linen, which was in some cases as yellow as the little rivulets
that had trickled from the corners of their mouths in chewing, and
dried there. Nor was the atmosphere quite free from zephyr
whisperings of the thirty beds which had just been cleared away,
and of which we were further and more pressingly reminded by the
occasional appearance on the table-cloth of a kind of Game, not
mentioned in the Bill of Fare.
And yet despite these oddities - and even they had, for me at
least, a humour of their own - there was much in this mode of
travelling which I heartily enjoyed at the time, and look back upon
with great pleasure. Even the running up, bare-necked, at five
o'clock in the morning, from the tainted cabin to the dirty deck;
scooping up the icy water, plunging one's head into it, and drawing
it out, all fresh and glowing with the cold; was a good thing. The
fast, brisk walk upon the towing-path, between that time and
breakfast, when every vein and artery seemed to tingle with health;
the exquisite beauty of the opening day, when light came gleaming
off from everything; the lazy motion of the boat, when one lay idly
on the deck, looking through, rather than at, the deep blue sky;
the gliding on at night, so noiselessly, past frowning hills,
sullen with dark trees, and sometimes angry in one red, burning
spot high up, where unseen men lay crouching round a fire; the
shining out of the bright stars undisturbed by noise of wheels or
steam, or any other sound than the limpid rippling of the water as
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the boat went on: all these were pure delights.
Then there were new settlements and detached log-cabins and framehouses,
full of interest for strangers from an old country: cabins
with simple ovens, outside, made of clay; and lodgings for the pigs
nearly as good as many of the human quarters; broken windows,
patched with worn-out hats, old clothes, old boards, fragments of
blankets and paper; and home-made dressers standing in the open air
without the door, whereon was ranged the household store, not hard
to count, of earthen jars and pots. The eye was pained to see the
stumps of great trees thickly strewn in every field of wheat, and
seldom to lose the eternal swamp and dull morass, with hundreds of
rotten trunks and twisted branches steeped in its unwholesome
water. It was quite sad and oppressive, to come upon great tracts
where settlers had been burning down the trees, and where their
wounded bodies lay about, like those of murdered creatures, while
here and there some charred and blackened giant reared aloft two
withered arms, and seemed to call down curses on his foes.
Sometimes, at night, the way wound through some lonely gorge, like
a mountain pass in Scotland, shining and coldly glittering in the
light of the moon, and so closed in by high steep hills all round,
that there seemed to be no egress save through the narrower path by
which we had come, until one rugged hill-side seemed to open, and
shutting out the moonlight as we passed into its gloomy throat,
wrapped our new course in shade and darkness.
We had left Harrisburg on Friday. On Sunday morning we arrived at
the foot of the mountain, which is crossed by railroad. There are
ten inclined planes; five ascending, and five descending; the
carriages are dragged up the former, and let slowly down the
latter, by means of stationary engines; the comparatively level
spaces between, being traversed, sometimes by horse, and sometimes
by engine power, as the case demands. Occasionally the rails are
laid upon the extreme verge of a giddy precipice; and looking from
the carriage window, the traveller gazes sheer down, without a
stone or scrap of fence between, into the mountain depths below.
The journey is very carefully made, however; only two carriages
travelling together; and while proper precautions are taken, is not
to be dreaded for its dangers.
It was very pretty travelling thus, at a rapid pace along the
heights of the mountain in a keen wind, to look down into a valley
full of light and softness; catching glimpses, through the treetops,
of scattered cabins; children running to the doors; dogs
bursting out to bark, whom we could see without hearing: terrified
pigs scampering homewards; families sitting out in their rude
gardens; cows gazing upward with a stupid indifference; men in
their shirt-sleeves looking on at their unfinished houses, planning
out to-morrow's work; and we riding onward, high above them, like a
whirlwind. It was amusing, too, when we had dined, and rattled
down a steep pass, having no other moving power than the weight of
the carriages themselves, to see the engine released, long after
us, come buzzing down alone, like a great insect, its back of green
and gold so shining in the sun, that if it had spread a pair of
wings and soared away, no one would have had occasion, as I
fancied, for the least surprise. But it stopped short of us in a
very business-like manner when we reached the canal: and, before
we left the wharf, went panting up this hill again, with the
passengers who had waited our arrival for the means of traversing
the road by which we had come.
