Chapter I: Part 1

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Early Western Travels

1748-1846

Volume XXVI

Early Western Travels

1748-1846

A Series of Annotated Reprints of some of the best and
rarest contemporary volumes of travel, descriptive of
the Aborigines and Social and Economic Conditions in
the Middle and Far West, during the Period of Early
American Settlement

Edited with Notes, Introductions, Index, etc., by

Reuben Gold Thwaites, LL.D.

Editor of "The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents,"
"Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition,"
"Hennepin's New Discovery," etc.

Volume XXVI

Part I of Flagg's The Far West, 1836-1837

Cleveland, Ohio
The Arthur H. Clark Company
1906

The Lakeside Press
R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY
CHICAGO

CONTENTS OF VOLUME XXVI

PREFACE TO VOLUMES XXVI AND XXVII. _The Editor_ 9

THE FAR WEST: OR, A TOUR BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS. Embracing
Outlines of Western Life and Scenery; Sketches of the
Prairies, Rivers, Ancient Mounds, Early Settlements
of the French, etc. etc. (The first thirty-two chapters,
being all of Vol. I of original, and pp. 1-126 of Vol. II.)
_Edmund Flagg._

Author's Dedication 27

Author's Preface 29

Author's Table of Contents 33

Text (chapters i-xxxii; the remainder appearing in
our volume xxvii) 43

ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME XXVI

Map of Oregon; drawn by H. J. Kelley, 1830 24

Facsimile of title-page to Vol. I of Flagg's _The Far West_ 25

PREFACE TO VOLUMES XXVI-XXVII

These two volumes are devoted to reprints of Edmund Flagg's _The Far West_ (New York, 1838), and Father Pierre Jean de Smet's _Letters and Sketches, with a Narrative of a Year's Residence among the Indian Tribes of the Rocky Mountains_ (Philadelphia, 1843). Flagg's two-volume work occupies all of our volume xxvi and the first part of volume xxvii, the remaining portion of the latter being given to De Smet's book.

Edmund Flagg was prominent among early American prose writers, and also ranked high among our minor poets. A descendant of the Thomas Flagg who came to Boston from England, in 1637, Edmund was born November 24, 1815, at Wescasset, Maine. Being graduated with distinction from Bowdoin College in 1835, in the same year he went with his mother and sister Lucy to Louisville, Kentucky. Here, in a private school, he taught the classics to a group of boys, and contributed articles to the Louisville _Journal_, a paper with which he was intermittently connected, either as editorial writer or correspondent, until 1861.

The summer and autumn of 1836 found Flagg travelling in Missouri and Illinois, and writing for the _Journal_ the letters which were later revised and enlarged to form _The Far West_, herein reprinted. Tarrying at St. Louis in the autumn of 1836, our author began the study of law, and the following year was admitted to the bar; but in 1838 he returned to newspaper life, taking charge for a time of the St. Louis _Commercial Bulletin_. During the winter of 1838-39 he assisted George D. Prentice, founder of the Louisville _Journal_, in the work of editing the Louisville _Literary News Letter_. Finding, however, that newspaper work overtaxed his health, Flagg next accepted an invitation to enter the law office of Sergeant S. Prentiss at Vicksburg, Mississippi, where in addition to his legal duties he found time to edit the Vicksburg _Whig_. Having been wounded in a duel with James Hagan of the _Sentinel_ in that city, Flagg returned to the less excitable North and undertook editorial duties upon the _Gazette_ at Marietta, Ohio (1842-43), and later (1844-45) upon the St. Louis _Evening Gazette_. He also served as official reporter of the Missouri state constitutional convention the following year, and published a volume of its debates; subsequently (until 1849) acting as a court reporter in St. Louis.

The three succeeding years were spent abroad; first as secretary to Edward A. Hannegan, United States minister to Berlin, and later as consul at Venice. In February, 1852, he returned to America, and during the presidential campaign of that year edited a Democratic journal at St. Louis, known as the _Daily Times_. Later, as a reward for political service, he was made superintendent of statistics in the department of state, at Washington--a bureau having special charge of commercial relations. Here he was especially concerned with the compilation of reports on immigration and the cotton and tobacco trade, and published a _Report on Commercial Relations of the United States with all Foreign Nations_ (4 vols., Washington, 1858). Through these reports, particularly the last named, Flagg's name became familiar to merchants in both the United States and Europe. From 1857 to 1860 he was Washington correspondent for several Western newspapers, and from 1861 to 1870 served as librarian of copyrights in the department of the interior. Having in 1862 married Kate Adeline, daughter of Sidney S. Gallaher, of Virginia, he moved to Highland View in that state (1870), and died there November 1, 1890.

In addition to his labors in the public service and as a newspaper man, Flagg found time for higher literary work, and won considerable distinction in that field. His first book, _The Far West_, although somewhat stilted in style, possesses considerable literary merit. Encouraged by the success of his initial endeavor, he wrote the following year (1839) the _Duchess of Ferrara_ and _Beatrice of Padua_, two novels, each of which passed through at least two editions. The _Howard Queen_ (1848) and _Blanche of Artois_ (1850) were prize productions. _De Molai_ (1888), says the New York _Sun_ of the period, is "a powerful, dramatic tale which seems to catch the very spirit of the age of Philip of France. It is rare to find a story in which fact and invention are so evenly and adroitly balanced." Our author also wrote several dramas, which were staged in Louisville, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and New York; he also composed numerous poems for newspapers and magazines. His masterpiece, however, was a history dedicated to his lifelong friend and colleague, George D. Prentice, entitled _The City of the Sea_ (2 vols., New York, 1853). This work was declared by the _Knickerbocker_ to be "a carefully compiled, poetically-written digest of the history of the glorious old Venice--a passionate, thrilling, yet accurate and sympathetic account of the last struggle for independence." At the time of his death Flagg had in preparation a volume of reminiscences, developed from a diary kept during forty years, but this has never been published.[1]

[1] For a list of Flagg's prose and poetical writings, contributions
to periodicals, and editorial works, see "Annual Report of the
Librarian of Bowdoin College for the year ending June 1, 1891,"
in Bowdoin College _Library Bulletin_ (Brunswick, Maine, 1895).

