Chapter XVIII: Book I: , chap. i. Description of the World.... Book II., chap. i (4)

In France alone among living nations is literature habitually pursued as an art; and in consequence of this, despite the seeds of decay which imperialism sowed, French prose-writing has no rival in contemporary literature. We cannot fully recognize this fact through translations, because only the most sensational French books appear to be translated. But as French painters and actors now habitually surpass all others even in what are claimed as the English qualities,--simplicity and truth,--so do French prose-writers excel. To be set against the brutality of Carlyle and the shrill screams of Ruskin, there is to be seen across the Channel the extraordinary fact of an actual organization of good writers, the French Academy, whose influence all nations feel. Under their authority we see introduced into literary work an habitual grace and perfection, a clearness and directness, a light and pliable strength, and a fine shading of expression, such as no other tongue can even define. We see the same high standard in their criticism, in their works of research, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, and in short throughout literature. What is there in any other language, for instance, to be compared with the voluminous writings of Sainte-Beuve, ranging over all history and literature, and carrying into all, that incomparable style, so delicate, so brilliant, so equable, so strong,--touching all themes, not with the blacksmith's hand of iron, but with the surgeon's hand of steel.

In the average type of French novels, one feels the superiority to the English in quiet power, in the absence of the sensational and exaggerated, and in keeping close to the level of real human life. They rely for success upon perfection of style, and the most subtle analysis of human character; and therefore they are often painful,--just as Thackeray is painful,--because they look at artificial society, and paint what they see. Thus they dwell often on unhappy marriages, because such things grow naturally from the false social system in France. On the other hand, in France there is very little house-breaking, and bigamy is almost impossible, so that we hear delightfully little about them: whereas, if you subtract these from the current English novels, what is there left?

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=_Charles Godfrey Leland,[57] 1824._=

From "Meister Karl's Sketch-book."

=_242._= ASPECT OF NUREMBERG.

There is a picturesque disorder--a lyrical confusion about the entire place, which is perfectly irresistible. Turrets shoot up in all sorts of ways, on all sorts of occasions, upon all sorts of houses; and little boxes, with delicate Gothic windows, cling to their sides and to one another, like barnacles to a ship; while the houses themselves are turned round and about in so many positions that you wonder that a few are not upside down or lying on their sides by way of completing the original arrangement of no arrangement at all. It always seemed to me as if the buildings in Nuremberg had, like the furniture in Irving's tale, been indulging over night in a very irregular dance, and suddenly stopped in the most complicated part of a confusion worse confounded. Galleries, quaint staircases, and towers with projecting upper stories, as well as eccentric chimneys, demented door-ways, insane weather-vanes, and highly original steeples, form the most common-place materials in building; and it has more than once occurred to me that the architects of this city, even at the present day, must have imbibed their principles; not from the lecture-room, but from the most remarkable inspirations of some romantic scene-painter. During the last two centuries men appear to have striven, with a most uncommendable zeal, all over Christendom, to root out and extirpate every trace of the Gothic. In Nuremberg alone they have religiously preserved what little they originally had in domestic architecture, and added to it....

Nuremberg, like Avignon, is one of the very few cities which have retained in an almost perfect state, the feudal walls and turrets with which they were invested by the middle ages. At regular intervals along these walls occur little towers, for their defence, reminding one of beads strung on a rosary; the great watch-tower at the gate, with its projecting machicolation, forming the pendent cross,--the whole serving to guard the town within from the dangers of war, even as the rosary protects the city of Mansoul from the attacks of Sin and Death--though, sooth to say, since the invention of gunpowder and the Reformation, both the one and the other appear to have lost much of their former efficacy. Directly through the center of the town runs a small stream called the Pegnitz, "dividing the town into two nearly equal halves, named after the two great churches situated within them; the northern being termed St. Sebald's, and the southern, St. Lawrence side."

In the northern part of the division of St. Sebaldus rises a high hill, formed, at the summit, of vast rocks, on which is situated the ancient Reicheveste, or Imperial Castle, whose origin is fairly lost in the dark old days of Heathenesse. From it the traveller can obtain an admirable view of the romantic town below. In regarding it, I was irresistibly reminded of the remarkable resemblance existing between most of its buildings and the children's toys manufactured by the ingenious artisans of Nuremberg and its vicinity.

[Footnote 57: A native of Philadelphia, who has resided much abroad, and pursued a varied literary career; he possesses a familiarity with the German language and character, which he has turned to good account in the comic ballads by Hans Breitman.]

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=_George William Curtis, 1824-._= (Manual, p. 504.)

From "Nile Notes of a Howadji."

=_243._= UNDER THE PALMS.

Thenceforward, in the land of Egypt, palms are perpetual. They are the only foliage of the Nile; for we will not harm the modesty of a few mimosas and sycamores, by foolish claims. They are the shade of the mud villages, marking their site in the landscape, so that the groups of palms are the number of villages. They fringe the shore and the horizon. The sun sets golden behind them, and birds sit swinging upon their boughs and float gloriously among their trunks; on the ground beneath are flowers; the sugar-cane is not harmed by the ghostly shade, nor the tobacco, and the yellow flowers of the cotton-plant star its dusk at evening. The children play under them; the old men crone and smoke; the surly bison and the conceited camels repose. The old Bible-pictures are ceaselessly painted, but with softer, clearer colors, than in the venerable book.

