 Creation was his home — Omnipotence his force. 
 
 46 
 
362 
 
 While wandering in that solitary world, 
 How oft by the majestic river's side, 
 When not a ripple on its bosom curled, 
 At eve 1 lay, and saw the mighty tide, 
 Broad and resistless, down its channel glide, 
 A flood of silver in the moonlight beam, 
 While o'er the sleeping forest far and wide, 
 And o'er the star-gemed bosom of the stream, 
 Deep brooding silence sat and reigned with sway supreme. 
 
 Or when the cheerful light of ruddy morn 
 Had wakened nature from her deep repose, 
 How sweet the starting boatmen's bugle horn 
 Re-echoing from the silent forests rose, 
 As from his willow haven forth he goes 
 To tempt the dangers of the tedious way, 
 Till far away from the still whitening snows, 
 That on his native mountains bleaching lay, 
 He finds a clime, mild as their softened breeze of May. 
 
 But see, emerging from the verdant slope 
 Of yonder point, where the lithe willow rears 
 In files successive to the poplar's cope, 
 The gay steam-boat in all her pride appears, 
 As up the stream, the sturdy helmsman steers, 
 The patient leadsman chants his measured song, 
 And mark, as in her rapid course she nears, 
 How backward driven as she ploughs along, 
 The foaming waters high around her bosom throng. 
 
 Proudly she cleaves the wave, while thundering by, 
 And leaves the forest echoes all awake. 
 But soon, beyond some point fades from the eye, 
 While swelling in her widely spreading wake, 
 The angry waves in wild commotion break, 
 Until at last they reach the distant shore, 
 Where to the beach the murmuring waters make 
 Their sullen plaint ; and when that feeble roar 
 Has sunk to rest, they glide as silent as before. 
 
363 
 
 Through the long vista of the coming years, 
 Prospective thought dwells with enchanted eye 
 On the bright picture as it then appears, 
 Where smiling art with nature seems to vie, 
 As all around the chequered landscapes lie, 
 Where spire-crowned villages successive rise, 
 Where thronging cities rear their towers on high, 
 Where labour still his thousand weapons plies, 
 And commerce brings her gifts from earth's remotest skies. 
 
 But had departed grandeur pleased me best, 
 Each simple pyramid that rears its head 
 Among the boundless prairies of the West, 
 Is but a mighty mass of slumbering dead, 
 The tomb of generations that are fled. 
 Their bones in those dark mounds alternate lay, 
 The flesh that wrapped them once, now forms their bed; — 
 For it hath long since mingled with the clay, 
 And formed these massy heaps of dull unvarying grey. 
 
 Yes — could that senseless dust revive again, 
 And each dark mound pour forth its sleeping dead, 
 To rove once more across yon smiling plain ; 
 Or could the mighty mammoth leave his bed, 
 Burst from the earth which lime has o'er him spread* 
 And rearing his broad front, with thunder scarred, 
 Eye the dark storm thick lowering o'er his head, 
 With proud defiance or with calm regard, 
 Then might we find our native themes fit for the bard. 
 
 Oh could we draw the curtains of the past, 
 Uuveil its hidden secrets to the light, 
 Sure fancy here might find a rich repast ; 
 Could we outstrip the years in their swift flight, 
 Gaze on the future from time's farthest height, 
 Aiid as the grand procession rolled along, 
 Of after ages sweeping into sight, 
 See our proud empire foremost in the throng, 
 That were a subject, worthy of the noblest song. 
 
3(34 
 
 But cease, my muse, ' tis not for thee to soar, 
 Thy simple strains suit not the mighty theme, 
 Thine own sweet Red-bird doth his wild notes pour, 
 From the green copses of his native stream ; 
 But the bold eagle starting with a scream, 
 From his wild cliff, with bolder pinion soars 
 High in mid air, and drinks the sun's bright beam 
 Fresh from its source, pure as the ray he pours 
 From cloudless skies, on Greece, or fair Italia's shores. 
 
 In October of the last year, we resumed our labo- 
 rious duties in the seminary. I had my son and 
 another young man under a particular course of per- 
 sonal instruction. I had boarders, a numerous school, 
 preached after a sort and as I could, and was trying 
 to digest this work. A few weeks of this overplied 
 exertion began to make me feel the illness, which 
 brought me to your country. I struggled to vanquish 
 it, by resolution and exercise, until the eighth of last 
 December I was then seized with a bilious com- 
 plaint, accompanied with spasm, which confined me 
 to my bed. All the aids of medicine were unavailing. 
 The middle of January, I was just able, with assis- 
 tance, to mount on horse back. Accompanied by my 
 friend, Judge Bullard, of whom you have so often 
 heard me speak, I commenced a journey to Natchito- 
 ches and the interior beyond for my health. We as- 
 cended the Bayou Rapide, and traversed its lines of 
 beautiful plantations. At the head of the Bayou, and 
 twenty-five miles from Alexandria, we enter the pine 
 woods. At the ferry of the river Aux Canes, Red 
 River is divided into three parallel rivers, each possess- 
 ing their tiers of cotton plantations. Thence by 
 pleasant houses, and rich plantations adjoining each 
 other, and through a charming country, we passed to 
 
365 
 
 Natchitoches. The weather was delightful. The 
 river was fringed with clover. Flocks of beautiful 
 birds were seated on the weeds that had been seared 
 by the frost, and were gathering the seeds. But for 
 my extreme illness I should have enjoyed this pleas- 
 ant ride, as I always do the view of novel scenery, 
 and the richness of nature. I had occasion again to 
 remark the hospitality of the French planters. We 
 were expected, and were met by the gentleman at 
 whose house we passed the first night. Had I not al - 
 ready cloyed you with descriptions, I would give you 
 the picture of this house and establishment. It was 
 surrounded by cabins, in which dwelt, it may be, eigh- 
 ty negroes, pens in which were some hundred of hogs, 
 cattle, goats, geese, little negroes, and some domesti- 
 cated Indians. Every thing in and about the house 
 was in perfect keeping. We had for supper, duck- 
 pies, coffee, and claret. In the morning duck-pies, 
 milk, custards, coffee, and claret. The owner accom- 
 panied us some miles to where he was laying off a 
 new town, and showed us a man recently from Paris, 
 who played off surprising tricks of legerdemain. He 
 showed us, apparently with no little pride, a dancing 
 hall, ornamented in ancient French style, with drag- 
 ons, coarse paintings, hangings of different colours, 
 rendered more gay with the beautiful plumage of some 
 of their birds. Wherever we called, the opulent plan- 
 ters vied in attention to us. 
 