"In hope of renovating the energies of a shattered constitution," we are told, Flagg started in the early part of June, 1836, on a journey to what was then known as the Far West. Taking a steamboat at Louisville, he went to St. Louis by way of the Ohio and the Mississippi, and after a brief delay ascended the latter to the mouth of the Illinois, and thence on to Peoria. Prevented by low water from proceeding farther, he returned by the same route to St. Louis, whence after three weeks' stay, spent either in the sick chamber or in making short trips about the city and its environs, the traveller crossed the Mississippi and struck out on horseback across the Illinois prairies, visiting Edwardsville, Alton, Carlinsville, Hillsborough, Carlisle, Lebanon, Belleville, and the American Bottoms. In July, after recrossing the Mississippi, he visited in like manner St. Charles, Missouri, by way of Bellefontaine and Florissant; crossed the Mississippi near Portage des Sioux, and passed through the Illinois towns of Grafton, Carrollton, Manchester, Jacksonville, Springfield, across Grand Prairie to Shelbyville, Mount Vernon, Pinkneyville, and Chester, and returned to St. Louis by way of the old French settlements of Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher, and Cahokia.

During this journey Flagg wrote for the Louisville _Journal_, as already stated, a series of letters describing the country through which he travelled. Hastily thrown together from the pages of his note book, this correspondence appeared anonymously under the title, "Sketches of a Traveller." They were, however, soon attributed to Flagg, and two years later were collected by the author and published in two small volumes by Harper and Brothers (New York, 1838), as _The Far West_. These volumes are in many respects the best description of the Middle West that had appeared up to the time they were written. Roughly following the journals of Michaux, Harris, and Cuming by forty, thirty, and twenty years respectively, Flagg skillfully shows the remarkable growth and development of the Western country. His descriptions of the Ohio, Mississippi, and Illinois rivers are still among the best in print, particularly from the artistic standpoint. His account of the steamboat traffic is valuable for the history of navigation on the Western rivers, and shows vividly the obstacles which still confronted merchants of that time. Chapters xi, xii, and xiii, dealing with St. Louis and its immediate vicinity, are the most detailed in our series, while the descriptions of St. Charles and the Illinois towns through which Flagg passed, are excellent.

The modern reader cannot but wish that Flagg had devoted less space to his youthful philosophizing, but the atmosphere is at least wholesome. Unlike Harris, whose criticism of Western society was keen and acrid, Flagg was a man of broad sympathies, possessing an insight into human nature remarkable for so youthful a writer--for he was but twenty years of age at the time of his travels, and twenty-two when the book was published. Although mildly reproving the old French settlers for their lack of enterprise, he fully appreciates their domestic virtues, and gives a faithful picture of these pleasure-loving, contented, unprogressive people. His description of the once thriving villages of Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher, and Cahokia, are valuable historically, as showing the decay settling upon the French civilization after a few years of American occupation. Our author's interview with the Mormon convert, his conversations with early French and American settlers, his accounts of political meetings, his anecdotes illustrating Western curiosity, and particularly his carefully-recounted local traditions, throw much light on the beliefs, manners, and customs of the Western people of his time. _The Far West_ is thus not only a graphic and often forceful description of the interesting region through which the author travelled, but a sympathetic synopsis of its local annals, affording much varied information not otherwise obtainable. The present reprint, with annotations that seek to correct its errors, will, we think, prove welcome in our series.

In the _Letters and Sketches_ of Father de Smet, we reprint another Western classic, related to the volumes of Flagg by their common terminus of travel at St. Louis.

No more interesting or picturesque episode has occurred in the history of Christian missions in the New World, than the famous visit made in the autumn of 1831 to General William Clark at St. Louis by the Flathead chiefs seeking religious instruction for their people. Vigorously exploited in the denominational papers of the East, this delegation aroused a sentiment that led to the founding of Protestant missions in Oregon and western Idaho, and incidentally to the solution of the Oregon question. But in point of fact, the Flathead deputation was sent to secure a Catholic missionary; and not merely one but four such embassies embarked for St. Louis before the great desideratum, a "black robe" priest, could be secured for ministration to this far-distant tribe. Employed in the Columbian fur-trade were a number of Christian Iroquois from Canada, who had been carefully trained at St. Regis and Caughnawaga in all the observances of the Roman Catholic church. Upon the Pacific waterways and in the fastnesses of the Rockies, these Iroquois taught their fellow Indians the ordinances of the church and the commands of the white man's Great Spirit. John Wyeth (see our volume xxi) testifies to the honesty and humanity of the Flathead tribe: "they do not lie, steal, nor rob any one, unless when driven too near to starvation." He also testifies that they "appear to keep the Sabbath;" and that their word is "as good as the Bible." These were the neophytes who craved instruction, and to whom was assigned that remarkable Jesuit missionary, Father Jean Pierre de Smet.

Born in Belgium in 1801, young De Smet was educated in a religious school at Malines. When twenty years of age he responded to an appeal to cross the Atlantic and carry the gospel to the red men of the Western continent. Arrived in Philadelphia (1821), the young Belgian was astonished to see a well-built town, travelled roads, cultivated farms, and other appurtenances of civilization; he had expected only a wilderness and savages. Two years were spent in the Jesuit novitiate in Maryland, before the zealous youth saw any traces of frontier life. Then the youthful novice was removed to Florissant, Missouri, not far from St. Louis, where the making of a log-cabin and the breaking of fresh soil furnished a mild foretaste of his future career. Still more years elapsed before the cherished project of missionary labor could be realized. In 1829 St. Louis University was founded, and herein the young priest, who had been ordained in 1827, was employed upon the instructional force. Later years (1833-37) were spent in Europe, while recruiting his health and securing supplies for the infant university. It was not until 1838 that the first missionary enterprise was undertaken by Father de Smet, when a chapel for the Potawatomi was built on the site of the modern Council Bluffs. There, in 1839, the fourth Flathead deputation rested after the long journey from their Rocky Mountain home; and at the earnest solicitation of the young missioner, he was in the spring of 1840, detailed by his superior to ascertain and report upon the prospects of a mission to the mountain Indians.