... But the eye never wearies of palms, more than the ear of singing-birds. Solitary they stand upon the sand, or upon the level, fertile land in groups, with a grace and dignity that no tree surpasses. Very soon the eye beholds in their forms the original type of the columns which it will afterwards admire in the temples. Almost the first palm is architecturally suggestive, even in those western gardens--but to artists living among them and seeing only them! men's hands are not delicate in the early ages, and the fountain fairness of the palms is not very flowingly fashioned in the capitals; but in the flowery perfection of the Parthenon the palm triumphs. The forms of those columns came from Egypt, and that which was the suspicion of the earlier workers, was the success of more delicate designing. So is the palm inwound with our art, and poetry, and religion, and of all trees would the Howadji be a palm, wide-waving peace and plenty, and feeling his kin to the Parthenon and Raphael's pictures.

But nature is absolute taste, and has no pure ornament, so that the palm is no less useful than beautiful. The family is infinite, and ill understood. The cocoa-nut, date, and sago, are all palms. Ropes and sponges are wrought of their tough interior fibre. The various fruits are nutritious; the wood, the roots, and the leaves, are all consumed. It is one of nature's great gifts to her spoiled sun-darlings. Whoso is born of the sun is made free of the world. Like the poet Thompson, he may put his hands in his pockets and eat apples at leisure.

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=_John L. McConnell, 1826-._= (Manual, p. 510.)

From "Western Characters."

=_244._= THE EARLY WESTERN POLITICIAN.

He was tall, gaunt, angular, swarthy, active, and athletic. His hair was invariably black as the wing of the raven. Even in that small portion which the cap of raccoon-skin left exposed to the action of sun and rain, the gray was but thinly scattered, imparting to the monotonous darkness only a more iron character.... A stoop in the shoulders indicated that, in times past, he had been in the habit of carrying a heavy rifle, and of closely examining the ground over which he walked; but what the chest thus lost in depth it gained in breadth. His lungs had ample space in which to play. There was nothing pulmonary even in the drooping shoulders....

From shoulders thus bowed hung long, muscular arms, sometimes, perhaps, dangling a little ungracefully, but always under the command of their owner, and ready for any effort, however violent. These were terminated by broad, bony hands, which looked like grapnels; their grasp, indeed, bore no faint resemblance to the hold of those symmetrical instruments. Large feet, whose toes were usually turned in, like those of the Indian, were wielded by limbs whose vigor and activity were in keeping with the figure they supported. Imagine, with these peculiarities, a free, bold, rather swaggering gait, a swarthy complexion, and comformable features and tones of voice, and, excepting his costume, you have before your fancy a complete picture of the early western politician.

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=_Sarah J. Lippincott,[58]_= about =_1833-_=. (Manual p. 484.)

From "Records of Five Years."

=_245._= DEATH IN TOWN AND COUNTRY.

Up the long ascent it moved,--that shadow of our mortal sorrow and perishable earthly estate, that shadow of the dead man's hearse, along the way his feet had often trod, past the spring over whose brink he may have often bent with thirsting lip, past lovely green glades, mossy banks, and fairy forests of waving ferns, on which his eye had often dwelt with a vague and soft delight; and so passed out of our view. But its memory went not out of our hearts that day.

In this pure, healthful region, where nature seems so unworn, so youthful and vigorous, where dwell simplicity, humble comfort, and quiet happiness, death has startled us as something strange and unnatural....

How different is it in the city!... There, on many a corner, one is confronted with the black, significant sign of the undertaker's "dreadful trade," or comes upon some marble-yard, filled with a ghastly assemblage of anticipatory gravestones and monuments; graceful broken columns, which are to typify the lovely incompleteness of some young life now full of beauty and promise; melancholy, drooping figures, types of grief forever inconsolable, destined, perhaps, to stand proxy for mourning young widows now happy wives; sculptured lambs, patiently waiting to take their places above the graves of little children whom yet smiling mothers nightly lay to sleep in soft cribs, without the thought of a deeper dark and silence of a night not far away, or of the dreary beds soon to be prepared for their darlings "i' the earth."

[Footnote 58: Originally and very favorably known by the assumed name of "Grace Greenwood."]

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=_Francis Bret Harte,[59] 1837-._=

From "The Luck of Roaring Camp," &c.

=_246._= BIRTH OF A CHILD IN A MINER'S CAMP.

... The camp lay in a triangular valley, between two hills and a river. The only outlet was a steep trail over the summit of a hill that faced the cabin, now illuminated by the rising moon. The suffering woman might have seen it from the rude bunk whereon she lay,--seen it winding like a silver thread until it was lost in the stars above.

A fire of withered pine-boughs added sociability to the gathering. By degrees the natural levity of Roaring Camp returned. Bets were freely offered and taken regarding the result. Three to five that "Sal would get through with it," even, that the child would survive; side bets as to the sex and complexion of the coming stranger....

In the midst of an excited discussion an exclamation came from those nearest the door, and the camp stopped to listen. Above the swaying and moaning of the pines, the swift rush of the river, and the crackling of the fire, rose a sharp, querulous cry. The pines stopped moaning, the river ceased to rush, and the fire to crackle. It seemed as if Nature had stopped to listen too.

The camp rose to its feet as one man! It was proposed to explode a barrel of gunpowder; but, in consideration of the situation of the mother, better counsels prevailed, and only a few revolvers were discharged; for, whether owing to the rude surgery of the camp, or some other reason, Cherokee Sal was sinking fast. Within an hour she had climbed, as it were, the rugged road that led to the stars, and so passed out of Roaring Camp, its sin and shame, forever....