On the Monday evening, furnace fires and clanking hammers on the
banks of the canal, warned us that we approached the termination of
this part of our journey. After going through another dreamy place
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- a long aqueduct across the Alleghany River, which was stranger
than the bridge at Harrisburg, being a vast, low, wooden chamber
full of water - we emerged upon that ugly confusion of backs of
buildings and crazy galleries and stairs, which always abuts on
water, whether it be river, sea, canal, or ditch: and were at
Pittsburg.
Pittsburg is like Birmingham in England; at least its townspeople
say so. Setting aside the streets, the shops, the houses, waggons,
factories, public buildings, and population, perhaps it may be. It
certainly has a great quantity of smoke hanging about it, and is
famous for its iron-works. Besides the prison to which I have
already referred, this town contains a pretty arsenal and other
institutions. It is very beautifully situated on the Alleghany
River, over which there are two bridges; and the villas of the
wealthier citizens sprinkled about the high grounds in the
neighbourhood, are pretty enough. We lodged at a most excellent
hotel, and were admirably served. As usual it was full of
boarders, was very large, and had a broad colonnade to every story
of the house.
We tarried here three days. Our next point was Cincinnati: and as
this was a steamboat journey, and western steamboats usually blow
up one or two a week in the season, it was advisable to collect
opinions in reference to the comparative safety of the vessels
bound that way, then lying in the river. One
called the Messenger
was the best recommended. She had been advertised to start
positively, every day for a fortnight or so, and had not gone yet,
nor did her captain seem to have any very fixed intention on the
subject. But this is the custom: for if the law were to bind down
a free and independent citizen to keep his word with the public,
what would become of the liberty of the subject? Besides, it is in
the way of trade. And if passengers be decoyed in the way of
trade, and people be inconvenienced in the way of trade, what man,
who is a sharp tradesman himself, shall say, 'We must put a stop to
this?'
Impressed by the deep solemnity of the public announcement, I
(being then ignorant of these usages) was for hurrying on board in
a breathless state, immediately; but receiving private and
confidential information that the boat would certainly not start
until Friday, April the First, we made ourselves very comfortable
in the mean while, and went on board at noon that day.
CHAPTER XI - FROM PITTSBURG TO CINCINNATI IN A WESTERN STEAMBOAT.
CINCINNATI
THE Messenger was one among a crowd of high-pressure steamboats,
clustered together by a wharf-side, which, looked down upon from
the rising ground that forms the landing-place, and backed by the
lofty bank on the opposite side of the river, appeared no larger
than so many floating models. She had some forty passengers on
board, exclusive of the poorer persons on the lower deck; and in
half an hour, or less, proceeded on her way.
We had, for ourselves, a tiny state-room with two berths in it,
opening out of the ladies' cabin. There was, undoubtedly,
something satisfactory in this 'location,' inasmuch as it was in
the stern, and we had been a great many times very gravely
recommended to keep as far aft as possible, 'because the steamboats
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generally blew up forward.' Nor was this an unnecessary caution,
as the occurrence and circumstances of more than one such fatality
during our stay sufficiently testified. Apart from this source of
self-congratulation, it was an unspeakable relief to have any
place, no matter how confined, where one could be alone: and as
the row of little chambers of which this was one, had each a second
glass-door besides that in the ladies' cabin, which opened on a
narrow gallery outside the vessel, where the other passengers
seldom came, and where one could sit in peace and gaze upon the
shifting prospect, we took possession of our new quarters with much
pleasure.
If the native packets I have already described be unlike anything
we are in the habit of seeing on water, these western vessels are
still more foreign to all the ideas we are accustomed to entertain
of boats. I hardly know what to liken them to, or how to describe
them.
In the first place, they have no mast, cordage, tackle, rigging, or
other such boat-like gear; nor have they anything in their shape at
all calculated to remind one of a boat's head, stem, sides, or
keel. Except that they are in the water, and display a couple of
paddle-boxes, they might be intended, for anything that appears to
the contrary, to perform some unknown service, high and dry, upon a
mountain top. There is no visible deck, even: nothing but a long,
black, ugly roof covered with burnt-out feathery sparks; above
which tower two iron chimneys, and a hoarse escape valve, and a
glass steerage-house. Then, in order as the eye descends towards
the water, are the sides, and doors, and windows of the staterooms,
jumbled as oddly together as though they formed a small
street, built by the varying tastes of a dozen men: the whole is
supported on beams and pillars resting on a dirty barge, but a few
inches above the water's edge: and in the narrow space between
this upper structure and this barge's deck, are the furnace fires
and machinery, open at the sides to every wind that blows, and
every storm of rain it drives along its path.
