Chapter LXXII: Appendix: Canals and Railroads (2)

23 – The following letter, from the New York Journal of Commerce,
bears date the 8th of August, 1833. ‘The number of visitors
here at the present time is great beyond all former example,
and far exceeds the limits of comfortable accommodations.
Every house is full, and every thing which can answer the
purposes of a bed, is occupied. Many are fain to secure a
lodging in the railway cars. The number is estimated at
three thousand, and embraces age and infancy, belles and
matrons, invalids and dandies, from every quarter of the
Union. The public houses are reaping a good harvest; they
have already had a double season, and made ample amends
for the dull business of the last year. Ballston is also
crowded, contrary to the expectations of its inhabitants,
who apprehended that the rail-road to Saratoga would not
leave them a single visitor. The rail-road, for the whole
route from Albany to Saratoga, has proved to be capital stock.
More than five hundred persons are daily transported on the
Saratoga and Schenectady rail-road. It is said, that in the
last three days, the fifth, sixth, and seventh, seventeen
hundred dollars were received from it. As the entire stock
of the Company is but two hundred and seventy thousand
dollars, it must yield, at this rate, an enormous dividend.
The road is to be continued to Whitehall, crossing the
Hudson at Sandy Hill, above the bridge. In anticipation
of the great increase of company which the facilities of
travelling will hereafter bring to the Saratoga fountains,
extensive arrangements are making for accommodations of
increased space and elegance. A large and splendid hotel
is to be erected on the hill immediately south of Congress
Springs, a fine situation, shaded with forest trees, through
which extensive and beautiful walks are to be made. At the
north end of the village, some handsome hotels are to be
built. A number of pretty cottages are, it is also stated,
to be erected in the vicinity, as summer residences, by some
wealthy citizens of Albany and New York. We may well imagine,
therefore, that some few years hence, the little village
will present all the pomp, bustle and ostentation of a city;
and then, I fear, it will cease to be, what it now is, a
quiet and rural retreat. There is now, indeed, more of the
ostentation of wealth and fashion, and more of city-like
amusements and habits, than is consistent with the object of
rural retirement and healthful recreation. Besides the balls,
which take place twice a week, and extend to a late hour
of the night, there is a theatre which is open almost every
evening. All the itinerant showmen and minstrels also find
their way hither. Those who are disposed to attend church,
have occasional opportunities to hear some of our most
celebrated divines from different parts of the Union.’

24 – There are from fifteen to twenty thousand pounds’ weight of
wool annually produced on this island, the average quality
of which is acknowledged to be superior for manufacturing
purposes, to most of the native wool grown on the continent.
We have no woollen factories, and but very small quantities
of the staple article are wrought into fabrics by domestic
labor. Consequently, says the _Nantucket Inquirer_, it may
be an object for wool purchasers occasionally to look this
way for a part of their supplies.

25 – The shores of Staten Island are finely indented, and
sprinkled with the white, clean looking villas of this
country. The island rises quickly to a considerable height,
containing an area of about fifty-two square miles.

The quarantine establishment and the adjoining village are
pictures of cleanliness, all painted of a bright white. The
houses, hotels, &c. generally disjoined, and many of them
inclosed in small gardens. The whole buildings are situated
on a bank gently rising from the shore, and overhanging a
beautiful bay below, in which there were some large ships,
as well as a few of the elegant sailing craft, with which
the Bay of New-York is always adorned. Behind the village
the ground becomes abrupt, to a point at which a building
is erected called the Pavilion, expressly on account of
the splendor of the view, the top of which is, I think,
nearly two hundred and fifty feet above the sea, consisting
of handsome saloons, with balconies, piazzas, &c. on all
sides, and a look-out place from the summit, from which the
prospect is most glorious. I have never been more delighted
with any of the prospects of this description which have
charmed me most, on the Frith of Forth, the Clyde, the Bay
of Dublin, or in the Isle of Wight. I cannot help doubting
whether there be a more magnificent prospect in the world.
All the features which it contains are beautiful, and many
of them splendid. Then the moving ships, pilot-boats, and
small craft, never allow the view of the water to be for two
moments the same.

The view comprehends half a dozen friths, dividing, by
marked headlands, tracts of well wooded and waving country;
and it embraces not only the city of New-York, surrounded
with a vast mass of shipping, but the city of New-Jersey,
projected into the bay, quite as much as Burnt Island is
into the Frith of Forth, as well as the village of Newark.
The cities lie too low, but they serve to convince the
beholder that he is in the heart of a densely peopled
country. Peninsulas, promontories, islands, isthmuses,
land, in a variety of shapes, lie before him, and beyond
all, the boundless Atlantic. New-York, the magnificent
Hudson, the Frith of Newark, and lands and hills of Jersey
are on the north; Long Island and its Sound, the Narrows,
and the Quarantine Ground, with the Atlantic on the east;
and the coast of New-Jersey, Raritan Bay, Sandy Hook, and the
Atlantic to the south; the whole forming a noble prospect in
the heart of as rich looking a country as is in the world.