Of the two tribesmen who had come down to St. Louis, Pierre the Left-handed (Gaucher) was sent back to his people with news of the success of the embassy, while his colleague Ignace was detained to serve as guide to the adventurous Jesuit who in April, 1840, set forth for the Flathead country with the annual fur-trade caravan. The route traversed was the well-known Oregon Trail as far as the Green River rendezvous; there the father was rejoiced to meet a deputation of ten Flatheads, sent to escort him to their habitat, and at Prairie de la Messe was celebrated for them the first mass in the Western mountains. The trail led them on through Jackson's and Pierre's Holes; and in the latter valley the waiting tribesmen to the number of sixteen hundred had collected, and received the "black robe" as a messenger from Heaven. Chants and prayers were heard on every side; "in a fortnight," reports the delighted missionary, "all knew their prayers." After two months spent among his "dear Flatheads," wandering with them across the divide, and encamping for some time at the Three Forks of the Missouri--where nearly forty years before Lewis and Clark first encountered the Western Indians--De Smet took leave of his neophytes. Protected by a strong guard through the hostile Blackfeet country, he arrived at last at the fur-trade post of Fort Union at the junction of the Missouri and the Yellowstone. Descending thence to St. Louis he arrived there on the last day of December, 1840.

The remainder of the winter was occupied in preparations for a new journey, and in securing men and supplies for the equipment of the far-away mission begun under such favorable auspices. Once more the father departed from Westport--this time in May, 1841. The little company consisted, besides himself, of two other priests and three lay brothers, all of the latter being skilled mechanics. Among the members of the caravan were a number of California pioneers, one of whom has thus related his impressions of the young missionary: "He was genial, of fine presence, and one of the saintliest men I have ever known, and I cannot wonder that the Indians were made to believe him divinely protected. He was a man of great kindness and great affability under all circumstances; nothing seemed to disturb his temper."[2]

[2] John Bidwell, "First Emigrant Train to California," in
_Century Magazine_, new series, xix, pp. 113, 114.

Father de Smet's letters describe in detail the scenery and incidents of the route from the eastern border of Kansas to Fort Hall, in Idaho, where the British factor received the travellers with abounding hospitality. Here some of the Flatheads were in waiting to convey the missionaries to the tribe, the chiefs of which met them in Beaver Head Valley, Montana, and testified their welcome with dignified simplicity. Passing over to the waters of the Columbia, they founded the mission of St. Mary upon the first Sunday in October, in the beautiful Bitter Root valley at the site of the later Fort Owen. Thence Father de Smet made a rapid journey in search of provisions to Fort Colville, on the upper Columbia, but was again at his mission stockade before the close of the year. In April a longer journey was projected, as far as Fort Vancouver, on the lower Columbia, where Dr. McLoughlin, the British factor, received the good priest with that cordial greeting for which he was already famous. During this journey the father narrowly escaped drowning in the turbulent rapids of the Columbia, where five of his boatmen perished. Returned to St. Mary's, the prospects for a harvest of souls both among the Flatheads and the neighboring tribes appeared so promising that the missionary determined to seek re-enforcement and further aid in Europe. Thereupon he left his companions in charge of the "new Paraguay" of his hopes, and once more undertook the long and adventurous journey to the settlements, this time by way of the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers, arriving at St. Louis the last of October, 1842. At this point the journeys detailed in the volume here reprinted come to an end. The later career of Father de Smet and his subsequent journeyings will be detailed in the preface to volumes xxviii and xxix, in the latter of which will appear his _Oregon Missions_.

Father de Smet's writings on missionary subjects ended only with his death, and were increasingly voluminous and detailed. The _Letters and Sketches_ were his first published work, with the exception of a portion of a compilation that appeared in 1841, on the Jesuit missions of Missouri. We find therefore, in the present reprint, the vitality and enthusiasm of the young traveller relating new scenes, and the abounding joy of the successful missionary uplifting a barbaric race. The book was written with the avowed purpose of creating interest in his newly-organized work, and securing contributions therefor. The freshness of description, the wholesome simplicity of the narrative, the frank presentation of wilderness life, charm the reader, and make this book a classic of early Western exploration. Cast in the form of letters, wherein there is more or less repetition of statement, it is nevertheless evident that these have been subjected to a certain editorial revision, and that literary quality has been considered. Aside from the interest evoked by the personality of the writer, and the events of his narrative, the work throws much light upon wilderness travel, the topography and scenery of the Rocky Mountain region, and above all upon the habits and customs, modes of thought, social standards, and religious conceptions of the important tribes of the interior.

After the present series of reprints had been planned for, and announced in a detailed prospectus, there was issued from the press of Francis P. Harper of New York the important volumes edited by Major H. M. Chittenden and Alfred Talbot Richardson, entitled _Life, Letters, and Travels of Father Pierre Jean de Smet, S. J., 1801-73_. This publication contains much new material, derived from manuscript sources, which has been interwoven in chronological order with the missionary's several books; and to it all have been added an adequate biography and bibliography of De Smet. This scholarly work has been of great service to us in preparing for accurate reprint the original editions of the only two of Father de Smet's publications that fall within the chronological field of our series.

In the preparation for the press of Flagg's _The Far West_, the Editor has had the assistance of Clarence Cory Crawford, A. M.; in editing Father de Smet's _Letters and Sketches_, his assistant has been Louise Phelps Kellogg, Ph.D.

R. G. T.
MADISON, WIS., April, 1906.

PART I OF FLAGG'S THE FAR WEST, 1836-1837

Reprint of Volume I, and chapters xxiii-xxxii of Volume II, of
original edition: New York, 1838

THE FAR WEST:
OR,
A TOUR BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS.

EMBRACING

OUTLINES OF WESTERN LIFE AND SCENERY; SKETCHES
OF THE PRAIRIES, RIVERS, ANCIENT MOUNDS, EARLY
SETTLEMENTS OF THE FRENCH, ETC., ETC.

"If thou be a severe, sour-complexioned man, then I here
disallow thee to be a competent judge."--IZAAK WALTON.

"I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and
cry, ''Tis all barren.'"--STERNE.

"Chacun a son stile; le mien, comme vous voyez, n'est pas
laconique."--ME. DE SEVIGNE.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

NEW-YORK:
PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS
NO. 82 CLIFF-STREET.
1838.

[Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1838, by
HARPER & BROTHERS,
in the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York.]

TO ONE--

AT WHOSE SOLICITATION THESE VOLUMES WERE COMMENCED, AND
WITH WHOSE ENCOURAGEMENT THEY HAVE BEEN COMPLETED--

TO MY SISTER LUCY

ARE THEY AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.