Passing one of these boats at night, and seeing the great body of
fire, exposed as I have just described, that rages and roars
beneath the frail pile of painted wood: the machinery, not warded
off or guarded in any way, but doing its work in the midst of the
crowd of idlers and emigrants and children, who throng the lower
deck: under the management, too, of reckless men whose
acquaintance with its mysteries may have been of six months'
standing: one feels directly that the wonder is, not that there
should be so many fatal accidents, but that any journey should be
safely made.
Within, there is one long narrow cabin, the whole length of the
boat; from which the state-rooms open, on both sides. A small
portion of it at the stern is partitioned off for the ladies; and
the bar is at the opposite extreme. There is a long table down the
centre, and at either end a stove. The washing apparatus is
forward, on the deck. It is a little better than on board the
canal boat, but not much. In all modes of travelling, the American
customs, with reference to the means of personal cleanliness and
wholesome ablution, are extremely negligent and filthy; and I
strongly incline to the belief that a considerable amount of
illness is referable to this cause.
Cincinnati (barring accidents) on Monday morning. There are three
meals a day. Breakfast at seven, dinner at half-past twelve,
supper about six. At each, there are a great many small dishes and
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plates upon the table, with very little in them; so that although
there is every appearance of a mighty 'spread,' there is seldom
really more than a joint: except for those who fancy slices of
beet-root, shreds of dried beef, complicated entanglements of
yellow pickle; maize, Indian corn, apple-sauce, and pumpkin.
Some people fancy all these little dainties together (and sweet
preserves beside), by way of relish to their roast pig. They are
generally those dyspeptic ladies and gentlemen who eat unheard-of
quantities of hot corn bread (almost as good for the digestion as a
kneaded pin-cushion), for breakfast, and for supper. Those who do
not observe this custom, and who help themselves several times
instead, usually suck their knives and forks meditatively, until
they have decided what to take next: then pull them out of their
mouths: put them in the dish; help themselves; and fall to work
again. At dinner, there is nothing to drink upon the table, but
great jugs full of cold water. Nobody says anything, at any meal,
to anybody. All the passengers are very dismal, and seem to have
tremendous secrets weighing on their minds. There is no
conversation, no laughter, no cheerfulness, no sociality, except in
spitting; and that is done in silent fellowship round the stove,
when the m
eal is over. Every man sits down, dull and languid;
swallows his fare as if breakfasts, dinners, and suppers, were
necessities of nature never to be coupled with recreation or
enjoyment; and having bolted his food in a gloomy silence, bolts
himself, in the same state. But for these animal observances, you
might suppose the whole male portion of the company to be the
melancholy ghosts of departed book-keepers, who had fallen dead at
the desk: such is their weary air of business and calculation.
Undertakers on duty would be sprightly beside them; and a collation
of funeral-baked meats, in comparison with these meals, would be a
sparkling festivity.
The people are all alike, too. There is no diversity of character.
They travel about on the same errands, say and do the same things
in exactly the same manner, and follow in the same dull cheerless
round. All down the long table, there is scarcely a man who is in
anything different from his neighbour. It is quite a relief to
have, sitting opposite, that little girl of fifteen with the
loquacious chin: who, to do her justice, acts up to it, and fully
identifies nature's handwriting, for of all the small chatterboxes
that ever invaded the repose of drowsy ladies' cabin, she is the
first and foremost. The beautiful girl, who sits a little beyond
her - farther down the table there - married the young man with the
dark whiskers, who sits beyond HER, only last month. They are
going to settle in the very Far West, where he has lived four
years, but where she has never been. They were both overturned in
a stage-coach the other day (a bad omen anywhere else, where
overturns are not so common), and his head, which bears the marks
of a recent wound, is bound up still. She was hurt too, at the
same time, and lay insensible for some days; bright as her eyes
are, now.
Further down still, sits a man who is going some miles beyond their
place of destination, to 'improve' a newly-discovered copper mine.
He carries the village - that is to be - with him: a few frame
cottages, and an apparatus for smelting the copper. He carries its
people too. They are partly American and partly Irish, and herd
together on the lower deck; where they amused themselves last
evening till the night was pretty far advanced, by alternately
firing off pistols and singing hymns.