I do not think that the announcement disturbed them much, except in speculation as to the fate of the child, "Can he live now?" was asked of Stumpy. The answer was doubtful. The only other being of Cherokee Sal's sex and maternal condition in the settlement, was an ass. There was some conjecture as to fitness, but the experiment was tried. It was less problematical than the ancient treatment of Romulus and Remus, and apparently as successful.

Strange to say, the child thrived. Perhaps the invigorating climate of the mountain camp was compensation for maternal deficiencies. Nature took the foundling to her broader breast. In that rare atmosphere of the Sierra foot-hills--that air pungent with balsamic odor, that ethereal cordial at once bracing and exhilarating--he may have found food and nourishment, or a subtle chemistry that transmuted asses' milk to lime and phosphorus. Stumpy inclined to the belief that it was the latter and good nursing, "Me and that ass," he would say, "has been father and mother to him! Don't you," he would add, apostrophizing the helpless bundle before him, "never go back on us."

[Footnote 59: Prominent among the more recent American writers; a native of New York, but long resident in California; noted for his vivid portraiture of the early life, and remarkable scenery of that State, in a style uncommonly suggestive.]

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=_William Dean Howells, 1837-._= (Manual, p. 531.)

From "Venetian Life."

=_247._= SNOW IN VENICE.

... The lofty crest of the bell-tower was hidden in the folds of falling snow, and I could no longer see the golden angel upon its summit. But looked at across the Piazza, the beautiful outline of St. Mark's Church was perfectly penciled in the air, and the shifting threads of the snow-fall were woven into a spell of novel enchantment around a structure that always seemed to me too exquisite in its fantastic loveliness to be anything but the creation of magic. The tender snow had compassionated the beautiful edifice for all the wrongs of time, and so hid the stains and ugliness of decay that it looked as if just from the hands of the builder--or, better said, just from the brain of the architect. There was marvellous freshness in the colors of the mosaics in the great arches of the facade; and all that glorious harmony into which the temple rises, of marble scrolls and leafy exuberance airily supporting the statues of the saints, was a hundred times etherialized by the purity and whiteness of the drifting flakes. The snow lay lightly on the golden globes that tremble like peacock-crests above the vast domes, and plumed them with softest white; it robed the saints in ermine; and it danced over all its work as if exulting in its beauty....

Through the wavering snow-fall, the Saint Theodore upon one of the granite pillars of the Piazzetta did not show so grim as his wont is, and the winged lion on the other might have been a winged lamb, so mild and gentle he looked by the tender light of the storm. The towers of the island churches loomed faint and far away in the dimness; the sailors in the rigging of the ships that lay in the Basin, wrought like phantoms among the shrouds; the gondolas stole in and out of the opaque distance, more noiselessly and dreamily than ever; and a silence almost palpable, lay upon the mutest city in the world.

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=_Mary Abigail Dodge,[60] 1838-._=

From "Wool Gathering."

=_248._= SCENERY OF THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI.

Up the broad, cold, steel-blue river we wind steadily to its Northern home. No flutter of its orange groves, no fragrance of its Southern roses, no echo of its summer lands, can penetrate these distances. Only prophecies of the sturdy North are here,--the glitter of the Polar sea, the majesty of Arctic solitudes. The imagination is touched. The eye looks out upon a hemisphere. Vast spaces, lost ages, the unsealed mysteries of cold and darkness and eternal silence, sweep around the central thought, and people the wilderness with their solemn symbolism, Prettiness of gentle slope, wealth, and splendor of hue, are not wanting, but they shine with veiled light. Mountains come down to meet the Great River. The mists of the night lift slowly away, and we are brought suddenly into the presence-chamber. One by one they stand out in all their rugged might, only softened here and there by fleecy clouds still clinging to their sides, and shining pink in the ruddy dawn. Bold bluffs that have come hundreds of miles from their inland home guard the river. They rise on both sides, fronting us, bare and black, layer of solid rock piled on solid rock, defiant fortifications of some giant race, crowned here and there with frowning tower; here and there overborne and overgrown with wild-wood beauty, vine and moss and manifold leafage, gorgeous now with the glory of the vanishing summer. It is as if the everlasting hills had parted to give the Great River entrance to the hidden places of the world. And then the bold bluffs break into sharp cones, lonely mountains rising head and shoulders above their brethren, and keeping watch over the whole country; groups of mountains standing sentinels on the shores, almost leaning over the river, and hushing us to breathless silence as we sail through their awful shadow. And then the earth smiles again, the beetling cliffs recede into distances, and we glide through a pleasant valley. Green levels stretch away to the foot of the far cliffs, level with the river's blue, and as smooth,--sheltered and fertile, and fit for future homes. Nay, already the pioneer has found them, and many a hut and cottage and huddle of houses show whence art and science and all the amenities of human life, shall one day radiate. And even as we greet them we have left them, and the heights clasp us again, the hills overshadow us, the solitude closes around us.

[Footnote 60: Born in Massachusetts, author of numerous magazine articles of merit and earnestness, afterwards republished as books; known to her readers as Gail Hamilton.]

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LATER MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.

=_George Washington[61], 1732-1799._=

From a Letter to Sir John Sinclair.

=_249._= NATURAL ADVANTAGES OF VIRGINIA.