 Natchitoches is a very ancient town, settled, I be- 
 lieve, originally by Spaniards from the interna! prov- 
 inces. It is said to be more ancient in its origin than 
 Philadelphia. The scenery about the town is strik- 
 ingly pleasant. The village is compact, larger than 
 Alexandria, and composed of Spanish, French, and 
 
366 
 
 American houses, and a population composed of these 
 races together, with a considerable mixture of Indian 
 blood. There are many respectable families here, and 
 a weekly newspaper in French and English. From 
 its position, this must be a great inland town. At the 
 head of steam -boat navigation, the last town westward 
 towards the Spanish frontier, and on the great road to 
 that country and to Mexico, it has already a profitable 
 trade with that country. The Spanish come there for 
 their supplies, as far as from the Rio del Norte. They 
 pay in bars of silver and mules. I have seen droves 
 pass of four hundred horses and mules. The relations 
 of this place with the interior of the state, and of New 
 Spain, must necessarily be extended, and this must ul- 
 timately become a place of great trade. Being, as they 
 phrase it, the " jumping off place," it is necessarily the 
 resort of desperate, wicked, and strange creatures, 
 who wish to fly away from poverty, infamy, and 
 the laws, and those who have one, from conscience. 
 If I were to enter into any kind of detail of the sin- 
 gular scenes, that have been witnessed here, under the 
 different regimes, Spanish, French, and American, in 
 its different stages of a pastoral, hunting, and com- 
 mercial existence ; and from the period when its navi- 
 gation was conducted in canoes, hollowed from trees, to 
 the stately steam-boat ; if I could describe its Indian 
 powwows, its Spanish fandangos, its French balls, and 
 its American frolics, the different epaulets of the 
 Spanish, French, and American officers, and the 
 character, costume, and deportment of the mottled 
 damsels that attended them, I must be the " great 
 Unknown 55 to do it, and 1 must have ten volumes for 
 eibovv. Pity, that all this interesting matter should 
 be lost, for want of an historian. I wandered to its 
 
367 
 
 ancient grave-yard, and experienced indescribable 
 emotions, in trying to retrace mouldering monuments, 
 where the inscriptions were originally coarse, and are 
 now illegible, where Spanish, French, Americans, In- 
 dians, Catholics and Protestants lie in mingled confu- 
 sion. 
 
 I passed two weeks here, receiving daily invita- 
 tions to entertainments by the hospitable citizens of 
 this place. The luxury of the table is understood and 
 practised in great perfection. I was charmed with 
 the singing and playing of two young ladies in this 
 place, the one Spanish, the other American. While 
 here, I witnessed a sad spectacle, which left a deep im- 
 pression, and which I will take leave to relate. A 
 French surgeon, of the name of Prevot, who was 
 said to have received a regular education to his profes- 
 sion in France, came here at the age, probably, of 
 thirty-six. He was arrested, treated with gross and 
 unwarrantable indignity, and brought to this town for 
 commitment to jail. He was liberated on a writ of 
 habeas corpus, and conceived a deep purpose of re- 
 venge towards the district attorney, who made out the 
 instrument of his commitment. On a certain evening 
 he supped with this gentleman, and after supper walked 
 with him apart, challenged him, as he said, and offered 
 him his choice of weapons. Mr. Mills refused to fight 
 him, and, as he avers, added the epithet menteur, which 
 he said, no Frenchman could ever forgive. He drew 
 his dirk, and plunged it into the bosom of Mr. Mills, 
 giving him a wound, of which in a few minutes he ex- 
 pired. Prevot walked deliberately away to the bridge 
 that leads over the river, and was there arrested. He 
 was tried, and condemned some time in autumn, and had 
 been lying in prison under sentence of death until my 
 
368 
 
 arrival. Three days before his execution, I called up- 
 on him in prison, and offered him my services as a min- 
 ister. He inquired if I were a Catholic priest, inform- 
 ing me, that if I came, as he phrased it, with any of 
 the mummery of confession, mass, &c. he wished to 
 have nothing to say to me. I answered, that I was a 
 Protestant. He eagerly rejoined, " vous avez raison 
 done," adding, that he should be glad to see me. 
 He explained that he had been brought up in the 
 school of Voltaire and Delambert, and amidst the 
 storms of the revolution ; " a bad kind of discipline," 
 he rejoined, " to make a good christian." He averred, 
 that he did not repent of his murder, and that un- 
 der similar circumstances he should repeat the act. I 
 visited him repeatedly, and still found him in the same 
 frame of mind. He requested me to attend him to the 
 gallows. He was executed half a mile from the prison, 
 in the pine woods. A cart with a coffin was brought 
 to the prison, and in the midst of a vast concourse, the 
 poor w retch, after a long confinement in a dark prison, 
 was brought forth to die. He had a fine countenance, 
 was pale and emaciated, and was supposed to be still 
 under the influence of arsenic, by which he had attempt- 
 ed to poison himself the night before. The view of 
 a brilliant sun seemed to have a bewildering effect up- 
 on him. I persuaded him to walk rather than ride. 
 He took my arm, and we were a most melancholy 
 pair, the one as pale and feeble from disease as the 
 other was from long confinement and the scene before 
 him. As we ascended the bluffs to the pine woods, he 
 bowed gracefully, and with true French ease, to all 
 that he recognised among the assembled multitudes. 
 
 Arrived at the summit of the bluff, from which the 
 pleasant village and a vast extent of delightful scenery 
 
369 
 
 were visible, he gave a long and fixed look at the out- 
 stretched prospect before him. He then looked up to 
 the sky and the sun. He waved his head, with a 
 kind of convulsive shudder, as he seemed to be taking 
 his final leave of nature. " Ah !" said he, u je suis las 
 <3u coeur ; mais c'est pour la derniere fois." 6i I am op- 
 pressed at heart, but it is for the last time ! " When 
 we arrived at the gallows, he remarked, that it was a 
 spectacle terrible to poor, feeble human nature. u But 
 I must finish," said he, and we helped him mount 
 the cart. He then held out his hand and said, 66 Adieu, 
 ministre ! v I requested leave to pray, and prayed, ac- 
 cording to his wish, in English, which he did not under- 
 stand. But he seemed to understand the heart-felt 
 tone of the prayer. When it was finished, he seemed 
 softened, and begged me to say to the people, that he 
 asked the mercy of God, and died in charity with all 
 the world. He then added, with emphatic earnest- 
 ness, " Adieu, ministre ! je vous remercie." He then 
 desired the sheriff to proceed, and remonstrated against 
 longer delay. The moment before the cart was driven 
 from under him, he took out his snuff-box, took in 
 each nostril a large and deliberate pinch of snuff, was 
 returning his snuff-box to his waistcoat pocket, but 
 recollecting that he would have no further use for it, 
 he laid it down on the coffin, intimated that he was 
 ready, and was launched into eternity. 
 