TO THE READER

"He that writes
Or makes a feast, more certainly invites
His judges than his friends; there's not a guest
But will find something wanting or ill dress'd."

In laying before the majesty of the public a couple of volumes like the present, it has become customary for the author to disclaim in his preface all original design of _perpetrating a book_, as if there were even more than the admitted _quantum_ of sinfulness in the act. Whether or not such disavowals now-a-day receive all the credence they merit, is not for the writer to say; and whether, were the prefatory asseveration, as in the present case, diametrically opposed to what it often is, the reception would be different, is even more difficult to predict. The articles imbodied in the following volumes were, a portion of them, in their original, hasty production, _designed_ for the press; yet the author unites in the disavowal of his predecessors of all intention at that time of perpetrating _a book_.

In the early summer of '36, when about starting upon a ramble over the prairies of the "Far West," in hope of renovating the energies of a shattered constitution, a request was made of the writer, by the distinguished editor of the Louisville Journal, to contribute {vi} to the columns of that periodical whatever, in the course of his pilgrimage, might be deemed of sufficient interest.[1] A series of articles soon after made their appearance in that paper under the title, "_Sketches of a Traveller_." They were, as their name purports, mere sketches from a traveller's _portfeuille_, hastily thrown upon paper whenever time, place, or opportunity rendered convenient; in the steamboat saloon, the inn bar-room, the log-cabin of the wilderness, or upon the venerable mound of the Western prairie. With such favour were these hasty productions received, and so extensively were they circulated, that the writer, on returning from his pilgrimage to "the shrine of health," was induced, by the solicitations of partial friends, to enter at his leisure upon the preparation for the press of a mass of MSS. of a similar character, written at the time, which had never been published; a thorough revision and enlargement of that which had appeared, united with _this_, it was thought, would furnish a passable volume or two upon the "Far West." Two years of residence in the West have since passed away; and the arrangement for the press of the fugitive sheets of a wanderer's sketch-book would not yet, perhaps, have been deemed of sufficient importance to warrant the necessary labour, had he not been daily reminded that his productions, whatever their merit, were already public property so far as could be the case, and at the mercy of every one who thought proper to assume paternity. "Forbearance ceased to be longer a virtue," and the result is now before the {vii} reader. But, while alluding to that aid which his labours may have rendered to others, the author would not fail fully to acknowledge his own indebtedness to those distinguished writers upon the West who have preceded him. To Peck, Hall, Flint, Wetmore, and to others, his acknowledgments are due and are respectfully tendered.[2]

In extenuation of the circumstance that some portions of these volumes have already appeared, though in a crude state, before the public, the author has but to suggest that many works, with which the present will not presume to compare, have made their debut on the unimposing pages of a periodical. Not to dwell upon the writings of Addison and Johnson, and other classics of British literature, several of Bulwer's most polished productions, the elaborate Essays of Elia, Wirt's British Spy, Hazlitt's Philosophical Reviews, Coleridge's Friend, most of the novels of Captain Marryatt and Theodore Hook, and many of the most elegant works of the day, have been prepared for the pages of a magazine.

And now, with no slight misgiving, does the author commit his firstborn bantling to the tender mercies of an impartial public. Criticism he does not deprecate, still less does he brave it; and farther than either is he from soliciting undue favour. Yet to the _reader_, as he grasps him by the hand in parting, would he commit his book, with the quaint injunction of a distinguished but eccentric old English writer upon an occasion somewhat similar:

"I exhort all people, gentle and simple, men, {viii} women, and children, to buy, to read, to extol these labours of mine. Let them not fear to defend every article; for I will bear them harmless. I have arguments good store, and can easily confute, either logically, theologically, or metaphysically, all those who oppose me."

E. F.
New-York, Oct., 1838.

CONTENTS

The Western Steamboat-landing--Western Punctuality--An
Accident--Human Suffering--Desolation of Bereavement--
A Contrast--Sublimity--An Ohio Freshet--View of Louisville--
Early History--The Ohio Falls--Corn Island--The Last Conflict 43

The Early Morn--"Sleep no more!"--The Ohio--"_La Belle
Rivière!_"--Ohio Islands--A Cluster at Sunset--"Ohio Hills"--
The Emigrant's Clearing--Moonlight on the Ohio--A Sunset-scene--
The Peaceful Ohio--The Gigantic Forest-trees--The Bottom-lands--
Obstructions to Navigation--Classification--Removal--Dimensions
of Snags--Peculiar difficulties on the Ohio--Leaning Trees--
Stone Dams--A Full Survey--The Result 52

III

An Arrest--Drift-wood--Ohio Scenery--Primitive River-craft--
Early Scenes on the Western Waters--The Boatmen--Life and
Character--_Annus Mirabilis_--The Steam-engine in the West--
The Freshet--The Comet--The Earthquakes--The first Steamboat--
The _Pinelore_--The Steam-engine--Prophecy of Darwin--Results--
Sublimity--Villages--A new Geology--Rivers--Islands--Forests--
The Wabash and its Banks--New Harmony--Site--Settlement--
Edifices--Gardens--Owen and the "Social System"--Theory and
Practice--Mental Independence--Dissension--Abandonment--
Shawneetown--Early History--Settlement--Advancement--Site--
United States' Salines--Ancient Pottery 59

Geology of the Mississippi Valley--Ohio Cliffs--The Iron
Coffin--"Battery Rock"--"Rock-Inn-Cave"--Origin of Name--{x}
A Visit--Outlines and Dimensions--The Indian _Manito_--Island
opposite--The Freebooters--"The Outlaw"--The Counterfeiters--
Their Fate--Ford and his Gang--Retributive Justice--"Tower
Rock"--The Tradition--The Cave of Hieroglyphics--Islands--
Golconda--The Cumberland--Aaron Burr's Island--Paducah--Name--
Ruins of Fort Massac--The Legend--Wilkinsonville--The "Grand
Chain"--Caledonia--A Storm--Sunset--"The Meeting of the
Waters"--Characteristics of the Rivers--"Willow Point"--The
place of Meeting--Disappointment--A Utopian City--America 70