I have hitherto seen nothing in this country to be compared
to the prospect which I have endeavored to describe from the
Pavilion at Staten Island. There are finer views of New York
itself from the opposite shores of New-Jersey, on the one
side, and from Brooklyn and the heights of Long Island, on
the other; but Staten Island is unquestionably the place
for seeing New York in combination with its noble harbor,
and the surrounding seas and the shipping which adorn them.
After I had once found my way under the guidance of my
friends to the Pavilion, I frequently bent my steps to it
when I had leisure, to spend an hour or two in the island,
and never returned without being equally delighted with
the scenery above the quarantine ground. Strange it is, but
not less strange than true, that I have never observed in
any of the published tours relative to the United States,
the slightest reference made to the beauties of Staten
Island, or to the prospect from the Pavilion. Captain Hall’s
Travels were brought me while I was writing the notes of
this excursion, but it does not appear from them that he
had ever visited this island, though only five miles from
New York, where he resided for a considerable period. At a
subsequent period I procured at Philadelphia, Mr. Darby, the
geographer’s, valuable view of the United States, and was
glad to find that he recommended Staten Island as possessing
the most variegated landscapes on the Atlantic coast of the
United States. ‘No traveller ought (he writes) to neglect it.
In a clear day, a single hour on some of the hills of Staten
Island is worth a voyage of considerable extent. How many
who visit New-York with all the means of gratification, and
who travel for mere amusement, lose the invaluable pleasure
of scanning the rich perspective from Staten Island.
Thousands and tens of thousands.’――_Stuart’s America._

26 – There are about one hundred and twenty-five islands of
considerable size, and a multitude of small ones, in that
part of the Mississippi between New Orleans and the junction
of the Ohio. Wolf Island, about twenty-four miles below the
confluence, is situate in a fine part of the river, where
the banks are high and the current rapid. This island is
about twenty miles in circumference, and contains fifteen
thousand acres of good land, with a fine prairie in the
centre.

There are many beautiful scenes in passing the islands
upon the river, which I saw to great advantage, it being
full, and yet only in a few places overflowing its proper
course; but natural beauties of this kind, where all that
sort of variety of feature is wanting which depends upon the
neighborhood of mountain and hill, and where nothing but the
forest is to be seen, excepting, at considerable distances
from each other, patches of cultivated ground, soon cease
to be very interesting, and the river, the prodigious length
of which, as well as its great volume of water, astonish
the beholder for the first time, is the only object that
on such a voyage as this continues powerfully to arrest the
attention.――_Stuart’s America._

27 – The Indian tradition concerning the name of this little
barren island is curious. They say that _Michapous_, the
chief of spirits, sojourned long in that neighborhood; and
they believe that a mountain on the border of the lake was
the place of his residence, which they still call by his
name. It was here, say they, that he first instructed men
to make nets for fishing, and where he has collected the
greatest quantity of fish. On the island he left spirits
named _Imakinakos_, and from these aerial possessors it has
received the appellation of Michilimackinac.

28 – The whole cost of this work was estimated by the
commissioners at two million two hundred and sixteen
thousand eight hundred and seventy dollars. The amount
hitherto expended is not far from one million dollars. Two
or three years more will be required, in order to carry
the work to its completion. When finished, according to
the original plan, it will afford a harbor sufficiently
capacious for the anchorage of upwards of sixty vessels.
‘The water surface will comprise an area of one mile square,
having a depth at low water of from three to six fathoms,
between the pitch of the cape and the western extremity of
the ice-breaker. This place will be completely secured from
all gales from the north-east and north-west, these being
the only points of attack which there has been a necessity,
in the plan of the work, to secure and fortify.’ There is
but one breakwater in the world that can claim a comparison
with it, viz. that at Plymouth, England, the length of
which is about a mile. Its cost was upwards of one million
rounds sterling, and the quantity of stone employed in its
construction, about two million tons.

29 – Fort Monroe is already finished, and is at this moment in
admirable condition, if its armament were completed. The Rip
Raps, when finished, will be a monument worthy of the people
who have lavished their means in its erection, and of the
genius of the engineers by whom it was planned. The area of
the structure, as originally staked off, includes five acres;
great part of which was twenty-two feet below the surface of
the sea, and that nearest the surface eighteen feet. To get
a foundation above water for the fort, or castle, an island
has been raised, by throwing rocks into the water, until,
by gradual accumulation, it has emerged above the tides. The
rock of which this island is formed, has been brought from
great distances and at vast expense.

After a foundation was obtained for the castle above high
water, the building of the castle was begun, and carried
up so as to form the first embrasures. It was found that
the settling of the artificial mound of stone, cracked
the walls. The building was, therefore, discontinued;
but immense masses of granite have since been brought and
lodged upon the line of the work, that the weight of the
material, designed for its completion, might be employed in
consolidating its foundations. For some years this marine
pyramid sunk between six and eight inches; during the last
year, although pressed with the weight of all the material
gathered for the superstructure, it settled about three
inches. It is stated that the erection of the castle may now
proceed with safety, and that its immediate completion is
contemplated by government.

30 – Washington Irving describes Hell Gate ‘to be as pacific at
low water as any other stream. As the tide rises, it begins
to fret; at half-tide it rages and roars, as if bellowing
for more water; but when the tide is full, it relapses
again into quiet, and for a time seems almost to sleep as
soundly as an alderman after dinner. It may be compared to
an inveterate hard drinker, who is a peaceable fellow enough
when he has no liquor at all, or when he has his skin full:
but when half-seas-over, plays the very devil.’

The borders of the sound, all about this strait, are broken
and indented by rocky nooks, and the bay towards the city
is so beautifully shaped, and the views on both sides so
interesting, that the shores and neighborhood of the bay are
adorned with a great number of handsome and expensive villas.