The United States, as you well know, are very extensive, more than fifteen hundred miles between the northeastern and southwestern extremities; all parts of which, from the seaboard to the Appalachian Mountains, which divide the eastern from the western waters, are entirely settled; though not as compactly as they are susceptible of; and settlements are progressing rapidly beyond them.

Within so great a space, you are not to be told, that there is a great variety of climates, and you will readily suppose, too, that there are all sorts of land, differently improved, and of various prices, according to the quality of the soil, its contiguity to, or remoteness from, navigation, the nature of the improvements, and other local circumstances....

Notwithstanding these abstracts, and although I may incur the charge of partiality in hazarding such an opinion at this time, I do not hesitate to pronounce, that the lands on the waters of the Potomac will in a few years be in greater demand and in higher estimation, than in any other part of the United States. But, as I ought not to advance this doctrine without assigning reasons for it, I will request you to examine a general map of the United States; and the following facts will strike you at first view; that they lie in the most temperate latitude of the United States, that the main river runs in a direct course to the expanded parts of the western country, and approximates nearer to the principal branches of the Ohio, than any other eastern water, and of course must become a great, if not (under all circumstances), the best highway into that region; that the upper seaport of the Potomac is considerably nearer to a large portion of Pennsylvania, than that portion is to Philadelphia, besides accommodating the settlers thereof with inland navigation for more than two hundred miles; that the amazing extent of tide navigation, afforded by the bay and rivers of the Chesapeake, has scarcely a parallel.

When to these it is added, that a site at the junction of the inland and tide navigations of that river is chosen for the permanent seat of the general government, and is in rapid preparation for its reception; that the inland navigation is nearly completed, to the extent above mentioned; that its lateral branches are capable of great improvement at a small expense, through the most fertile parts of Virginia in a southerly direction, and crossing Maryland and extending into Pennsylvania in a northerly one, through which, independently of what may come from the western country, an immensity of produce will be water-borne, thereby making the Federal City the great emporium of the United States; I say, when these things are taken into consideration, I am under no apprehension of having the opinion I have given, relative to the value of land on the Potomac, controverted by impartial men.

[Footnote 61: Washington's correspondence was voluminous, and on the subjects relating to climate, agriculture, and internal improvements, he wrote with interest and ability. The letter to Sinclair is characteristic.]

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=_Matthew F. Maury,[62] 1806-1873._=

From "The Physical Geography of the Sea."

=_250._= THE MARINER'S GUIDE ACROSS THE DEEP.

So to shape the course on voyages as to make the most of the winds and currents at sea, is the perfection of the navigator's art. How the winds blow, and the currents flow, along this route or that, is no longer matter of opinion or subject of speculation, but it is a matter of certainty determined by actual observation.... The winds and the weather daily encountered by hundreds who have sailed on the same voyage before him, and "the distance made good" by each one from day to day, have been tabulated in a work called Sailing Directions, and they are so arranged that he may daily see how much he is ahead of time, or how far he is behind time; nay, his path has been literally blazed through the winds for him on the sea; mile-posts have been set up on the waves, and finger-boards planted, and time-tables furnished for the trackless waste, by which the ship-master, on his first voyage to any port, may know as well as the most experienced trader whether he be in the right road or no.

... The route that affords the bravest winds, the fairest sweep, and the fastest running to be found among ships, is the route to and from Australia. But the route which most tries a ship's prowess is the outward-bound voyage to California. The voyage to Australia and back, carries the clipper ship along a route which, for more than three hundred degrees of longitude, runs with the "brave west winds" of the southern hemisphere. With these winds alone, and with their bounding seas which follow fast, the modern clipper, without auxiliary power, has accomplished a greater distance in a day than any sea-steamer has ever been known to reach. With these fine winds and heaving seas, those ships have performed their voyages of circumnavigation in sixty days.

[Footnote 62: Formerly an officer of the navy, eminent for his scientific researches and writings on maritime subjects; a native of Virginia.]

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=_251._= THE GULF STREAM.

As a rule, the hottest water of the Gulf Stream is at, or near, the surface; and as the deep-sea thermometer is sent down, it shows that these waters, though still far warmer than the waters on either side at corresponding depths, gradually become less and less warm until the bottom of the current is reached. There is reason to believe that the warm waters of the Gulf Stream are nowhere permitted, in the oceanic economy, to touch the bottom of the sea. There is everywhere a cushion of cool water, between them and the solid parts of the earth's crust. This arrangement is suggestive, and strikingly beautiful. One of the benign offices of the Gulf Stream is to convey heat from the Gulf of Mexico, where otherwise it would become excessive, and to dispense it in regions beyond the Atlantic, or the amelioration of the climates of the British Islands and of all Western Europe. Now cold water is one of the best non-conductors of heat, and if the warm water of the Gulf Stream was sent across the Atlantic in contact with the solid crust of the earth,--comparatively a good conductor of heat,--instead of being sent across, as it is, in contact with a cold non-conducting cushion of cool water to fend it from the bottom, much of its heat would be lost in the first part of the way, and the soft climates of both France and England would be, as that of Labrador, severe In the extreme, icebound, and bitterly cold.

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=_Ormsby M. Mitchell,[63] 1810-1862._=

=_252._= THE GREAT UNFINISHED PROBLEMS OF THE UNIVERSE.