Darkness Visible--The "Father of Waters"--The Power of Steam--
The Current--"English Island"--The Sabbath--A Blessed
Appointment--Its Quietude--The New-England Emigrant--His
Privations--Sorrows--Loneliness--"The Light of Home"--Cape
Girardeau--Site--Settlement--Effects of the Earthquakes--
A severer Shock--Staples of Trade--The Spiral Water-wheels--
Their Utility--"Tyowapity Bottom"--Potter's Clay--
A Manufactory--_Rivière au Vase_--Salines--Coal-beds--
"Fountain Bluff"--The "Grand Tower"--Parapet of Limestone--
Ancient Cataract--The Cliffs--Divinity of the Boatmen--
The "Devil's Oven"--The "Tea-table"--Volcanic and Diluvial
Action--The Torrent overcome--A Race--Breathless Interest--
The Engineer--The Fireman--Last of the "Horse and Alligator"
species--"Charon"--A Triumph--A Defeat 82

Navigation of the Mississippi--The First Appropriation--
Improvements of Capt. Shreve--Mississippi and Ohio Scenery
contrasted--Alluvial Deposites--Ste. Genevieve--Origin--Site--
The _Haunted_ Ruin--The old "Common Field"--Inundation of
'85--Minerals--Quarries--Sand-caves--Fountains--Salines--
Indians--Ancient Remains--View of Ste. Genevieve--Landing--
Outrage of a Steamer--Indignation--The Remedy--A Snag and a
Scene--An Interview with "Charon"--Fort Chartres 93

{xi} VII

The Hills! the Hills!--Trosachs of Loch Katrine--Alluvial
Action--Bluffs of Selma and Herculaneum--Shot-towers--Natural
Curiosities--The "Cornice Cliffs"--The Merrimac--Its
Riches--Ancient Lilliputian Graves--Mammoth Remains--Jefferson
Barracks--Carondelet--Cahokia--U. S. Arsenal--St. Louis in the
Distance--Fine View--Uproar of the Landing--The Eternal
River--Character--Features--Sublimity--Statistics--The Lower
Mississippi--"Bends"--"Cut-offs"--Land-slips--The Pioneer Cabin 102

VIII

"Once more upon the Waters!"--"Uncle Sam's Tooth-pullers"--Mode
of eradicating a Snag--River Suburbs of North St. Louis--Spanish
Fortifications--The Waterworks--The Ancient Mounds--Country
Seats--The Confluence--Charlevoix's Description--A Variance--
A View--The Upper Mississippi--Alton in distant View--The
Penitentiary and Churches--"Pomp and Circumstance"--The City
of Alton--Advantages--Objections--Improvements--Prospects--
Liberality--Railroads--Alton Bluffs--"Departing Day"--The
Piasa Cliffs--Moonlight Scene 113

The _Coleur de Rose_--The Piasa--The Indian Legend--Caverns--
Human Remains--The Illinois--Characteristic Features--The
Canal--The Banks and Bottoms--Poisonous Exhalations--Scenes on
the Illinois--The "Military Bounty Tract"--_Cape au Gris_--Old
French Village--River Villages--Pekin--"An Unco Sight"--Genius
of the Bacchanal--A "Monkey Show"--Nomenclature of Towns--The
Indian Names 122

An Emigrant Farmer--An Enthusiast--Peoria--The Old Village and
the New--Early History--Exile of the French--Fort Clarke--Indian
Hostilities--The Modern Village--Site--Advantages--Prospects--
Lake _Pinatahwee_--Fish--The Bluffs and Prairie--A Military
Spectacle--The "Helen Mar"--Horrors of Steam!--A Bivouac--The
Dragoon Corps--Military {xii} Courtesy--"Starved Rock"--The
Legend--Remains--Shells--Intrenchments--Music--The Moonlight
Serenade--A Reminiscence 132

Delay--"A Horse!"--Early French Immigration in the West--The
Villages of the Wilderness--St. Louis--Venerable Aspect--Site
of the City--A French Village City--South St. Louis--The Old
Chateaux--The Founding of the City--The Footprints in the Rock--
The First House--Name of City--Decease of the Founders--Early
Annals--Administration of St. Ange--The Common Field--Cession
and Recession--"_L'Annee du Grand Coup_"--"_L'Annee des Grandes
Eaux_"--Keel-boat Commerce--The Robbers Culbert and Magilbray--
"_L'Annee des Bateaux_"--The First Steamboat at St. Louis--
Wonder of the Indians--Opposition to Improvement--Plan of St.
Louis--A View--Spanish Fortifications--The Ancient Mounds--
Position--Number--Magnitude--Outlines--Arrangement--Character--
Neglect--Moral Interest--Origin--The Argument of Analogy 142

XII

View from the "Big Mound" at St. Louis--The Sand-bar--The
Remedy--The "Floating Dry-dock"--The Western Suburbs--Country
Seats--Game--Lakes--Public Edifices--Catholic Religion--
"Cathedral of St. Luke"--Site--Dimensions--Peal of Bells--
Porch--The Interior--Columns--Window Transparencies--The
Effect--The Sanctuary--Galleries--Altar-piece--Altar and
Tabernacle--Chapels--Paintings--Lower Chapel--St. Louis
University--Medical School--The Chapel--Paintings--Library--
Ponderous Volumes--Philosophical Apparatus--The Pupils 160

XIII

An Excursion of Pleasure--A fine Afternoon--Our Party--The
Bridal Pair--South St. Louis--Advantages for Manufactures--
Quarries--Farmhouses--The "Eagle Powder-works"--Explosion--
The Bride--A Steeple-chase--A Descent--The Arsenal--Grounds--
Structures--Esplanade--Ordnance--Warlike Aspect--Carondelet--
Sleepy-Hollow--River-reach {xiii}--Time Departed--Inhabitants--
Structures--Gardens--Orchards--_Cabarets_--The Catholic
Church--Altar-piece--Paintings--Missal--Crucifix--Evergreens--
Deaf and Dumb Asylum--Distrust of Villagers--Jefferson
Barracks--Site--Extent--Buildings--View from the Terrace--The
Burial Grounds--The Cholera--Design of the Barracks--_Corps
de Reserve_--A remarkable Cavern--Our Guide--Situation of
Cave--Entrance--Exploration--Grotesque Shapes--A Foot--Boat--
Coffin in Stone--The Bats--_Rivière des Pères_--An Ancient
Cemetery--Antiquities--The Jesuit Settlers--Sulphur Spring--
A Cavern--A Ruin 170