31 – Major Rennel considers the winds the principal cause of
currents in the ocean, in which opinion he is supported
by several eminent writers; but allowing to the wind great
influence, still that influence is not sufficient to account
satisfactorily for the various and contradictory facts which
are recorded concerning these mighty streams.

32 – When the course of this stream is stated to be three
thousand geographical miles, some idea may be formed of the
force with which it issues through the strait of Florida;
a force so great as to be destructive to the land in
that quarter. On the north side of Delaware Bay, the
encroachments of the sea average nine feet a year, from
observations made between 1804 and 1820, and at Sullivan’s
Island on the north side of the entrance to the harbor of
Charleston, South Carolina, the sea carried away a quarter
of a mile of land in three years; which destructive power
arises from the narrowness of the strait, and the great
volume of water that passes through it. As the narrowest
part of the strait of Florida is thirty-six nautic miles in
breadth, and the annual mean velocity about seventy-three
miles per day, a surface of two thousand six hundred and
twenty eight square miles of gulf water will be poured into
the Atlantic every day, or about two-thirds of a square
equatorial degree.

33 – Humboldt is of opinion that this weed is produced in large
beds, at the bottom of the ocean, and that from these beds
it is detached in a ripened state, and collects in large
masses on that part of the Atlantic called the Sargasso, or
Weedy Sea. Hans Sloane, in his history of Jamaica, quotes
many authorities for the weed’s being found on the shores
of the Cape Verd and Canary islands, as well as among those
of the West Indies, and that it is carried to sea, by means
of winds and currents. The opinion of Humboldt appears to
account more satisfactorily for the accumulation of such
vast masses than that of the historian of Jamaica.

34 – Magellan set sail from Europe in September, 1519, with five
ships, with the intention by sailing west and south, and
following a course never before attempted, to try to make
the Molucca Islands at least, by an entirely new passage.
Reaching first a southern part of the South American
Continent, where he rested for the winter and refreshed
his followers, he leisurely proceeded still southerly;
and in the October following, first discovered the strait
which now bears his name. Neither the dangerous currents of
this tempestuous region, however, nor the unknown nautical
terrors of the stormy Cape Horn, could damp the ardor of
this bold adventurer; and having at length surmounted all
the difficulties of the strait, and cleared the wild shores
by which they were surrounded, Magellan and his discovery
ships first emerged into the great South Sea.

Sea-room, almost boundless, the great delight of the sailor,
together with steady breezes and salubrious weather, carried
these first adventurers on into this new region, with high
hopes, and spirits dancing as the waves over which they rode.
Finding that the stream of wind which so pleasingly wafted
them into a warmer climate, followed the course of the sun
and blew steadily in one direction, in that manner which in
all similar cases has since been denominated trade-wind; and
that, favored by this breeze, the trader and his companions
proceeded on with an ease and rapidity beyond their most
sanguine expectations, the sea and sky seemed to Magellan
equally to be at peace with each other and with the hopeful
mariner who had intrusted himself to both; and thinking this
unexplored world of waters worthy to be called a _Pacific
Ocean_, he gave it the name, which, however inappropriate,
it will probably forever retain.

35 – ‘In the afternoon,’ says Mr. Stuart, ‘we hired a carriage to
take us to Gennessee, that we might have an opportunity of
seeing Mr. Wadsworth’s flats or meadows, which are thought
the finest and most productive in this country; they consist
of a great tract of low-lying land along the river side,
covered with luxuriant herbage. The farm of Mr. Wadsworth
is of great extent, about four thousand acres; but the
beautiful tract of alluvial land does not exceed sixteen
or seventeen hundred acres, of the most fertile soil that
can be conceived. A few noble oaks, single trees, which are
seldom met with here, adorn the fields. I measured one of
them, which was twenty-eight feet in circumference.’

36 – Before quitting New Orleans, I made a trip to visit the
Delta of the Mississippi, in one of the steamers employed
in towing vessels to and from the mouth of the river. Though
with three large vessels attached, our bark made good way
under the co-operative influence of steam and stream.
About seven miles below the city is the field of battle.
It is a plain about half a mile in breadth, bounded by the
Mississippi on one side, and the forest on the other. Below
is a bend of the river, which, from what reason I know
not, is called ‘the English Turn.’ Plantations continue at
intervals for about forty miles, when cultivation entirely
ceases.

Below this, nature is to be seen only in her dreariest and
most desolate aspect. At first, there are forests springing
in rank luxuriance from swamps impassable even by the foot
of the Indian hunter. But these soon pass, and nothing but
interminable cane brakes are to be seen on either side. From
the shrouds of the steam-boat, though the range of vision
probably extended for many leagues, no other objects were
discernible but the broad muddy river, with its vast masses
of drift-wood, and the wilderness of gigantic bulrushes
shaking in the wind.

There are four passes or outlets by which the Mississippi
discharges its mighty burden into the Gulf of Mexico. Two
of these are navigable, but changes are ever taking place,
and the passage formerly preferred by the pilots, is now
rarely attempted even by vessels of the smallest class. On
approaching the Gulf, verdure appears only at intervals, and
the eye rests on tracts of mere mud, formed by the deposit
of the river on the drift-wood which some obstacle has
arrested in its passage to the ocean. It is by this process
that land is formed, and it may be traced in every step of
its progress, from the island resting on a few logs, up to
the huge tract in whose bosom are imbedded many millions.
Encountering no obstacle, the river sends out arms in every
direction, which, after winding through the half-formed
region in a thousand fantastic flexures, are again united to
the main branches.