 From Natchitoches, in company with Judge Bui- 
 lard, I made an excursion towards the Spanish fron- 
 tier. I had conceived that from Natchitoches to the 
 Sabine was a continued and uninhabited forest. But 
 our great country is found to have enlarged herself on 
 every side. To the garrison, Cantonment Jessup, and 
 
 thence to the Sabine, there is an excellent road ; the 
 
 47 
 
370 
 
 miles are numbered and marked, and there are houses, 
 many of them recent, at every short interval, quite to 
 the Spanish line. It is an undulating country, chiefly 
 pine, but with many springs, and spring branches, on 
 which there are bottoms of second rate land. We 
 passed the Rio Hondo, an inconsiderable stream, be- 
 tween which and the Sabine used to be the " debate- 
 able ?; country between the Spaniards and Americans. 
 We went out of the great road, " camino real," as it 
 used to be called, to visit the Spanish village of 
 Adayes. It is a curious collection of great, upright 
 log houses, plastered with mud, and having an appear- 
 ance very different from a French village of the same 
 character. The church was a mean log-building, with 
 four bells, some of them cracked, and pictures of 
 saints, that, from their horrible ugliness, might have 
 been taken for caricatures. The people had a distinct 
 physiognomy, and as my companion spoke Spanish 
 with fluency, I amused myself with observing the 
 countenance and gesture of this simple race of igno- 
 rant Creoles, in the eagerness of conversation. They 
 do not speak so rapidly as the French, have a kind of 
 listlessness of manner, and a great deal of guttural 
 sound in their speech. 
 
 It is a curiosity to see them make their bread. It 
 is made from maize, that has been boiled in weak lie, 
 which takes off the outer coat. The women have a 
 couple of stones, the one concave, and the other con- 
 vex ; the corn is placed in the cavity ; they mash 
 it, and grind it to an impalpable paste, and work the 
 paste into cakes in their hand, managing the whole 
 process and keeping time to a certain tune. One 
 woman will in this way grind and bake, so as to keep 
 six men in bread during their meal. These people 
 
371 
 
 are poor, and addicted to theft, but otherwise simple 
 and amiable in their manners, and carry their hospi- 
 tality to the greatest lengths. 
 
 In crossing the Rio Hondo we were lost in the 
 deep forest. We wandered to the right and to the 
 left, until my little strength was exhausted, and until 
 I was obliged to demand assistance in crossing the nu- 
 merous branches. To make my case worse, it began 
 to be cloudy and to rain. Weak as I was, and no 
 settlements that we knew of between us and the Gulf, 
 I began to imagine the condition of an invalid like me 
 left to perish in the woods. Fortunately my compan- 
 ion was in perfect health, well mounted, and used to 
 the woods. After wandering some miles amidst the 
 branches and cane-brake, we heard the bells of cattle, 
 and soon came upon a Spanish house, and inquired for 
 the " camino real," or king's road, that we had left. 
 Our Spaniard could point in the direction ; but although 
 he had been born and reared to maturity within a league 
 of the road, he could give us no measure of the dis- 
 tance. His most definite terms were, u a little way," 
 and " a great way." A Frenchman under the same 
 circumstances would have told us, that the distance was 
 u un pipe " — one pipe ; for they measure their distances 
 by the number of pipes that they smoke in traversing it. 
 
 We were most hospitably welcomed at " Canton- 
 ment Jessup," a post within twenty-five miles of the 
 Sabine, and situated the farthest to the southwest of 
 any in the United States. They have very comfort- 
 able quarters, two companies of soldiers, and a num- 
 ber of very gentlemanly officers, the whole under the 
 command of Col. Many. The water from the 
 southern extremity of the esplanade falls into the Sa- 
 bine, and from the northern, into Red River. It is 
 
372 
 
 of course the highest point between the /two rivers. 
 It produced singular sensations, to see all the pomp 
 and circumstance of military parade, and to hear the 
 notes of the drum and the fife, breaking the solitude 
 of the wilderness of the Sabine. By this garrison 
 passes the great road to the crossing on the Sabine. 
 Beyond that river the forest country continues thirty 
 miles. Then commence the vast prairies, or grass 
 plains, that reach to the Passo del Norte. The road 
 from the Sabine to Mexico is said to be very good, 
 passable with carriages, and the worst part of the 
 distance, in the valley of Mexico, within a short 
 distance of that city. The passing is already consid- 
 erable. Many of the young men in our region 
 have made excursions to that city. It is easy to see 
 that the improving spirit of the age, even in the 
 Mexican country, will soon make this a stage and a 
 mail route. 
 
 I intended here to have given you some idea of the 
 adjoining Spanish province of Texas. You are 
 aware of the circumstances that forbid the attempt. 
 I have collected some materials for the purpose. My 
 object was to have interwoven a narrative of the ill- 
 fated expedition to that country, in j 811, in which 
 many spirited and intelligent young men from the 
 United States were engaged. The object was, under 
 a Spanish republican leader, to revolutionize the in- 
 ternal provinces. By the royal force under Col. Ar- 
 redondo they were defeated, after they had obtained 
 many successes. Even the last action the Americans 
 contested gallantly, and would have gained it, but for 
 the cowardice and treachery of their Spanish allies. 
 Many were slain, and the rest endured inconceivable 
 hardships in arriving at the American frontier. 
 
373 
 
 Among the most distinguished men in Louisiana, are 
 some of the men that escaped from this defeat. 
 
 To this I would have added some account of Col. 
 Austin's settlement under the Spanish auspices,' on 
 the Brassos and the Colorado. Many Americans 
 have emigrated there. We saw them marching in 
 shoals for that country, which had become, like 
 " Boom's lick " of the upper country, a kind of cen- 
 tral point of union. Land is obtained for one " bit," 
 or twelve and an half cents an acre. There is some 
 timbered and bottom land ; but it is principally prairie. 
 The country is represented as fine for corn, cotton, 
 and the sugar cane. The soil is fertile and the 
 climate genial and salubrious. But all these de- 
 tails must be reserved for another time, and a firm- 
 er hand. 
 
 I returned to Natchitoches, and found myself una- 
 ble to descend to Alexandria on horse-back. I sent 
 down my horse by land, took a steam-boat, and reach- 
 ed my family, having experienced very little benefit 
 from my long excursion. My illness continued, and 
 as the sultry weather ' commenced the first of March, 
 my strength visibly declined. The sun became too 
 intense for riding on horse- back. It seemed to be ad- 
 mitted that medicine was of no avail. In these re- 
 gions, the last resort in such cases is a journey, or a 
 voyage to the North. My physician, my friends, 
 my family, united in representing this as the only re- 
 maining expedient for me. To an exhausted invalid, 
 who had been for years sustained by the most assid- 
 uous nursing and care, it seemed a formidable exper- 
 iment to commit, myself to such a great journey, and 
 to separate myself from every friend. 
 