XIV

City and Country at Midsummer--Cosmorama of St. Louis--The American
Bottom--Cahokia Creek--A Pecan Grove--The Ancient Mounds--First
Group--Number--Resemblance--Magnitude--Outline--Railroad to the
Bluffs--Pittsburg--The Prairie--Landscape--The "Cantine
Mounds"--"Monk Hill"--First Impressions--Origin--The
Argument--Workmanship of Man--Reflections suggested--Our
Memory--The Craving of the Heart--The Pyramid-builders--The
Mound-builders--A hopeless Aspiration--"Keep the Soul embalmed" 180

The Antiquity of Monk Mound--Primitive Magnitude--Fortifications
of the Revolution--The Ancient Population--Two Cities--Design
of the Mounds--The "Cantine Mounds"--Number--Size--Position--
Outline--Features of Monk Mound--View from the Summit--Prairie--
Lakes--Groves--Bluffs--Cantine Creek--St. Louis in distance--
Neighbouring Earth-heaps--The Well--Interior of the Mound--
The Monastery of La Trappe--Abbé Armand Rance--The Vows--A
Quotation--Reign of Terror--Immigration of the Trappists--
Their Buildings--Their Discipline--Diet--Health--Skill--Asylum
Seminary--Worldly Charity--Palliation--A strange Spectacle 187

{xiv} XVI

Edwardsville--Site and Buildings--Land Mania--A "Down-east"
Incident--Human Nature--The first Land Speculator--Castor-oil
Manufacture--Outlines of Edwardsville--Collinsville--Route to
Alton--Sultriness--The Alton Bluffs--A Panorama--Earth-heaps--
Indian Graves--Upper Alton--Shurtliff College--_Baptized_
Intelligence--Knowledge not Conservative--Greece--Rome--
France--England--The Remedy 197

XVII

The Traveller's Whereabout--The Prairie in a Mist--Sense of
Loneliness--The Backwoods Farmhouse--Structure--Outline--
Western Roads--A New-England Emigrant--The "Barrens"--Origin
of Name--Soil--The "Sink-holes"--The Springs--Similar in
Missouri and Florida--"Fount of Rejuvenescence"--Ponce de
Leon--"Sappho's Fount"--The Prairies--First View--The Grass--
Flowers--Island-groves--A Contrast--Prairie-farms--A Buck
and Doe--A Kentucky Pioneer--Events of Fifty Years--The
"Order Tramontane"--Expedition of Gov. Spotswood--The Change--
A Thunderstorm on the Prairies--"A Sharer in the Tempest"--
Discretionary Valour 207

XVIII

Morning after the Storm--The Landscape--The sprinkled Groves--
Nature in unison with the Heart--The Impress of Design--
Contemplation of grand Objects elevates--Nature and the Savage--
Nature and Nature's God--Earth praises God--Indifference and
Ingratitude of Man--"All is very Good"--Influence of Scenery
upon Character--The Swiss Mountaineer--Bold Scenery most
Impressive--Freedom among the Alps--Caucasus--Himmalaya--
_Something_ to Love--Carlinville--"Grand Menagerie"--A Scene--
The Soil--The Inn--Macoupin Creek--Origin of Name--A Vegetable--
An Indian Luxury--Carlinville--Its Advantages and Prospects--A
"Fourth-of-July" Oration--The thronging Multitudes--The huge
Cart--A Thunder-storm--A Log-cabin--Women and Children--Outlines
of the Cabin--The Roof and Floor--The Furniture and Dinner-pot--
A Choice of Evils--The _Pathless_ Prairie 219

{xv} XIX

Ponce de Leon--The Fount of Youth--The "Land of Flowers"--
Ferdinand de Soto--"_El Padre de los Aguas_"--The Canadian
Voyageurs--"_La Belle Rivière_"--Sieur La Salle--"A Terrestrial
Paradise"--Daniel Boone--"Old Kentucke"--"The Pilgrim from the
North"--Sabbath Morning--The Landscape--The Grass and
Prairie-flower--Nature at Rest--Sabbath on the Prairie--Alluvial
Aspect of the Prairies--The Soil--Lakes--Fish--The Annual
Fires--Origin--A Mode of Hunting--Captain Smith--Mungo Park--
Hillsborough--Major-domo of the Hostelrie--His Garb and
Proportions--The Presbyterian Church--_Picturesqueness_--The
"_Luteran_ Church"--Practical Utility--The Dark Minister--
A Mistake--The Patriotic Dutchman--A Veritable Publican--
Prospects of Hillsborough--A Theological Seminary--Route to
Vandalia--The Political Sabbath 230

The Race of Vagabonds--"Yankee Enterprise"--The Virginia
Emigrant--The Western Creeks and Bridges--An Adventure in
Botany--Unnatural Rebellion--Christian Retaliation--Vandalia--
"First Impressions"--The Patriotic Bacchanal--The High-priest--
A Distinction Unmerited--The Cause--Vandalia--Situation--
Public Edifices--Square--Church--Bank--Land-office--"Illinois
Magazine"--Tardy Growth--Removal of Government--Adventures of
the First Legislators--The Northern Frontier--Magic of Sixteen
Years--Route to Carlisle--A Buck and Doe--An old Hunter--
"Hurricane Bottom"--Night on the Prairies--The Emigrant's
Bivouac--The Prairie-grass--Carlisle--Site--Advantages--
Growth--"Mound Farm" 238

XXI

The Love of Nature--Its Delights--The Wanderer's Reflections--
The Magic Hour--A Sunset on the Prairies--"The Sunny Italy"--
The Prairie Sunset--Route to Lebanon--Silver Creek--Origin of
Name--The "Looking-glass Prairie"--The Methodist Village--
Farms--Country Seats--Maize-fields--Herds--M'Kendreean College--
"The Seminary!"--Route to Belleville--The Force of Circumstance--
A Contrast--Public {xvi} Buildings--A lingering Look--Route to
St. Louis--The French Village--The Coal Bluffs--Discovery of
Coal--St. Clair County--Home of Clouds--Realm of Thunder--San
Louis 248