It would be difficult to convey an idea by words, of the
effect which this most dismal scene produces on the heart
and imagination of the spectator. It seems as if the process
of creation were incomplete, and the earth yet undivided
from the waters, for he beholds only an intermediate mass
which admits of being absolutely assigned to neither element.
He feels that he has forsaken the regions of the habitable
world. Above, beneath, around, there is nothing to excite
his sympathies, and, probably, for the first time in
his life, he becomes conscious of the full sublimity of
_desolation_.――_Hamilton’s America._

37 – It is fortunate that habit makes us so little observant
of what is disagreeable or inconsistent in climate. Every
nation thinks that to which it is accustomed, combines,
on the whole, the greater number of advantages. Colonel
Hamilton considers it preposterous to compare the climate of
the United States with that of England; and Count Pecchio,
an Italian exile, is much amused that the English should
attempt to persuade themselves that they have a climate
even endurable. We have placed the two following extracts
in juxta-position, to exhibit the respective views of these
intelligent travellers on the climate of the two counties:

‘When on the subject of climate, I may just mention, that
there is no topic on which Americans are more jealously
sensitive. It delights them to believe that theirs is, in
all respects, a favored land; that between the St. Lawrence
and Mississippi the sky is brighter, the breezes more
salubrious, and the soil more fertile, than in any other
region of the earth. There is no harm in all this; nay,
it is laudable, if they would only not insist that all
strangers should view the matter in the same light, and
express admiration as rapturous as their own.

‘Judging from my own experience, I should certainly
pronounce the climate of the northern and central states to
be only one degree better than that of Nova Scotia, which
struck me, when there in 1814, as being the very worst in
the world. On making the American coast, we had four days
of denser fog than I ever saw in London. After my arrival
at New York in November, the weather, for about a week,
was very fine. It then became cloudy and tempestuous,
and, during the whole period of my residence at Boston, I
scarcely saw the sun. At Philadelphia there came on a deluge
of snow, by which the ground was covered from January till
March. At Baltimore there was no improvement. Snow lay deep
on the ground, during the whole period of my residence at
Washington, and the roads were only passable with difficulty.
On crossing the Alleghany Mountains, however, the weather
became delightful, and continued so during the voyage to
New Orleans. While I remained in that city, three days out
of every four were oppressively close and sultry, and the
atmosphere was damp and oppressive to breathe.

‘During my journey from Mobile to Charleston, though
generally hotter than desirable, the weather was, in the
main, bright and beautiful; but the very day of my arrival
at the latter place, the thermometer fell twenty degrees;
and in the thirty-third degree of latitude, in the month of
May, the inmates of the hotel were crowding round a blazing
fire. On my return to New York, I found the population still
muffled in cloaks and great coats, and the weather bitterly
cold. Not a vestive of spring was discernible, at a season
when, in England, the whole country is covered with verdure.
During the last week of May, however, the heat became
very great. At Quebec, it was almost intolerable, the
thermometer ranging daily between eighty-four and ninety-two
degrees. At New York, in July, the weather was all that a
salamander could desire; and I embarked for England, under
a sun more burning than it is at all probable I shall ever
suffer from again.

‘In the northern and central states――for of the climate of
the southern states it is unnecessary to speak――the annual
range of the thermometer exceeds a hundred degrees. The
heat of summer is that of Jamaica; the cold in winter is
that of Russia. Such enormous vicissitudes must necessarily
impair the vigor of the human frame; and when we take into
calculation the vast portion of the United States in which
the atmosphere is contaminated by marshy exhalations,
it will not be difficult, with the auxiliary influences
of dram-drinking and tobacco-chewing, to account for the
squalid and sickly aspect of the population. Among the
peasantry, I never saw one florid and robust man, nor any
one distinguished by that fulness and rotundity of muscle,
which every where meets the eye in England.

‘In many parts of the state of New York, the appearance of
the inhabitants was such as to excite compassion. In the
Maremma of Tuscany, and the Campagna of Rome, I had seen
beings similar, but scarcely more wretched. In the “fall,”
as they call it, intermittent fevers come as regularly
as the fruit season. During my journey, I made inquiries
at many cottages, and found none of them had escaped
the scourge. But inquiries were useless. The answer was
generally too legible in the countenance of the withered
mother, and in those of her emaciated offspring.

‘It seems ridiculous to compare such a climate with that
of England, and yet there is nothing to which Americans are
more addicted. It is a subject regularly tabled in every
society. “How delightful our climate must appear to you,”
observed a lady, “after the rain and fogs of your own
country!”――“Whether, on the whole, do you prefer, our
climate, or that of Italy?” inquired a gentleman of New
York, in a tone of the most profound gravity. My answer,
I fear, gave offence, for it became the signal for a general
meteorological attack. “I was three months in England,”
observed one, “and it rained every hour of the time.”

‘Though attached to the soil of my country, I had really
no inclination to vindicate its atmosphere. I, therefore,
simply replied, that the gentleman had been unfortunate in
the period of his visit. But I was not suffered to escape
thus. Another traveller declared he had been nine months
there, without better luck; and as the nine months, added
to the three, precisely made up the whole year, of course,
I had nothing farther to say.