374 
 
 You can readily imagine all the struggles of my 
 mind under these circumstances. You know enough 
 of my habits to be aware how often, in my days of 
 distress and my nights of watching, I laid my case 
 before Him, who alone can help ; how often, in the vi- 
 brations of feeling, different determinations would al- 
 ternately have the mastery. Sometimes I felt en- 
 couraged by the numerous records of cases, where in 
 disease as inveterate as mine, the sufferer had taken 
 this journey and found relief. In other frames it 
 seemed the only eligible course to remain, and if it 
 were so to be, to die in the bosom of my family. To 
 one point it is here a duty due to gratitude to testify 
 the unwearied kindness and attentions of my friends. 
 A carriage, a horse, a servant, all the little delicacies 
 so necessary to the fastidious appetite of an invalid, 
 were constantly furnished me by my friends. Kind- 
 nesses of every sort may be rendered, and the heart 
 may swell with grateful thoughts, which cannot 
 clothe themselves in words, and yet disease go steadi- 
 ly on. So it was with me. I saw that I could not 
 long survive in that region. I determined to disen- 
 gage myself from my family, cast myself on the care of 
 God, and commence a journey of twenty-five hundred 
 miles for my native land, looking forward as the most 
 fortunate consummation, that I had a right to hope, 
 to revisit the scenes and the friends of my first years, 
 and after so much wandering and toil, to be buried by 
 the " graves of my father and my mother." 
 
 I commenced this journey Monday the fourth day 
 of April last. It is unnecessary for me to speak of the 
 forced cheerfulness of my family and my friends, the 
 presages of people, who talked with confidence in 
 their words to me, and who instantly used a different 
 
375 
 
 language among themselves. Friendship and kind- 
 ness could do nothing for me that was not done. A 
 kind neighbour was to accompany me as far as Balti- 
 more. The morning sun shone brightly. The bell 
 had struck for calling together the pupils in the sem- 
 inary. They bade me farewell in the court-yard. My 
 family accompanied me to the steps. Perhaps the 
 hardest parting of the whole was with a little fellow 
 between three and four, with a dark Spanish counte- 
 nance, but a brilliant eye, that easily kindles with joy 
 or is suffused with a tear, according to the passing 
 emotion. He is our Joseph, born to us after an inter- 
 val of fourteen years, except the infant which we 
 lost on the Mississippi. He was marching in the 
 court-yard with his military hat and feather, clad in a 
 new suit, and with a tin sword, given to keep him away 
 from this painful business of parting. But he had 
 come, and saw that there was restrained emotion, and 
 uncommon countenances. He came up to me and 
 asked, why mama and sister looked so strange. I 
 kissed him, not daring even to turn back, or cast 
 one " longing, lingering look behind and sustain- 
 ed by my two sons, went on board the steam-boat 
 Natchitoches, bound for Natchez, parted from my 
 sons, took my birth, heard the parting gun fired on 
 the bow T , and instantly felt, that we were descending 
 the river. 
 
 On the way to Natchez we had a violent gust and 
 thunder storm at midnight. Our boat was leaky, 
 crowded with passengers, and excessively uncomfort- 
 able. My fellow passengers, during the commotion of 
 the elements, gambled, were some of them very drunk, 
 and most of them noisy, and it seemed to me, that 
 my hour was come. I was sustained to Natchez, and 
 
376 
 
 here received great kindness, and was visited by two 
 of the respectable physicians of that place, who fur- 
 nished me such medicines, and gave me such counsel, 
 as my case seemed to require. The day after my ar- 
 rival here, I took passage on board the steam-boat 
 Grecian for Louisville. She was a fine, roomy boat, 
 and carried, it was said, two hundred and fifty pas- 
 sengers. But most of them were deck passengers, 
 and the cabin was not crowded. I found a pleasant 
 company on board, and every attention that I could 
 desire. Our boat had high power, and was capable of 
 making rapid headway against the headiong current. 
 The trees were in full foliage. We ran for the most 
 part so as to graze the margin of willows, and were 
 continually raking the tender branches and flowers on 
 to our guards. Had I possessed the least elasticity, 
 or capacity for cheerfulness, this passage under such 
 pleasant circumstances, and at this delightful season, 
 would have cheered me. There were some glori- 
 ous mornings, when we saw the river studded with 
 ascending and descending boats, heard the bugle note, 
 the cheerfulness of life on the shore, and inhaled the 
 odours of the blossoming forest ; such mornings as 
 won id almost create a " soul beneath the ribs of 
 death." But a languid and sinking nature passes, as 
 1 did, through all these circumstances of joy, incapa- 
 ble of seeing or feeling them. Little of incident oc- 
 curred on this passage. The noisy and thoughtless 
 mirth of healthy and happy people, crowded together 
 in such a place, you will readily conceive would strike 
 a key, not at all in unison with my feelings. Impa- 
 tience induced me in the morning to wish for evening, 
 and in the evening for morning, and when I laid my- 
 self in my solitary birth, it was my custom, after my 
 
377 
 
 better thoughts had communed with God, to take a 
 mental leave of my family and the world, for in the 
 evening it often seemed to me doubtful if I should sur- 
 vive until the morning. On the eleventh we passed 
 the place where our babe lies buried, and at midnight 
 of the fourteenth, we arrived at Louisville. The trip 
 which we had now performed in ten days, lying by 
 two nights of those days for fog, used formerly to oc- 
 cupy twenty-five days of the first steam-boats that 
 ascended the river. We had come on an average 
 more than an hundred miles a day, against the whole 
 weight of the Mississippi current. I had remarked, 
 as soon as we began to pass the high lands on the 
 Ohio, the wonderful change, which ten years had 
 wrought in that region. The log-houses were gone, 
 and replaced by houses of brick. The orchards, 
 which were just planted when I descended the Ohio, 
 had become thrifty trees of considerable size, and were 
 now white with blossoms. Passing steam-boats, thriv- 
 ing villages, bustle and business had taken place of 
 the solitude and stillness of the same places at the for- 
 mer period. Louisville had grown to be a fine town. 
 The ware-houses, the stores, the smell at the landing- 
 even, the ship-yards, all indicated the mercantile char- 
 acter, the great and growing importance of the place. 
 The Ohio was too low for the Spartan to proceed 
 over the falls. We took carriages, went round the falls, 
 and embarked on board the Pike, a beautiful and 
 swift steam-boat, bound to Cincinnati. The distance 
 is one hundred and fifty miles, and we arrived there 
 against the current of the Ohio in something less than 
 a day. 
 
 I w T as still more struck with the changes at Cincin- 
 nati, than at Louisville. A number of steam-boats 
 48 
 
378 
 
 were building here. I went on board the Belvidere, 
 a most beautiful boat, which had just been completed. 
 We are certainly making great strides in luxury. 
 Nothing could evidence this more strikingly than to 
 see such a boat, so fitted up, and with so much splen- 
 dour, and in the ladies' cabin a fine piano, and all this 
 in the harbour of a town at such a distance from the 
 sea, and as yet scarcely forty years old. In the morn- 
 ing after my arrival, I was just able to make my 
 way to the market, and the abundance, bustle, and 
 cheerfulness of the spectacle amused me for a mo- 
 ment. The increase of this place is wonderful. It 
 is supposed now to number above sixteen-thousand in- 
 habitants. 
 