I do not pretend to indorse the theory of Mädler with reference to his central sun. If I did indorse it, it would amount simply to nothing at all, for he needs no indorsement of mine. But it is one of the great unfinished problems of the universe, which remains yet to be solved. Future generations yet are to take it up. Materials for its solution are to accumulate from generation to generation, and possibly from century to century. Nay, I know not but thousands of years will roll away before the slow movements of these far distant orbs shall so accumulate as to give us the data whereby the resolution may be absolutely accomplished. But shall we fail to work because the end is far off? Had the old astronomer that once stood upon the watch-tower in Babylon, and there marked the coming of the dreaded eclipse, said. "I care not for this; this is the business of posterity; let posterity take care of itself; I will make no record"--and had, in succeeding ages, the sentinel in the watch-tower of the skies said, "I will retire from my post; I have no concern with these matters, which can do me no good; it is nothing that I can do for the age in which I live,"--where should we have been to-night? Shall we not do, for those who are to follow us, what has been done for us by our predecessors? Let us not shrink from the responsibility which comes down upon the age in which we live. The great and mighty problem of the universe has been given to the whole human family for its solution. Not by any clime, not by any age, not by any nation, not by any individual man or mind, however great or grand, has this wondrous solution been accomplished; but it is the problem of humanity, and it will last as long as humanity shall inhabit the globe on which we live and move.

* * * * *

No, here is the temple of our Divinity. Around us and above us rise sun and system, cluster and universe. And I doubt not that in every region of this vast empire of God, hymns of praise and anthems of glory are rising and reverberating from sun to sun, and from, system to system, heard by Omnipotence alone, across immensity, and through eternity.

[Footnote 63: An astronomer, and a favorite lecturer on the science; a native of Kentucky.]

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WRITERS ON NATURAL HISTORY, SCENERY, &c.

=_William Bartram, 1739-1813._= (Manual, p. 490.)

From the "Travels through the Carolinas," &c.

=_253._= SCENES ON THE UPPER OCONEE.

At this rural retirement were assembled a charming circle of mountain vegetable beauties.... Some of these roving beauties stroll over the mossy, shelving, humid rocks, or from off the expansive wavy boughs of trees, bending over the floods, salute their delusive shade, playing on the surface; some plunge their perfumed heads and bathe their flexile limbs in the silver stream; whilst others by the mountain breezes are tossed about, their blooming tuffts bespangled with pearly and crystalline dew-drops collected from the falling mists, glistening in the rainbow arch. Having collected some valuable specimens at this friendly retreat, I continued my lonesome pilgrimage. My road for a considerable time led me winding and turning about the steep rocky hills: the descent of some of which was very rough and troublesome, by means of fragments of rocks, slippery clay and talc: but after this I entered a spacious forest, the land having gradually acquired a more level surface: a pretty grassy vale appears on my right, through which my wandering path led me, close by the banks of a delightful creek, which sometimes falling over steps of rocks, glides gently with serpentine meanders through the meadows.

After crossing this delightful brook and mead, the land rises again with sublime magnificence, and I am led over hills and vales, groves and high forests, vocal with the melody of the feathered songsters; the snow-white cascades glittering on the sides of the distant hills.

It was now afternoon; I approached a charming vale, amidst sublimely high forests, awful shades! Darkness gathers around; far distant thunder rolls over the trembling hills: the black clouds with august majesty and power move slowly forwards, shading regions of towering hills, and threatening all the destruction of a thunder-storm: all around is now still as death, not a whisper is heard, but a total inactivity and silence seem to pervade the earth; the birds afraid to utter a chirrup, in low tremulous voices take leave of each other, seeking covert and safety: every insect is silenced, and nothing heard but the roaring of the approaching hurricane. The mighty cloud now expands its sable wings, extending from north to south, and is driven irresistibly on by the tumultuous winds, spreading its livid wings around the gloomy concave, armed with terrors of thunder and fiery shafts of lightning. Now the lofty forests bend low beneath its fury; their limbs and wavy boughs are tossed about and catch hold of each other; the mountains tremble and seem to reel about, and the ancient hills to be shaken to their foundations: the furious storm sweeps along, smoking through the vale and over the resounding hills: the face of the earth is obscured by the deluge descending from the firmament, and I am deafened by the din of the thunder. The tempestuous scene damps my spirits, and my horse sinks under me at the tremendous peals, as I hasten on for the plain.

* * * * *

From his "Travels in the Carolinas, Florida," &c.

=_254._= THE WOOD PELICAN OF FLORIDA.

This solitary bird does not associate in flocks, but is generally seen alone, commonly near the banks of great rivers, in vast marshes or meadows, especially such as are caused by inundations, and also in the vast deserted rice plantations: he stands alone on the topmost limb of tall dead cypress trees, his neck contracted or drawn in upon his shoulders, and beak resting like a long scythe upon his breast: in this pensive posture and solitary situation, it looks extremely grave, sorrowful, and melancholy, as if in the deepest thought.

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=_Alexander Wilson, 1766-1813._= (Manual, p. 504.)

From the "American Ornithology."

=_255._= NEST OF THE RED-HEADED WOODPECKER.