‘But this tone of triumph is not always tenable. During
the days, weeks, and months, when the weather is manifestly
indefensible, the Io Pœans give place to apologies. A
traveller is entreated, nay, sometimes even implored, not
to judge of the climate by the specimen he has seen of
it. Before his arrival, the sky was cloudless, and the
atmosphere serene. He has just come in the nick of bad
weather. Never in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, was
the snow so deep or permanent. Never was spring so tardy in
its approach, and never were vicissitudes of temperature so
sudden and frequent. In short, he is desired to believe that
the ordinary course of nature is suspended on his approach;
that his presence in an American city deranges the whole
action of the elements.’――_Men and Manners in America._

Count Pecchio holds the mirror up to the English with an
equally obstinate determination to expose the deformity of
their climate; though not quite so libellous, he is equally
amusing with the gallant colonel.

‘When on his first arrival in England, the foreigner is
seated on the roof of a carriage which bears him towards
London at the rate of eight miles an hour, he cannot help
believing himself hurried along in the car of Pluto, to
the descent into the realms of darkness, especially if he
have just left Spain or Italy, the favorite regions of the
sun. In the midst of wonder, he can hardly avoid, at first
setting off, being struck with an impression of melancholy.
An eternal cloud of smoke which involves and penetrates
every thing; a fog, which during the months of November and
December, now gray, now red, now of a dirty yellow, always
obscures, and sometimes completely extinguishes the light
of day, cannot fail to give a lugubrious and _Dantesque_
air to this immeasurable and interminable capital. He, above
all, who is just arrived from a sunny country, experiences,
as I said before, the same effect as when, from the bright
light of noon, he enters a half closed chamber; at the
first glance he sees nothing, but afterwards, by little and
little, he discerns the harp, the lady, the sofa, and the
other agreeable objects in the apartment. Caracciolo, the
ambassador to George the Third, was not in the wrong when
he said, that the moon of Naples was warmer than the sun
of London. In fact, for several days, the sun only appears
in the midst of the darkness visible, like a great yellow
spot. London is a “panorama of the sun,” in which he is
often better seen than felt. On the 29th of November, 1826,
there was an eclipse visible in England; the sky that day
happened to be clear, but nobody took the least notice of
the phenomenon, because the fog produces in one year more
eclipses in England than there ever were, from other causes,
perhaps, since the creation of the world.

‘One day I was strolling in Hyde Park, in company with a
Peruvian: it was one of the fine days of London, but the sun
was so obscured by the fog, that it had taken the form of a
great globe of fire. “What do you think of the sun to-day?”
said I to my companion. “I thought,” replied the adorer
of the true sun, “that the end of the world was come! Was
it not a singular caprice of fortune, that where there is
the least light, the great Newton should have been born to
analyze it?” It appears to me like the other singularity,
that Alfieri, who analyzed liberty so well, should have been
born in Italy, where they have less of it, perhaps, than
any where else. After all, what of it? The English, by force
of industry, have contrived to manufacture for themselves
even a sun. Is it not indeed a sun――that gas, which, running
under ground through all the island, illuminates the whole
in a _fiat lux_? It is a sun, without twilight, and without
sitting; that rises and disappears like a flash of lightning,
and that too just when we want it. The gas illumination of
London is so beautiful, that M. Sismondi had good reason
to say, that, in London, in order to see, you must wait
till night. The place of St. Antonio, at Cadiz, on a
stormy summer’s evening――the noisy Strado Toledo of Naples,
silvered by the moon――the Parisian Tivoli, blazing with
fire-works;――none of them can sustain a comparison with
the Regent-street of London, lighted by gas. Nor is this
artificial sun an exclusive advantage of the capital; it
shines every where with the impartiality of the great planet,
illuminating alike the palace and the hovel. Whoever travels
in England by night, in the country around Leeds, Nottingham,
Derby or Manchester, imagines he sees, on every side, the
enchanting palaces of the fairies, shining in the light of
a thousand torches; but they are, in reality, no other than
very large and very lofty manufactories of cotton, woollen,
or linen.

‘But the English have another remedy for the scarcity of sun.
They follow the example of poets and philosophers, who, when
they are deficient in riches, take to praising poverty;――not
being able to praise the sun, they sing the praises of the
fireside, and the delights of winter. Ossian, (or rather
Macpherson, the author of Ossian,) instead of the sun,
apostrophises the moon. He takes pleasure in describing, as
if they were delightful, the whistling of the winds, and the
roaring of the torrents. He compares the locks of a youthful
beauty to mist gilded by the sun. Instead of depicting
a valley enamelled with flowers, he spurns so soft and
effeminate an image, to paint the aspect of a frozen lake,
and the shaking thistle on its banks. Cowper, in his poem
of The Task, seems completely to enjoy himself in describing
a winter’s evening, when the rain rattles down, the wind
whistles, and the wagoner growls and grumbles on his way;
whilst in doors, the fire burns, the newspaper arrives, the
exhilarating tea glows on the table, and the family are all
collected round the hearth.