 I experienced here the kindest attentions of my rel- 
 atives and friends, for I have relatives here. Dr. D., 
 one of the respectable physicians of this place, visited 
 me, and gave me medicine and counsel. I staid here 
 two days, and then embarked on board the Ohio, an 
 ordinary steam-boat, but the only one that in the 
 present low stage of the water coula mount to Wheel- 
 ing. The Pike had been full of passengers. The 
 Ohio was crowded to overflowing. In our country at 
 this time, the community seems to be gathered into 
 steam-boats and stages. On my passage to Wheeling, 
 my complaint took a new form, which weakened me 
 extremely. But through the sustaining goodness of 
 God, I arrived at that place. Could I have had cheer- 
 fulness to be capable of reflecting, I should have found 
 sufficient food for thought, in contemplating at every 
 step as I advanced, the improvement on the Ohio. 
 Cesar said, that he found Rome of brick, and left it 
 of marble. I found the Ohio, ten years before, with 
 log-houses, and wooden benches. There were now 
 
S79 
 
 brick houses, ornamented court-yards, trellis-wrought 
 summer-houses, fruit-gardens, and within, carpets, 
 side-boards, and sofas. Wheeling, when I descended, 
 was a smoky, mis-shapen village. When I returned, 
 there were lines of massive brick buildings, and in the 
 hotel where I lodged was an establishment on a footing 
 with the first class of Atlantic houses of the same 
 kind. Every thing denoted opulence, and the most 
 careful attention to convenience and comfort. There 
 were other establishments, equally large and expen- 
 sive. I might have foreseen all this, but still it struck 
 me with somewhat the same surprize, as a rustic 
 reared in the country, would feel in being sud- 
 denly transported to the centre of a city. I reposed 
 here one day. There were a great number of pas- 
 sengers in the steam-boat Ohio, who were bound over 
 the mountains. All the carriages, beside the mail 
 coaches, were put in requisition. We made up a pri- 
 vate party, and took a carriage to go the first day as 
 far as Washington. It was my first experiment of my 
 capacity for travelling by land. 
 
 The great national road from the Ohio to Balti- 
 more commences here. It is one of the noblest mon- 
 uments of the power and munificence of our govern- 
 ment. To understand and appreciate the grandeur 
 and the utility of this work, one must have contem- 
 plated the Allegany ridges and cliffs, from one hun- 
 dred and fifty to two hundred miles in extent, and must 
 have crossed these mountains to Pittsburg, as I did, 
 ten years before. There are simple, but noble free- 
 stone bridges over Wheeling creek, which meanders 
 across the direction of the road, a great number of 
 times. Ten miles from Wheeling, there is a massive 
 stone monument to Mr. Clay, considered here as the 
 
380 
 
 projector, and the efficient patron of this road. It is 
 smooth and well railed, where the sides are precipi- 
 tous. The angles of ascent are no where sharp. 
 Every thing appertaining to the road is in that style of 
 simple and durable grandeur, that begins to be the 
 characteristic mark of our public works. 
 
 At Washington I was so exhausted, as to be una- 
 ble to proceed. Here I took medicine and applied a 
 large blister, rather an unpleasant application for a 
 sick man, jolting up and down mountains in a stage. 
 
 Washington is a large and pleasant village in Penn- 
 sylvania, and the seat of a college which promises to be 
 useful to literature. It would be repetition to say, 
 that I found great kindness and attention during the 
 two days that I spent here. Our road led us through 
 Brownsville, formerly Red-stone. Here the road 
 crosses the Monongahela, about a quarter of a mile in 
 width. There is a fine bridge over the river ; but 
 our driver, to avoid the toll, chose to ford it, to the 
 manifest danger of having carriage and horses carried 
 down the stream. Here you see again the imperish- 
 able stone houses, and barns of Pennsylvania. The 
 tavern at which we stopped was an excellent house, 
 and in high order. Indeed this town of Brownsville, 
 by no means one of the most considerable in this re- 
 gion, would surprise an Atlantic inhabitant, who has 
 been accustomed to associate with this country the 
 ideas of rudeness and poverty. The country is in high 
 cultivation, and the fields and orchards are delightful. 
 Beyond this place we soon begin to ascend the moun- 
 tains. We have fine taverns, and good entertainment 
 all the way over the mountains. We were driven 
 down the most considerable of them, a distance of 
 between four and five miles, at a furious rate, and at 
 
381 
 
 midnight, and just on the verge of precipices, that it 
 would be fearful to look down upon at mid-day. I 
 suffered more than I can describe-* from weakness and 
 exhaustion. We crossed the Potomac, staid a night 
 at Frederick, and I was cheered at last w ith a distant 
 view of the Atlantic regions. There are few pleas- 
 anter tracts in the United States, than the charming 
 and fertile valley of Conecocheague in Maryland. 
 Surveyors and engineers were surveying this rout, 
 with a view to locating the position of a canal, to 
 unite the tide waters of Virginia with the Ohio. I 
 found Hagarstown a much larger and pleasanter place 
 than I had anticipated. 1 arrived safely at Baltimore, 
 though extremely exhausted in body and mind. At 
 Philadelphia I staid some days, experiencing many- 
 kindnesses from the people to whom I was intro- 
 duced. Here I consulted the benevolent and celebrat- 
 ed Dr. Physic, the u Magnus Apollo " of the Phila- 
 delphians. In passing from Baltimore to New York, 
 a track too beaten for me to hazard any remarks upon, 
 the only subject that occurs to me worthy of reflection 
 is the astonishing facilities afforded to travellers for 
 passing rapidly. On this route, as on the Ohio, the 
 steam-boats, the stages, the hotels, were crowded- 
 The community seemed to be all passing on the road. 
 The same reflection forced itself upon me on my pas- 
 sage to Boston by the way of Providence. 
 
 Having arrived in Boston and met some friends, 
 who are very dear to me,, and from whom I part- 
 ed between ten and eleven years before, as I departed 
 for the West, I could see by the very attempt to sup- 
 press surprize and exclamation, how time and disease 
 had changed my countenance. We become so gradu- 
 ally accustomed to the changes which such causes op 
 
382 
 
 erate upon us, as not, of ourselves, to be conscious 
 how great they are. But they are immediately and 
 painfully obvious to him, who sees the alteration of 
 ten years fall upou his eye at a single glance. A few 
 hours brought me to you, my dear friend, and having 
 accomplished the object of my prayers, having seen 
 again my earliest and most constant friend, I felt in 
 that joyful hour of meeting, as though, could I have 
 had my family with me, miserable as my health was, 
 I should have been the happiest of ihe happy. But 
 at the end of this long pilgrimage, with more than two 
 thousand miles interposed between me and my family, 
 your countenance, and that of my other friends, told 
 me but too plainly, that these halcyon hours were 
 not expected to be long repeated. There are no con- 
 stant things here, but disappointments and tears. 
 Happy for us, that there remaineth a rest for the peo- 
 ple of God. 
 