XXII

Single Blessedness--Text and Comment--_En Route_--North St.
Louis--A Delightful Drive--A Delightful Farm-cottage--The
Catholic University--A Stately Villa--Belle Fontaine--A Town
plat--A View of the Confluence--The _Human Tooth_--The Hamlet
of Florissant--Former Name--Site--Buildings--Church--Seminary--
_Tonish_--_Owen's Station_--Scenery upon the Route--
_La Charbonnière_--The Missouri Bottom--The Forest-Colonnade--
The Missouri--Its Sublimity--Indian Names--Its Turbid
Character--Cause--An Inexplicable Phenomenon--Theories--
Navigation Dangerous--Floods of the Missouri--Alluvions--
Sources of the Missouri and Columbia--Their Destinies--Human
Life--The Ocean of Eternity--Gates of the Rocky Mountains--
Sublimity--A Cataract--The Main Stream--Claims stated 257

{iii} XXIII

View of St. Charles and the Missouri--The Bluffs--"A stern round
Tower"--Its Origin--The Windmill--A sunset Stroll--Rural Sights
and Sounds--The River and Forest--The Duellist's Grave--The Hour
and Scene--_Requiescat_--Reflections--Duelling--A sad Event--
Young B----.--His Request--His Monument--"Blood Island"--Its
Scenes and Annals--A visit to "_Les Mamelles_"--The Forest-path--
Its Obscurity--Outlines of the Bluffs--Derivation of Name--
Position--Resemblance--The Missouri Bluffs--View from The
Mamelle--The Missouri Bottom--The Mamelle Prairie--The distant
Cliffs and Confluences--Extent of Plain--Alluvial Origin--
Lakes--Bed of the Rivers--An ancient Deposite 268

XXIV

St. Charles--Its Origin--Peculiarities--Early Name--Spanish
Rule--Heterogeneous Population--Germans--The Wizard Spell--
American Enterprise--Site of the Village--Prospects--The
Baltimore Settlement--Catholic Religion and Institutions--
"St. Charles College"--The Race of Hunters--A Specimen--The
Buffalo--Indian Atrocities--The "Rangers"--Daniel Boone--
"Too Crowded!"--The "Regulators"--Boone's Lick--His Decease--
His Memory--The Missouri Indians--The Stoccade Fort--Adventure
of a Naturalist--Route from St. Charles--A Prairie without a
Path--Enormous Vegetation--The Cliffs--The Column of Smoke--
Perplexity--A delightful Scene--A rare Flower--The Prairie
Flora in Spring--In Summer--In Autumn--The Traveller loiters 276

{iv} XXV

Novel Feature of the Mamelle Prairie--A Footpath--An old French
Village--Bewilderment--Mystery--A Guide--_Portage des Sioux_--
Secluded Site--Advantages--"Common Field"--Garden-plats--A brick
Edifice--A _courteous_ Welcome--An _amiable_ Personage--History
of the Village--Origin--Earthquakes--Name--An Indian Legend--
Teatable Talk--_Patois_ of the French Villages--An Incident!--
A Scene!--A civil Hint--A Night of Beauty--The Flush of Dawn--
The weltering Prairie--The Forest--The river Scene--The
Ferry-horn--Delay--Locale of Grafton--Advantages and Prospects 288

XXVI

Cave in the Grafton Cliffs--Outlines--Human Remains--_Desecration_
of the Coopers--View from the Cave's Mouth--The Bluffs--Inclined
Planes--The Railroad--A Stone-heap--A beautiful Custom--Veneration
for the Dead--The Widow of Florida--The Canadian Mother--The
Orientals--An extensive View--The River--The Prairie--The Emigrant
Farm--The Illinois--A _tortuous_ Route--Macoupin Settlement--
Carrolton--Outlines of a Western Village--Religious Diversity--An
agricultural Village--Whitehall--The Emigrant Family _en route_--
A Western Village--Its rapid Growth--Fit Parallels--Manchester--
The Scarcity of Timber not an insurmountable Obstacle--
Substitutes--Morgan County--Prospects--Soil of the Prairies--
Adaptation to _coarse_ Grains--Rapid Population--New-England
Immigrants--The Changes of a few Years--Environs of
Jacksonville--Buildings of "Illinois College"--The Public Square 295

XXVII

Remark of Horace Walpole--A Word from the Author--Jacksonville--
Its rapid Advancement--Its Site--Suburbs--Public Square--
Radiating Streets--The Congregational Church--The Pulpit--A
pleasant Incident--The "New-England of the West"--Immigrant
Colonies--"Illinois College"--The Site--Buildings--"Manual
Labour System"--The Founders--Their Success--Their Fame--
Jacksonville--Attractions for the Northern Emigrant--New England
Character--A faithful {v} Transcript--"The Pilgrim Fathers"--
The "Stump"--Mr. W. and his Speech--Curious Surmisings--Internal
Improvements--Route to Springfield--A "Baptist Circuit-rider"--
An Evening Prairie-rider 305

XXVIII

The Nature of Man--Facilities for its Study--A Pilgrimage of
Observation--Dissection of Character, Physical and Moral--The
young Student--The brighter Features of Humanity--An unwitting
Episode--Our World a _Ruin_--Sunrise on the Prairies--
Springfield--Its Location--Advantages--Structures--Society--
Prospects--The Sangamon River--Its Navigation--Bottom-lands--
Aged Forests--Cathedral Pomp--A splendid Phenomenon--Civic
Honours--"_Sic itur ad astra!_"--A Morning Ride--"Demands of
Appetite"--"Old Jim"--A tipsy Host--A revolting Exhibition--
Jacob's Cattle and the Prairie-wolves--An Illinois Table--
The Staples--A Tea Story--Poultry and Bacon--_Chicken Fixens_
and _Common Doins_--An Object of Commiseration 315

XXIX

The Burial-ground--A _holy_ Spot--Our culpable Indifference--
Cemeteries in our Land--A sad Reflection--The last Petition--
Reverence for the Departed--Civilized and Savage Nations--The
last Resting-place--Worthy of Thought--A touching Expression
of the Heart--FRANKLIN--The Object of Admiration and _Love_--
The Burial-ground of Decatur--The dying Emigrant--The Spirit's
Sympathy--A soothing Reflection to Friends--The "Grand Prairie"--
The "Lost Rocks"--Decatur--Site and Prospects--A sunset Scene--
The Prairie by Moonlight--The Log-cabin--The Exotic of the
Prairie--The Heart--The Thank-offering--The Pre-emption Right--
The Mormonites--Their Customs--Millennial Anticipations--The
Angelic Visitant--The _dénouément_--The Miracle!--The System
of "New Light"--Its Rise and Fall--Aberrations of the Mind--
A melancholy Reflection--Absurdity of Mormonism 325