Notwithstanding the care which this bird, in common with the rest of its genus, takes to place its young beyond the reach of enemies, within the hollows of trees, yet there is one deadly foe, against whose depredations neither the height of the tree nor the depth of the cavity is the least security. This is the blade snake, who frequently glides up the trunk of the tree, and, like a skulking savage, enters the woodpecker's peaceful apartment, devours the eggs or helpless young, in spite of the cries and flutterings of the parents, and if the place be large enough, coils himself up in the spot they occupied, where he will sometimes remain for several days. The eager school-boy, after hazarding his neck to reach the woodpecker's hole, at the triumphant moment when he thinks the nestlings his own, and strips his arm, launching it down into the cavity, and grasping what he conceives to be the callow young, starts with horror at the sight of a hideous snake, and almost drops from his giddy pinnacle, retreating down the tree with terror and precipitation. Several adventures of this kind have come to my knowledge; and one of them was attended with serious consequences, where both snake and boy fell to the ground, and a broken thigh, and long confinement, cured the adventurer completely of his ambition for robbing woodpeckers' nests.

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=_256._= THE WHITE-HEADED, OR BALD, EAGLE.

Elevated on the high dead limb of some gigantic tree that commands a wide view of the neighboring shore and ocean, he seems calmly to contemplate the motions of the various feathered tribes that pursue their busy avocations below,--the snow-white Gulls slowly winnowing the air; the busy _Tringoe_ coursing along the sands; trains of Ducks streaming over the surface; silent and watchful Cranes, intent and wading; clamorous crows; and all the winged multitudes that subsist by the bounty of this vast liquid magazine of nature. High over all these hovers one, whose action instantly arrests his whole attention. By his wide curvature of wing, and sudden suspension in air, he knows him to be the Fish Hawk, settling over some devoted victim of the deep. His eye kindles at the sight, and balancing himself with half-opened wings, on the branch, he watches the result. Down, rapid as an arrow from heaven, descends the distant object of his attention, the roar of its wings reaching the ear as it disappears in the deep, making the surges foam around. At this moment, the eager looks of the Eagle are all ardor; and levelling his neck for flight, he sees the Fish Hawk once more emerge, struggling with his prey, and mounting in the air with screams of exultation. These are the signal for our hero, who launching into the air, instantly gives chase, and soon gains on the Fish Hawk; each exerts his utmost to mount above the other, displaying in these rencontres the most elegant and sublime aerial evolutions. The unincumbered Eagle rapidly advances, and is just on the point of reaching his opponent, when, with a sudden scream, probably of despair and honest execration, the latter drops his fish; the Eagle poising himself for a moment, as if to take a more certain aim, descends like a whirlwind, snatches it in his grasp ere it reaches the water, and bears his ill-gotten booty silently away to the woods.

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=_Stephen Elliott,[64] 1771-1830._=

From "Views of Nature."

=_257._= COMPLETENESS AND VARIETY OF NATURE.

What is there that will not be included in the history of nature? The earth on which we tread, the air we breathe, the waters around the earth, the material forms that inhabit its surface, the mind of man, with all its magical illusions and all its inherent energy, the planets that move around our system, the firmament of heaven--the smallest of the invisible atoms which float around our globe, and the most majestic of the orbs that roll through the immeasurable fields of space--all are parts of one system, productions of one power, creations of one intellect, the offspring of Him, by whom all that is inert and inorganic in creation was formed, and from whom all that have life derive their being.

Of this immense system,--all that we can examine,--this little globe that we inherit, is full of animation, and crowded with forms, organized, glowing with life, and generally sentient. No space is unoccupied; the exposed surface of the rock is incrusted with living substances; plants occupy the bark, and decaying limbs, of other plants; animals live on the surface, and in the bodies, of other animals: inhabitants are fashioned and adapted to equatorial heats, and polar ice;--air, earth, and ocean teem with life;--and if to other worlds the same proportion of life and of enjoyment has been distributed which has been allotted to ours, if creative benevolence has equally filled every other planet of every other system, nay, even the suns themselves, with beings, organized, animated, and intelligent, how countless must be the generations of the living! What voices which we cannot hear, what languages that we cannot understand, what multitudes that we cannot see, may, as they roll along the stream of time, be employed hourly, daily, and forever, in choral songs of praise, hymning their great Creator!

And when, in this almost prodigal waste of life, we perceive that every being, from the puny insect which flutters in the evening ray; from the lichen which we can scarcely distinguish on the mouldering rock; from the fungus that springs up and re-animates the mass of dead and decomposing substances; that every living form possesses a structure as perfect in its sphere, an organization sometimes as complex, always as truly and completely adapted to its purposes and modes of existence as that of the most perfect animal; when we discover them all to be governed by laws as definite, as immutable, as those which regulate the planetary movements, great must be our admiration of the wisdom which has arrayed, and the power which has perfected this stupendous fabric.

Nor does creation here cease. There are beyond the limits of our system, beyond the visible forms of matter, other principles, other powers, higher orders of beings, an immaterial world which we cannot yet know; other modes of existence which we cannot comprehend; yet however inscrutable to us, this spiritual world must be guided by its own unerring laws, and the harmonious order which reigns in all we can see and understand, ascending through the series of immortal and invisible existence, must govern even the powers and dominions, the seraphim and cherubim, that surround the throne of God himself.

[Footnote 64: Distinguished as a writer and scholar, and especially for his work on the Botany of South Carolina and Georgia; a native of South Carolina.]

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=_John James Audubon, 1776-1851._= (Manual, p. 504.)

From the "Ornithological Biography."

=_258._= THE PASSENGER PIGEON.