 Cincinnati, Sept. 1825. 
 
 You requested me, at parting, to give you my views 
 of the changes in the moral and physical aspect of 
 New England, during the last ten years, as they 
 struck me in returning to that country. The survey 
 which I took of it, during the summer, was extensive 
 though cursory, and probably the view will be the 
 discoloured one, which resulted from sickly and jaun- 
 diced vision. It shall at least have the merit of brevi- 
 ty. I passed from Providence, by the way of Paw- 
 tucket, to Boston. I inquired respecting the huge 
 
383 
 
 buildings which rose around me in the distance, A 
 stranger, who had heard of the earnestness and as- 
 perity of your religious investigations, might have 
 deemed, that you had at last invented a new worship, 
 and that these buildings were the temples. And so in 
 truth I found it, the worship of the golden shrine, 
 and that the numberless craftsmen, who wrought for 
 " Diana of the Ephesians," were mechanicians and 
 manufacturers. 
 
 I remember that in conversing upon this subject, 
 we thought alike upon the tendency of this system of 
 manufactures, which is destined to produce so great a 
 change in your country. Hundreds of children of 
 both sexes are reared together, amidst the incessant 
 and bewildering clatter and whirl of machinery. They 
 breathe a heated and an unnatural air, an atmosphere, if 
 I may so say, of cotton. Their minds are unoccupied. 
 But there is morbid excitement for the passions, that 
 keeps pace with the activity of the fingers. We are told 
 that the inhabitants of the great manufacturing estab- 
 lishments abroad are generally depraved. Notwith- 
 standing all the strict, moral, and benevolent provis- 
 ions to counteract this state of things in our country, 
 we much fear that the same result will take place 
 here. 
 
 With Mr. Jefferson, we think highly of the moral 
 influence of agriculture, of labouring God's earth, and 
 breathing His free air as a freehold cultivator. In 
 " green pastures," beside " cool streams/' and in the 
 solitude of nature, salutary thoughts and feelings are 
 naturally inspired. Healthful mental developement 
 results from that vigorous exercise of the frame, that 
 supply of every excitement to virtuous thinking, 
 and that removal from temptation, which are found in 
 
384 
 
 such pursuits. It was in such schools that the past 
 and passing generation was reared. The men of those 
 days grew up in turning the glebe. The daughters 
 of that day had not formed taper fingers, blanched 
 cheeks and slender forms in walking minuets in the 
 aisles of cotton factories, and amidst the dizzying whirl 
 of a thousand wheels. I discerned a new, numerous, 
 and evidently distinct mass of population, spread over 
 the face of New England. In all directions, the num- 
 ber of stage coaches is five times multiplied, and they 
 are full of young men and women, belonging to these 
 establishments, passing to and fro. Not only do 
 we see detached factories, but towns, like Jonah's 
 gourd, have sprung up in a night. May the ultimate 
 fruit of all this be better than our fears, and the omen 
 happy ! Be the tendency of this order of things what 
 it may in other respects, one obvious good grows out 
 of it : the ties of the cradle, of the father's house, 
 and of early life, are not rudely broken off. The sur- 
 plus population accumulates around the place of their 
 birth, and the graves of their fathers. The dense- 
 ness of the population, the consequent improvement 
 and embellishment, the spirit-stirring bustle and life 
 are delightful accompaniments. 
 
 Of all the cities that I have seen, the greatest 
 change seems to have taken place, where least has 
 been said of it, in Boston. It has not, indeed, extend- 
 ed its area, like New York, nor has it, like Cincin- 
 nati, sprung up, de novo. But its lofty houses are 
 reared in the air. Its churches, and many of its pri- 
 vate mansions, present the imposing front and the 
 massive columns of your beautiful and everlasting 
 granite. They have an air of solidity and grandeur 
 which I felt, if I cannot describe. Marble may be im- 
 
385 
 
 itated, and has, besides, a semblance of fragility in its 
 texture. But this article is the right material, with 
 which to form a beautiful and an " eternal " city. In 
 Boston, too, there seems a greater concentration of 
 bustle, business, and life, than in any other city. 
 There is an air of nobleness in the recent erections 
 there, which I have not seen elsewhere. Other towns 
 have outstripped it in extent and population ; but in 
 wealth, in enterprise, in the grandeur of its mansions 
 and churches, it seems to me still to retain its proud 
 preeminence. In hospitality, in that order of things, 
 which from the beginning has made it the paradise of 
 ministers, and more than all in the exercise of those 
 noble charities, in which, envied as it is at the South, 
 it is admitted to have no compeer, its ascendency is 
 still indisputable. General intelligence and taste have 
 more than kept pace with its improvement in other 
 respects. This is not inferred from the number of pa- 
 pers, and literary productions, which, I suppose, have 
 quadrupled in ten years, but from the higher order of 
 thought, reasoning, and style, that pervade those works. 
 Fine writing may be found in every paper. The 
 cumbrous inanity, or the tiresome insipidity, that used 
 to fill the papers, has disappeared. That perverse and 
 wicked, but witty paper, the 66 Galaxy," furnishes con- 
 tinual and brilliant samples of shrewdness, sarcasm, 
 and, when it chooses, of good sense, upon all its sub- 
 jects of discussion. The " Sufferings of the Country 
 Schoolmaster," which we read together in that paper, 
 we deemed, you remember, at the time of reading, to 
 be a work of unrivalled humour in its kind. The re- 
 gion where the columns of papers can be filled with 
 productions of that order, and this by young men, un- 
 49 
 
386 
 
 known, and 44 fools to fame," must be wonderfully 
 prolific in intellect. Boston, out of question, is the 
 American Athens. 
 
 When I left you, the old brass knocker still rung 
 for admission to the greater part of the best houses. 
 The door-bell was considered an aristocratic and En- 
 glish innovation. What would have been thought in 
 that day, of sea-captains, mechanics, and the middling 
 classes of society, leaving cards, instead of making a 
 call ? Many of the observances that seem now per- 
 manently interwoven with the forms of society, are 
 undoubtedly improvements. There is more ease, 
 more grace, more comfort, and a nobler air in the 
 drawing-room, and at the table. And as ah the peo- 
 ple, that can afford to travel, are on the road, the ca- 
 nal, and the steam-boat, and in the fashionable resorts ; 
 as we have carried the desire of travelling to a pas- 
 sion and a fever, it happens that models of grace and 
 propriety are soon copied, and that these copies are 
 again multiplied a thousand fold in every direction. 
 You look in vain in these crowded resorts, for rude- 
 ness, affectation, and ignorance. Every body seems 
 to have caught the forms of society. Impertinent, 
 quarrelsome, and noisy men, drunkards and ruffians, 
 that used to form such a considerable portion of the 
 mass in public meetings, seem to be an extinct gen- 
 eration. On all the great roads and places of public 
 meeting, the aspect of every thing is politeness and 
 peace. 
 