‘Some poet, whose name I forget, (I think it is Byron,) even
gives to darkness the epithet “lovely.” Thomson, the bard of
the seasons, was a better poet than usual, when he sung of
winter. He calls the horrors of winter “congenial horrors;”
and after describing the mountains of snow, that, with the
roar of thunder, dart from precipice to precipice, to the
bottom of the Grison valleys, destroying and burying in
the depth of night, shepherds and their flocks, huts and
villages, single travellers and whole troops of marching
soldiers, he imagines himself, with epicurean voluptuousness,
in a solitary and well sheltered country-house, before a
blazing fire, and lighted by splendid chandeliers, rending
at his ease the finest works of the ancients.

‘Thus all the poets have conspired to make their countrymen
in love with their cloudy heavens, and induce them to
believe themselves fortunate that they are born in a
delightful climate. And what matter is it that it is not
true? Are not the tricks and illusions of the imagination
as substantial as actual reality? Montesquieu said, “If the
English are not free, at least they believe they are, which
is much the same.” So we may say, if the English have not a
fine climate, they believe they have, and that is as good.
I was once praising to a young English lady, the pure, lofty,
mother-of-pearl heavens of Madrid, of Naples, of Athens, of
Smyrna. She replied, “I should be tired to death by such a
perpetual sunshine; the variety and phantasmagoria of our
cloud must surely be much more beautiful.”’――_Observations
of an Italian Exile._

38 – There were several severe thunder-storms while we were
in the neighborhood of New-York, very different in their
appearance from those which occur in Britain, but not
attended with more accidents. One of them, in the middle
of June, was, however, very tremendous; it occurred in the
night, and the flashes of vivid lightning followed each
other with so great rapidity, that the sky was altogether
illuminated for a long period, and until a violent storm
of wind, accompanied with a deluge of rain, came on. The
roaring of the thunder never ceased during the continuance
of the storm. Several casualties occurred in New York; some
trees were torn up by the roots, the shipping was damaged,
one vessel upset, and the crew drowned. There is more
appearance of devastation occasioned by thunder-storms in
the forests and woods of this country than any where else.
Large portions of the forest are sometimes seen almost torn
to pieces.

Subsequently to this period, and when I was travelling in
the southern states, I was again and again witness to very
terrifying and magnificent thunder-storms, where I have seen
the whole atmosphere illuminated by the never ceasing balls
of fire bursting from cloud to cloud, and the appearance
every moment of forked flashes of lightning. Few nights,
during the summer and beginning of autumn, in this country,
occur, in which lightning is not visible in some part of the
horizon.――_Stuart’s America._

39 – The following account of the climate in the neighborhood of
Charleston, South Carolina, is extracted from a letter of
the intelligent correspondent of the Portland Advertiser,
dated March 29, 1833.

‘Vegetation is quite advanced, and rapidly advancing. The
air this day was not so warm as it has been; but we had
this morning copious showers with loud thunder and vivid
lightning. The gardens in the vicinity of Charleston are
now beautiful beyond description. All vegetation is in that
lively hue, which charms the eye and delights the feelings.
The trees that border the wayside are rapidly putting on
their green covering. The open fields are verdant with the
growing grass. Corn is up and advanced. The vegetables in
the gardens are as forward as they will be in ours the first
of July. The market is well stocked with the luxuries of an
early summer. A southern spring is spring indeed. There are
music and life in every thing. If they could have here our
captivating and musing scenery, our variety of hill and dale,
it would be at this season another paradise on earth.

‘Charleston is considered healthy by the inhabitants.
They boast of their exemption from diseases, and say their
bill of mortality is not so fatal as that of New York and
Philadelphia. The city itself may be thus healthy when the
yellow fever does not prevail, but it is as much as one’s
life is worth to venture into the lowlands in the vicinity,
in the country round. No resident of Charleston, even those
born Carolinians, or the best acclimated, dare run the risk.
For a citizen to sleep in the country in the summer months,
is considered almost certain death, for the country fever,
as it is termed, immediately seizes him. The country,
this side of the middle region――a rolling country of South
Carolina for about one hundred miles from the seacoast――is
swampy, or a pine barren. There is in the swamps a
_mal-aria_, very fatal to health, the effects of which no
white man is willing to run the risk of encountering. Hence
the planters in the lowlands, particularly such as live on
the rice plantations, remove in the sickly months to the
seacoast, or go back into the country, to Buncumbe county
in North Carolina, near the Saluda Gap, or to the Virginia
Springs, or to the seacoast, or to the northern states. The
slaves on the rice plantations are said to be healthy and
happy, and to suffer no affliction from the burning sun of
August, or the noxious effluvia from the rice grounds.

‘A white overseer is usually left in care of the plantation
and the negroes, who, though born in the country, often,
and commonly, has a fever every year. I am told that many
of them die at middle age, and that few seldom obtain an
old age. If such be the fact, it would seem that negroes
are necessary to cultivate the rice grounds, though it is
with difficulty that I can come to the conclusion, that the
white man, well acclimated, is not as well fitted by nature
to cultivate the land he lives on as the negro. But the
universal opinion is, that it is exceedingly hazardous for a
planter to continue with his family on his estate, and hence,
no matter what the expense, the estates are deserted from
June to the first frost in autumn, and the planter dare not
visit his property, nor sleep in his house in that time,
though he may be on the seacoast but a few miles off, or in
a settlement on a pine barren, which is considered healthy.
The swampy rice grounds no doubt are sickly. The effluvia
from so much putrid water must be noxious. The pallor and
ghastliness of many of the overseers bear testimony to the
truth of the general assertion. And it is probable, yea,
certain, that the habits, the manners, the long practice of
the negroes, have better fitted them to undergo the danger
than the white man is or can be, with his training. Hence,
one of the great arguments in favor of slavery here, is, “we
cannot do without the negroes.”’