I cannot describe to you the extreme beauty of their aerial evolutions, when a hawk chanced to press upon the rear of a flock. At once, like a torrent, and with a noise like thunder, they rushed into a compact mass, pressing upon each other towards the centre. In these almost solid masses, they darted forward in undulating and angular lines, descended and swept close over the earth with inconceivable velocity, mounted perpendicularly so as to resemble a vast column, and when high, were seen wheeling and twisting within their continued lines, which then resembled the coils of a gigantic serpent.

It is extremely interesting to see flock after flock performing exactly the same evolutions which had been traced as it were, in the air, by a preceding flock. Thus should a hawk have charged on a group at a certain spot, the angles, curves, and undulations that have been described by the birds, in their efforts to escape from the dreaded talons of the plunderer, are undeviatingly followed by the next group that comes up. Should the by-stander happen to witness one of these affrays, and, struck with the rapidity and elegance of the motions exhibited, feel desirous of seeing them repeated, his wishes will be gratified, if he only remain in the place until the next group comes up.

As soon as the pigeons discover a sufficiency of food to entice them to alight, they fly around in circles, reviewing the country below. During their evolutions, on such occasions, the dense mass which they form, exhibits a beautiful appearance, as it changes its direction, now displaying a glistening sheet of azure, when the backs of the birds come simultaneously into view, and anon, suddenly presenting a mass of rich purple. They then pass lower, over the woods, and for a moment are lost among the foliage, but again emerge, and are seen gliding aloft. They now alight, but the next moment, as if suddenly alarmed, they take to wing, producing by the flapping of their wings a noise like the roar of distant thunder, and sweep through the forests to see if danger is near. Hunger, however, soon brings them to the ground. When alighted, they are seen industriously throwing up the withered leaves in quest of the falling mast. The rear ranks are continually rising, passing over the main body, and alighting in front, in such rapid succession, that the whole flock seems still on wing. The quantity of ground thus swept is astonishing, and so completely has it been cleared, that the gleaner who might follow in their rear, would find his labor completely lost.

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=_259._= EMIGRANTS REMOVING WESTWARD.

I think I see them at this moment harnessing their horses and attaching them to their wagons, which are already filled with bedding, provisions, and the younger children; while on the outside are fastened spinning-wheels and looms, and a bucket filled with tar and tallow swings between the hind wheels. Several axes are secured to the bolster, and the feeding-trough of the horses contains pots, kettles, and pans. The servant, now become a driver, rides the near saddled horse; the wife is mounted on another; the worthy husband shoulders his gun; and his sons, clad in plain, substantial homespun, drive the cattle ahead, and lead the procession, followed by the hounds and other dogs.

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=_260._= INTEREST OF EXPLORATION IN THE REMOTE WEST.

How delightful, I have often exclaimed, must have been the feelings of those enthusiastic naturalists, my friends Nuttall and Townsend, while traversing the ridges of the Rocky Mountains! How grand and impressive the scenery presented to their admiring gaze, when from an elevated station they saw the mountain torrent hurling its foamy waters over the black crags of the rugged ravine, while on wide-spread wings the Great Vulture sailed overhead watching the departure of the travellers, that he might feast on the Salmon which in striving to ascend the cataract had been thrown on the stony beach! Now the weary travellers are resting on the bank of a brawling brook, along which they are delighted to see the lively Dipper frisking wren-like from stone to stone. On the stunted bushes above them some curious Jays are chattering, and as my friends are looking upon the gay and restless birds, they are involuntarily led to extend their gaze to the green slope beneath the more distant crags, where they spy a mountain sheep, watching the movements of the travellers as well as those of yon wolves stealing silently toward the fleet-footed animal. Again the pilgrims are in motion; they wind their pathless way round rocks and fissures; they have reached the greatest height of the sterile platform; and as they gaze on the valleys whose waters hasten to join the Pacific Ocean, and bid adieu, perhaps for the last time, to the dear friends they have left in the distant east, how intense must be their feelings, as thoughts of the past and the future blend themselves in their anxious minds! But now I see them, brother-like, with lighter steps, descending toward the head waters of the famed Oregon. They have reached the great stream, and seating themselves in a canoe, shoot adown the current, gazing on the beautiful shrubs and flowers that ornament the banks, and the majestic trees that cover the sides of the valley, all new to them, and presenting a wide field of discovery. The melodies of unknown songsters enliven their spirits, and glimpses of gaudily plumed birds excite their desire to search those beautiful thickets; but time is urgent, and onward they must speed. A deer crosses the stream, they pursue and capture it; and it being now evening, they land and soon form a camp, carefully concealed from the prying eyes of the lurking savage. The night is past, the dawn smiles upon the refreshed travellers, who launch their frail bark; and, as they slowly float on the stream, both listen attentively to the notes of the Red-and-White-winged Troopial, and wonder how similar they are to those of the "Red-winged Starling;" they think of the affinities of species, and especially of those of the lively birds composing this beautiful group.

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=_Daniel Drake,[65] 1785-1852._=

From a "Picture of Cincinnati, &c."

=_261._= OBJECTS OF THE WESTERN MOUND-BUILDERS.

No objects in the State of Ohio seem to have more forcibly arrested the attention of travellers, nor employed a greater number of pens, than its antiquities. It is to be regretted, however, that so hastily and superficially have they been examined by strangers, and so generally neglected by ourselves, that the materials for a full description have not yet been collected....

The forests over these remains exhibit no appearances of more recent growth than in other parts. Trees, several hundred years old, are in many places seen growing out of the ruins of others, which appear to have been of equal size....