 Nothing struck me more, than the obvious march of 
 this order of things in the country. You will hardly 
 meet with a farmer's daughter, who cannot keep up a 
 sustained conversation, in good set phrase, upon any 
 
387 
 
 given subject. We know a town, almost in sight of 
 the smoke of Boston, which in the days of our hoy- 
 hood was one of the " dark corners." They relate, 
 that, when we were children, a coach passed through 
 a by-place in this town. A daughter asked her moth- 
 er the name of the fine carriage that was passing. 
 The old lady, who had previously made the same in- 
 quiry, and had not rightly caught the word, told her 
 daughter that the thing, which was passing, was a 
 church. In that same town, where at that time a 
 coach was so rare an object, as to be mistaken for a 
 church, light is now let in upon the dark places, by 
 turnpikes, a number of daily mail-coaches, and the 
 continual passing of private carriages. All the equip- 
 ments of fine ladies and beaux have found their way 
 there. It may be only a fancy in me ; but 1 looked 
 in vain for the plump form, the round, ruddy, pretty, 
 but unthinking Saxon face of the farmers' daughters 
 of other days. These faces are now perpetuated only 
 on the old clocks ; and in lieu of them we have in- 
 sect forms, long and pale visages, covered with ca- 
 lash bonnets, a race apparently an importation from 
 Italy. 
 
 Soon after my return, I made a pilgrimage to the 
 town, of which, for fourteen years of the morning 
 and prime of my life, I was the minister. I dare not 
 trust my feelings in details of a journey, which, in 
 every point of view, must have been to such a travel- 
 ler so full of harrowing interest. There I began my 
 active career. There 1 had preached, visited the 
 sick, and followed the dead to their last home, and 
 for so many years performed in peace and privacy 
 the interesting functions of a minister. Most of the 
 
388 
 
 young generation 1 had christened. I could easily 
 swell this letter with incidents, but I forbear. One 
 thing only I may be permitted to record, and that 
 for the honour of human nature. All that ought to 
 have been remembered by my former people in my 
 favour, was remembered. All that in those days of 
 inexperience, of untamed youth and temperament, 
 related to me, which I could have wished forgotten? 
 seemed to have been completely consigned to oblivi- 
 on. In my feebleness, in the traces of disease, and 
 suffering, and travel, and sultry and sickly climate, 
 worn so visibly into my countenance, they saw re- 
 turned to them one, who had long been, in their hum- 
 ble annals, a personage of history, and who was 
 now greeted as one who had come back from the 
 grave. One burst of affectionate remembrance was 
 manifested by the whole people. I felt painfully, 
 that in wandering from that rustic, but feeling peo- 
 ple, I had wandered from home. This excitement, 
 so many recollections, alternately delightful and pain- 
 ful, stories of the living, the suffering, and the dead, 
 the necessity of conversing w 7 ith so many, soon re- 
 newed my indisposition, and I was compelled to has- 
 ten away. The remembrance of this visit, and of 
 the associations called up by it, are registered too 
 deeply in my memory, ever to be forgotton. 
 
 In this interior region I discovered much alteration 
 and change for the better ; improved farms, in- 
 creased cultivation, new and good houses, and one 
 change, which to me was an omen of any thing, rath- 
 er than good. In most of the villages there were 
 spires of two churches, where there used to be but 
 one, and where but one was needed. I returned to 
 
389 
 
 Salem by East Chelmsford. This place struck me 
 with more surprise, than any I had yet seen. I used 
 often to travel that way, and there were but one or 
 two houses, barren pine woods, vocal only with the 
 scream of blue-jays. Now an extended town opened 
 upon my view. I had, for many miles back, heard 
 the explosions of the labourers blasting their rocks, 
 like the repeated discharges of artillery. An hun- 
 dred buildings, we were told, were going up. There 
 was one fine church of stone, others of wood, and the 
 huge factories were ranged, block beyond block. 
 Newspapers were printed here. Articles of all sorts 
 for sale, were puffed in the usual style. The clank 
 of forging machinery rung in my ears, and there were 
 the noise, confusion, and clatter, of an incipient Ba- 
 bel. The mansion of the superintendent seemed in 
 princely style. I have yet seen no town, whose 
 recent growth can compare with this. Pawtucket 
 and Waltham are very great recent establishments. 
 So, I am told, is Dover, in New Hampshire. But 
 they all fall far behind this place, in every point of 
 view. 
 
 There is not a doubt in my mind, that this new de- 
 velopement of the resources of the country, together 
 with the increased facilities of travelling, the aug- 
 mented calls for expenditure, and temptations to it, 
 the greater value of money in procuring what was 
 but luxury at first, but which has now become neces- 
 sary, have furnished new excitements to avarice. 
 You can perceive in New England, that the wits of 
 the people are doubly sharpened in all the arts of 
 money-getting. Have we not to fear, that this rage 
 for travelling, this manufacturing and money-getting 
 
390 
 
 impulse, and the new modes of reasoning and acting, 
 will overturn your puritan institutions ? New En- 
 gland founded her empire of industry and opinion, 
 not in natural, but moral resources, in her ancient 
 habits, and her ancient strictness, her schools, her 
 economy and industry, her stable and perennial hab- 
 its of worship. Should these be changed, as I much 
 fear this new order of things is changing them, it will 
 then be written upon the tablet of her forsaken tem- 
 ples, " the glory is departed." 
 
 One commencing improvement in the country is 
 worthy of all praise. You are beginning to build, 
 not only churches, and factories, and mansions, but 
 common houses, and cottages, of your granite, which 
 you possess in profusion. It is wonderful, that a 
 people, in intellect so much in advance of the Ger- 
 mans of the middle states, and in view of their no- 
 ble stone houses and barns, should have continued, 
 age after age, to have thought of building nothing 
 more permanent, than houses of shingles, clap-boards, 
 and paint, when the very circumstance of the incum- 
 brance of the rocks on the surface, called for some 
 place, where they might be disposed of out of the 
 way. Had this been an universal custom a hundred 
 years ago, millions of dollars of permanent property 
 would be now on your soil, to be transmitted to the 
 generations to come. I am a true son of New En- 
 gland. 1 shall love her to the last, and I shall ear- 
 nestly wish, that she may retain all her ancient in- 
 stitutions, that are not absolutely out of relation with 
 the spirit of the age ; that every particle of sweat, 
 and every blow of labour there, may count for pos- 
 terity, and that her granite dwellings may be sym- 
 
391 
 
 bols of the perpetuity of those good old ways, in 
 which we were reared, and which have made that 
 sterile and chilly region, the envy and the glory of 
 all lands. 
 