40 – The first notice of gold from North Carolina, on the record
of the United States’ Mint, occurs in the year 1814, when
it was received to the amount of eleven thousand dollars.
In 1825 the amount received was seventeen thousand dollars;
in 1826, twenty thousand, in 1828, nearly forty-six thousand,
and in 1829, one hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars.
In the year 1830, gold to the value of four hundred and
sixty-six thousand dollars was coined at the mint, received
from the gold region of the southern states. Of this amount,
two hundred and twelve thousand dollars were received from
Georgia, a state which had not furnished even a specimen
in any previous year. In the year 1831, the southern gold
region furnished the mint with gold to the value of more
than half a million; of this, two hundred and ninety-four
thousand dollars were received from North Carolina, and one
hundred and seventy-six thousand from Georgia. But a part of
the gold obtained at these mines is received at the United
States’ Mint; by far the larger part is sent to Europe,
particularly to Paris. It is stated that the whole number of
men employed in the mines of the southern states, is twenty
thousand.

41 – The coal is conveyed to Mauch Chunk village, in wagons
running upon the railway. Fourteen of them, containing
each one ton and a half of coal, are connected by iron
bars, admitting of a slight degree of motion between two
contiguous wagons; a single man rides on one of the wagons,
and, by a very simple contrivance, regulates their movement:
a perpendicular lever causes a piece of wood to press
against the circumference of each wheel on the same side
of the car, acting both ways from the central point between
them, so that, by increasing the pressure, the friction
retards or stops the motion, and as all the levers are
connected by a rope, they are made to act in concert. The
traveller is much interested in seeing the successive groups
of wagons moving rapidly in procession and without apparent
cause; they are heard, at a considerable distance, as they
come thundering along with their dark burdens, and give an
impression of irresistible energy: at a suitable distance
follows another train, and thus three hundred tons a day,
and some days three hundred and forty tons, are regularly
discharged into the boats as already described. At first,
they descended at the rate of fifteen or twenty miles an
hour, but they were obliged to reduce the speed, as it
injured the machines, and, by agitating and wearing the
coal, involved the driver in a cloud of black dust. The
empty wagons are drawn back by mules; fourteen wagons to
eight mules; twenty-eight mules draw up forty-two coal and
seven mule wagons, and the arrangement is so made, that the
ascending parties shall arrive in due season at the proper
places for turning out. The same is true of the pleasure
cars, which are allowed to use the rail-way; only they must
not interfere with its proper business, and should they do
it, it would be at their peril, as they might be crushed by
the momentum of the descending wagons. When they happen to
be caught out of their proper place, the drivers make all
possible haste to remove them out of the rail-way track; but
they carefully avoid these meetings, and they rarely happen,
unless the cars go out of their proper time.

The mules ride down the rail-way; they are furnished with
provender placed in proper mangers, four of them being
inclosed in one pen mounted on wheels; and seven of these
cars are connected into one group, so that twenty-eight
mules constitute the party, which, with their heads all
directed down the mountain, and apparently surveying its
fine landscapes, are seen moving rapidly down the inclined
plane with a ludicrous gravity, which, when observed for the
first time, proves too much for the severest muscles.

They readily perform their duty of drawing up the empty cars,
but having once experienced the comfort of riding down, they
appear to regard it as a right, and neither mild nor severe
measures, not even the sharpest whipping, can ever induce
them to descend in any other way.

The return of the traveller, in the pleasure cars, is
so rapid that it is not easy entirely to suppress the
apprehension of danger; we perform the eight miles from
the summit in thirty-three minutes; should an axle-tree
break――an accident which sometimes happens with the coal
wagons――it would be impossible that the passengers should
escape unhurt, especially in the turnings of the road, and
in places where trees, rocks and precipices allow no safe
place of landing. All danger would however be avoided by
checking the motion, so that it should not exceed eight or
ten miles an hour, and this is easily done in the same way
as that practised in the coal wagons. Happily, no accident
has yet occurred. It would be prudent, at least, to require
the manager to check the motion of the car at the steepest
places; but these are the very situations where he chooses
to make a display of cracking his whip and cheering his
wheels, instead of his horses, and the increased impulse,
given by gravity, as he relaxes the pressure of the
lever, when the car springs forward like spirited horses
at the word of their master makes the illusion almost
complete.――_Silliman’s Journal._

42 – _Cougar Hunt._ The hunters made their appearance, one fine
morning, at the door of the cabin, just as the sun was
emerging from beneath the horizon. They were five in number,
and fully equipped for the chase, being mounted on horses,
which in some parts of Europe might appear sorry nags, but
which in strength, speed and bottom, are better fitted for
pursuing a cougar, or a bear, through woods and morasses
than any in that country. A pack of large ugly curs were
already engaged in making acquaintance with those of the
squatter. He and myself mounted his two best horses, whilst
his sons were bestriding others of inferior quality.