Those at Cincinnati, for example, exhibit so few of the characters of a defensive work, that General Wayne, upon attentively surveying them in 1794, was of opinion that they were not designed for that purpose. It was from the examination of valley-works only, that Bishop Madison was led to deny that the remains of the western country were ever intended for defence, and to conclude that they were enclosures for permanent residence. It would be precipitate to assert that the relics found in the valleys were for this purpose, and those of the uplands for defence. But while it is certain that the latter were military posts, it seems highly probable that the former were for ordinary abode in times of peace. They were towns and the seats of chiefs, whose perishable parts have crumbled into earth, and disappeared with the generations which formed them. Many of them might have been calculated for defence, as well as for habitations; but the latter must have been the chief purpose for which they were erected. On the contrary, the hill-constructions, which are generally in the strongest military positions of the country, were designed solely for defence, in open and vigorous war.

[Footnote 65: A native of New Jersey, who was taken when very young, to the West, where he became distinguished as a medical professor and practitioner. His recollections and sketches are very valuable.]

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=_John Bachman,[66] 1790-1873._=

From "The Quadrupeds of North America."

=_262._= THE OPOSSUM.

We can imagine to ourselves the surprise with which the opossum was regarded by Europeans, when they first saw it. Scarcely anything was known of the marsupial animals, as New Holland had not as yet opened its unrivalled stores of singularities to astonish the world. Here was a strange animal, with the head and ears of the pig, sometimes hanging on the limb of a tree, and occasionally swinging like the monkey by the tail. Around that prehensile appendage a dozen sharp-nosed, sleek-headed young had entwined their own tails, and were sitting on the mother's back. The astonished traveller approaches this extraordinary compound of an animal, and touches it cautiously with a stick. Instantly it seems to be struck with some mortal disease: its eyes close, it falls to the ground, ceases to move, and appears to be dead. He turns it on its back, and perceives on its stomach a strange, apparently artificial opening. He puts his fingers into the extraordinary pocket, and lo, another brood of a dozen or more young, scarcely larger than a pea, are hanging in clusters on the teats. In pulling the creature about, in great amazement, he suddenly receives a gripe on the hand; the twinkling of the half-closed eye, and the breathing of the creature, evince that it is not dead: and he adds a new term to the vocabulary of his language, that of "playing possum."

... When the young are four weeks old, they begin from time to time to relax their hold on the teats, and may now be seen with their heads occasionally out of the pouch. A week later, and they venture to steal occasionally from their snug retreat in the pouch, and are often seen on the mother's back, securing themselves by entwining their tails around hers. In this situation she moves from place to place in search of food, carrying her whole family along with her, to which she is much attached, and in whose defence she exhibits a considerable degree of courage, growling at any intruder, and ready to use her teeth with great severity on man or dog. In travelling, it is amusing to see this large family moving about. Some of the young, nearly the size of rats, have their tails entwined around the legs of the mother, and some around her neck,--thus they are dragged along. They have a mild and innocent look, and are sleek, and in fine condition, and this is the only age in which the word pretty can be applied to the Opossum. At this period, the mother in giving sustenance to so large a family, becomes thin, and is reduced to one-half of her previous weight. The whole family of young remain with her about two months, and continue in the vicinity till autumn. In the meantime, a second, and often a third brood, is produced, and thus two or more broods of different ages may be seen, sometimes with the mother, and at other times not far off.

... Hunting the Opossum is a very favorite amusement among domestics and field laborers on our Southern plantations, of lads broke loose from school in the holidays, and even of gentlemen, who are sometimes more fond of this sport than of the less profitable and more dangerous and fatiguing one of hunting the gray fox by moonlight. Although we have never participated in an Opossum hunt, yet we have observed that it afforded much amusement to the sable group that in the majority of instances make up the hunting party, and we have on two or three occasions been the silent and gratified observers of the preparations that were going on, the anticipations indulged in, and the excitement apparent around us.

[Footnote 66: A clergyman of the Lutheran church, for many years a citizen of Charleston, South Carolina, out originally from New York; eminent for his attainments and writings in natural history and science.]

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=_J. A. Lapham.[67]_=

From "Wisconsin, its Geography," &c.

=_263._= THE SMALLER LAKES.

BESIDES these immense lakes, Wisconsin abounds in those of smaller size, scattered profusely over her whole surface. They are from one to twenty or thirty miles in extent. Many of them are the most beautiful that can be imagined--the water deep, and of crystal purity and clearness, surrounded by sloping hills and promontories, covered with scattered groves and clumps of trees. Some are of a more picturesque kind, being more rugged in their appearance, with steep, rocky bluffs, crowned with cedar, hemlock, spruce, and other evergreen trees of a similar character. Perhaps a small rocky island will vary the scene, covered with a conical mass of vegetation, the low shrubs and bushes being arranged around the margin, and the tall trees in the centre. These lakes usually abound in fish of various kinds, affording food for the pioneer settler; and among the pebbles on their shores may occasionally be found fine specimens of agate, carnelian, and other precious stones. In the bays, where the water is shallow, and but little affected by the winds, the wild rice grows in abundance, affording subsistence for the Indian, and attracting innumerable water-birds to these lakes.

[Footnote 67: The age of this meritorious and industrious writer we have not been able to learn. The second edition of his book on Wisconsin appeared in 1846.]

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=_264._= ANCIENT EARTHWORKS.