 You will not have forgotten the delightful trip 
 which we made together to Saratoga springs. You 
 cannot but remember the delightful evening, when 
 the steam-boat that carried us, rounded Point Ju- 
 dith. Together we remarked the wonderful vari- 
 ety of character, costume, manners, and conversation, 
 which are witnessed in those vessels. There were 
 crowded together fine ladies, beaux, the simple, the 
 affected, the strutting, all watching their several 
 opportunities for display. There was the terrible 
 French Colonel, with his prodigious mustachios, and 
 his fierce and malignant sneer. There, too, was the 
 good old lady from the West, my sister traveller, so 
 earnestly wishing an introduction to the French Colo- 
 nel. She was describing New England, its men, 
 manners, land and water, its nature and art, for the 
 amusement of the southern and western people, and 
 was inquiring of us, if the water, on which we were 
 wafted, between Providence and Newport, was salt 
 or fresh. Together we explored and gazed upon the 
 American Tyre, New York. We threw ourselves in- 
 to the ascending current of life, that was setting 
 from the city towards the springs. Our own steam- 
 boat was crowded. All that we passed, ascending 
 or returning, were equally so. We could compare 
 the moving multitudes to nothing, but the flight and 
 departure of clouds of gregarious birds. You had 
 heard the assertion, that amidst all this mass, the in- 
 dividuals, distinctly contemplated, showed in their 
 
392 
 
 countenance, manner, and air, a distinct impress of 
 their nation, climate, pursuits, and even the general 
 workings of the mind, and the passions. We had an 
 opportunity to bring this assertion in many instances 
 to the test of experiment. We never mistook the 
 German for the Frenchman, the inhabitant of the 
 South for him of the North, the morose for the so- 
 cial, nor the stupid for the intelligent. In every case 
 of trial, we found on inquiry, and in conversation, 
 our anticipations upon these subjects fully verified. 
 Not one in a thousand but what carries about him the 
 sign, the index, of what is for disposal within. 
 
 Even at the distance of time and place, in which 
 I am writing, I recur with delight to the remem- 
 brance of the enthusiasm, with which you surveyed 
 the grand and varied elevations on North River, its 
 sublime scenery, the rich cultivation, and the embow- 
 ered mansions in the distance, the beautiful nature 
 that surrounded us, and the mildness of the delight- 
 ful season, and the overhanging sky. Such pleasures, 
 so enjoyed with a friend, are twice enjoyed in the re- 
 membrance. At Albany, we enjoyed the " rus in op- 
 pido," of the seats of Kane and Rensselaer, the soli- 
 tude, the pine forest, the repose, and range for the 
 lovers of covered walks and wild woods, in the midst 
 of a town, as much for the time being, perhaps, as 
 the owners themselves. On the canal we saw for 
 ourselves, the achievements of labour and art, of which 
 we had heard so much. This grand work naturally 
 excites a feeling of sublimity, when we compare it 
 with the infancy of our country, with the fresh re- 
 gion, through which it stretches its long line, but a 
 short time since a wilderness, and on the banks of 
 
393 
 
 which towns and villages start up, as if by enchant- 
 ment. We were carried together over the wide, rap- 
 id, and precipitous Mohawk, sailing far above the 
 rush of its waters in their rocky bed. We sailed 
 along this river in the air. Other boats were cross- 
 ing our path, and we could mutually look down upon 
 the foam of the ancient river, rolling along its waters 
 under the river upon which we were moving. When 
 we saw the canal crossing the Mohawk, we admitted 
 that nothing seems impossible to the union of intel- 
 lectual and physical power. 
 
 You have not forgotton, I dare say, the neat and 
 light boat, in which we moved so leisurely upon the 
 canal. We saw a table spread, but no visible means 
 of preparing dinner. You remember the anxiety and 
 impatience of some of our hungry ones. But all 
 in good time, we moored for a moment beside the 
 good ship, " Betsy Cook," quietly stationed in a notch 
 in the canal. She opened her window, and in three 
 minutes gave us ample supplies. We thanked her, 
 went on, and dined to the content of all. 
 
 The town at Saratoga springs is one of a hundred 
 of the growth of but a few past years. There are 
 now a continued street, and spacious buildings, where, 
 at the time I was last there, the wind played in the 
 tops of the pines. This seems to be the great centre 
 of American fashionable travel. Here, I apprehend, 
 is to be seen the fairest sample of the better class 
 through the United States. Here we see them as 
 they are. At home, they are g»aduated to their cir- 
 cle. Self-restraint and the forms of society keep 
 the workings of nature in the sanctuary from being 
 visible in the countenance and the manner. Here 
 50 , 
 
394 
 
 the circle is new. The old restraints are thrown 
 away, and in the necessity of a new modification 
 and adjustment of the passions and feelings, the in- 
 ward nature peeps out, and is caught in the fact. 
 Here you see what is going on in the microcosm. 
 What bustle, and display, and expense, and frivolity ! 
 How evident it is, that man is of some account to him- 
 self, if to no other person ! Here there is brought, full 
 in your view, the great change, which the American 
 character has recently undergone. A lover of the 
 country cannot but regret to see, that we are making 
 such rapid strides in extravagance and luxury. But 
 the downward progress at least seems a pleasant one. 
 Every one in chase of pleasure seems ashamed to ac- 
 knowledge, that he cannot run her down. All affect 
 to be happy. Here you may meet with delightful as- 
 sociates from every region of the Union. A painful 
 appendage to most of these transient but pleasant in- 
 timacies is the reflection, that you meet, are pleased 
 with each other, part with regret, and can expect to 
 meet no more on the earth. 
 
 And such, my dear friend, in fact, are all human ties. 
 Feeble as I was, and without the expectation of ever 
 regaining my health, I bless God, that I had enough of 
 comfort to enjoy the extensive excursion, which we 
 took together. Our country is no longer the wooden 
 one, which it was in our early days. It is great al- 
 ready, and may it be happy. What will it be in half 
 a century to come? For myself, I shall not forget 
 the last pleasant summer — pleasant even under all my 
 endurances. I have two ways to look for enjoyment, 
 forward to a better country, in hope, and backward in 
 treasured and pleasant remembrances ; and there is not 
 a brighter spot in my past existence, than the past sum- 
 
395 
 
 mer. The mellow satisfactions of people, who re- 
 flect, as well as feel, which have been sobered by vi- 
 cissitude, time and care, are more pleasant in the re- 
 collection, than the evanescent gayeties of youth. In 
 the hope that you, also, will look back, not without 
 some satisfaction, upon your wanderings with your in- 
 valid friend, and the kindness and care, which you 
 exerted in his behalf, I wish you an affectionate fare- 
 well. 
 
 THE END* 
 
4