Few words were uttered by the party until we had reached
the edge of the swamp, where it was agreed that all should
disperse and seek for the fresh track of the painter, it
being previously settled that the discoverer should blow
his horn, and remain on the spot until the rest should join
him. In less than an hour, the sound of the horn was clearly
heard, and, sticking close to the squatter, off we went
through the thick woods, guided only by the now and then
repeated call of the distant huntsman. We soon reached the
spot, and in a short time the rest of the party came up. The
best dog was sent forward to track the cougar, and in a few
moments the whole pack were observed diligently trailing,
and bearing in their course for the interior of the swamp.
The rifles were immediately put in trim, and the party
followed the dogs, at separate distances, but in sight of
each other, determined to shoot at no other game than the
panther.

The dogs soon began to mouth, and suddenly quickened
their pace. My companion concluded that the beast was on
the ground, and putting our horses to a gentle gallop, we
followed the curs, guided by their voices. The noise of the
dogs increased, when all of a sudden their mode of barking
became altered, and the squatter, urging me to push on, told
me that the beast was _treed_, by which he meant that it
had got upon some low branch of a large tree to rest for
a few moments, and that should we not succeed in shooting
him when thus situated, we might expect a long chase of it.
As we approached the spot, we all by degrees united into a
body, but on seeing the dogs at the foot of a large tree,
separated again and galloped off to surround it.

Each hunter now moved with caution, holding his gun ready,
and allowing the bridle to dangle on the neck of his horse,
as it advanced slowly towards the dogs. A shot from one of
the party was heard, on which the cougar was seen to leap to
the ground, and bound off with such velocity as to show that
he was very unwilling to stand our fire longer. The dogs set
off in pursuit with great eagerness and a deafening cry. The
hunter who had fired came up and said that his ball had hit
the monster, and had probably broken one of his fore legs
near the shoulder, the only place at which he could aim. A
slight trail of blood was discovered on the ground, but the
curs proceeded at such a rate that we merely noticed this,
and put spurs to our horses, which galloped on towards the
centre of the swamp. One bayou was crossed, then another
still larger and more muddy; but the dogs were brushing
forward, and as the horses began to pant at a furious rate,
we judged it expedient to leave them and advance on foot.
These determined hunters knew that the cougar being wounded,
would shortly ascend another tree, where in all probability
he would remain for a considerable time, and that it would
be easy to follow the track of the dogs. We dismounted, took
off the saddles and bridles, set the bells attached to the
horses’ necks at liberty to jingle, hoppled the animals, and
left them to shift for themselves.

Now, reader, follow the group marching through the swamp,
crossing muddy pools, and making the best of their way
over fallen trees and amongst the tangled rushes that
now and then covered acres of ground. If you are a hunter
yourself, all this will appear nothing to you; but if crowded
assemblies of ‘beauty and fashion,’ or the quiet enjoyment
of your ‘pleasure-grounds,’ alone delight you, I must mend
my pen before I attempt to give you an idea of the pleasure
felt on such an expedition.

After marching for a couple of hours, we again heard the
dogs. Each of us again pressed forward, elated at the
thought of terminating the career of the cougar. Some of the
dogs were heard whining, although the greater number barked
vehemently. We felt assured that the cougar was treed, and
that he would rest for some time to recover from his fatigue.
As we came up to the dogs, we discovered the ferocious
animal lying across a large branch, close to the trunk of a
cotton-wood tree. His brood breast lay towards us; his eyes
were at one time bent on us and again on the dogs beneath
and around him; one of his fore legs hung loosely by his
side, and he lay crouched, with his ears lowered close to
his head, as if he thought he might remain undiscovered.
Three balls were fired at him, at a given signal, on which
he sprang a few feet from the branch, and tumbled headlong
to the ground. Attacked on all sides by the enraged curs,
the infuriated cougar fought with desperate valor; but the
squatter advancing in front of the party, and almost in the
midst of the dogs, shot him immediately behind and beneath
the left shoulder. The cougar writhed for a moment in agony,
and in another lay dead.――_Audubon._

43 – Godman.

44 – The prairie wolves are much smaller than those which inhabit
the woods. They generally travel together in numbers, and
a solitary one is seldom met with. Two or three of us have
often pursued from fifty to one hundred, driving them before
us as quickly as our horses could charge.

Their skins are of no value, and we do not therefore waste
much powder and ball in shooting them. The Indians, who
are obliged to pay dear for their ammunition, are equally
careful not to throw it away on objects that bring no
remunerating value. The natural consequence is, that the
wolves are allowed to multiply; and some parts of the
country are completely overrun by them. The Indians catch
numbers of them in traps, which they set in the vicinity
of those places where their tame horses are sent to graze.
The traps are merely excavations covered over with slight
switches and hay, and bated with meat, &c., into which
the wolves fall, and being unable to extricate themselves,
they perish by famine, or the knife of the Indian. These
destructive animals annually destroy numbers of horses;
particularly during the winter season, when the latter get
entangled in the snow; in which situation they become an
easy prey to their lightfooted pursuers, ten or fifteen of
which will often fasten on one animal, and with their long
fangs in a few minutes separate the head from the body. If,
however, the horses are not prevented from using their legs,
they sometimes punish the enemy severely; as an instance
of this, I saw one morning the bodies of two of our horses
which had been killed the night before, and around were
lying eight dead and maimed wolves; some with their brains
scattered about, and others with their limbs and ribs broken
by the hoofs of the furious animals in their vain attempts
to escape from their sanguinary assailants.