XXX

A wild Night--An Illusion--Sleeplessness--Loneliness--A
Storm-wind on the Prairies--A magnificent Scene--Beauty of
{vi} the lesser Prairies--Nature's _chef d'oeuvre_--Loveliness
lost in Grandeur--Waves of the Prairie--Ravines--Light and
Shade--"Alone, alone, all, all alone!"--Origin of the Prairie--
Argument for _Natural_ Origin--Similar Plains--Derivation of
"_Prairie_"--Absence of Trees accounted for--The _Diluvial_
Origin--Prairie Phenomena explained--The Autumnal Fires--An
Exception--The Prairie _sui generis_--No Identity with other
Plains--A Bed of the Ocean--A new Hypothesis--Extent of
Prairie-surface--Characteristic Carelessness--Hunger and
Thirst--A tedious Jaunt--Horrible Suggestions!--Land ho!--
A Log-cabin--Hog and Honey 338

XXXI

Cis-atlantic Character--Avarice--Curiosity--A grand Propellant--
A Concomitant and Element of Mental Vigour--An Anglo-American
Characteristic--Inspection and Supervision--"Uncle Bill"--The
Quintessence of Inquisitiveness--A Fault "on Virtue's Side"--
The People of Illinois--A Hunting Ramble--A Shot--_Tempis
fugit_--Shelbyville--Dame Justice _in Terrorem_--A Sulphur
Spring--The Inn Register--Chill Atmosphere of the Forest--
Contrast on the Prairie--The "Green-head" Prairie-fly--Effect
upon a Horse--Numerous in '35--The "Horse-guard"--The _Modus
Bellandi_--_Cold Spring_--A _presuming_ Host--Musty Politics--
The Robin Redbreast--Ornithology of the West--The Turtle-dove--
Pathos of her Note--Paley's Remark--Eloquence of the
Forest-bird--A Mormonite, _Zion_ward--A forensic Confabulation--
Mormonism Developed--The seduced Pedagogue--_Mount Zion_ Stock--
The Grand Tabernacle--Smith and Rigdom--The Bank--The Temple--
The School--Appearance of Smith--Of Rigdom--Their Disciples--
The National Road--Its Progress--Structure--_Terminus_--Its
enormous Character--A Contrast--"Shooting a Beeve"--The
Regulations--Salem--A New-England Seaport--The Location--The
Village Singing-school--_The Major_ 348

XXXII

Rest after Exertion--A Purpose--"Mine Ease in mine Inn"--
The "Thread of Discourse"--A Thunder-gust--Its Approach and
Departure--A Bolt--A rifted Elm--An impressive {vii} Scene--
Gray's _Bard_--Mount Vernon--Courthouse--Site--Medicinal
Water--A misty Morning--A _blind_ Route--"Muddy Prairie"--
Wild Turkeys--Something Diabolical!--The _direct_ Route--
A vexatious Incident--The unerring Guide--A _Tug_ for a
_Fixen_--An evening Ride--Pinkneyville--Outlines and
Requisites--The blood-red Jail--The _Traveller's Inn_--
"'Tis true, and Pity 'tis"--A "Soul in Purgatory"--An
_unutterable_ Ill--_Incomparable_--An unpitied and
unenviable Situation--A laughable Bewilderment--Host and
Hostess--The Mischief of a Smile--A Retaliation 362

THE FAR WEST

[PART I]

"I do remember me, that, in my youth,
When I was wandering--"
MANFRED.

It was a bright morning in the early days of "leafy June." Many a month had seen me a wanderer from distant New-England; and now I found myself "once more upon the waters," embarked for a pilgrimage over the broad prairie-plains of the sunset West. A drizzly, miserable rain had for some days been hovering, with proverbial pertinacity, over the devoted "City of the Falls," and still, at intervals, came lazily pattering down from the sunlighted clouds, reminding one of a hoiden girl smiling through a shower of April tear-drops, while the quay continued to exhibit all that wild uproar and tumult, "confusion worse confounded," which characterizes the steamboat commerce of the Western Valley. The landing at the time was thronged with steamers, and yet the incessant "boom, boom, boom," of the high-pressure engines, the shrill hiss of scalding steam, and the fitful port-song of the negro firemen rising ever and anon upon the breeze, gave notice of a constant {14} augmentation to the number. Some, too, were getting under way, and their lower _guards_ were thronged by emigrants with their household and agricultural utensils. Drays were rattling hither and thither over the rough pavement; Irish porters were cracking their whips and roaring forth alternate staves of blasphemy and song; clerks hurrying to and fro, with fluttering note-books, in all the fancied dignity of "brief authority;" hackney-coaches dashing down to the water's edge, apparently with no motive to the nervous man but noise; while at intervals, as if to fill up the pauses of the Babel, some incontinent steamer would hurl forth from the valves of her overcharged boilers one of those deafening, terrible blasts, echoing and re-echoing along the river-banks, and streets, and among the lofty buildings, till the very welkin rang again.

To one who has never visited the public wharves of the great cities of the West, it is no trivial task to convey an adequate idea of the spectacle they present. The commerce of the Eastern seaports and that of the Western Valley are utterly dissimilar; not more in the staples of intercourse than in the mode in which it is conducted; and, were one desirous of exhibiting to a friend from the Atlantic shore a picture of the prominent features which characterize commercial proceedings upon the Western waters, or, indeed, of Western character in its general outline, at a _coup d'oeil_, he could do no better than to place him in the wild uproar of the steamboat quay. Amid the "crowd, the hum, {15} the shock" of such a scene stands out Western peculiarity in all its stern proportion.

Steamers on the great waters of the West are well known to indulge no violently conscientious scruples upon the subject of punctuality, and a solitary exception at our behest, or in our humble behalf, was, to be sure, not an event to be counted on. "There's dignity in being waited for;" hour after hour, therefore, still found us and left us amid the untold scenes and sounds of the public landing. It is true, and to the unending honour of all concerned be it recorded, very true it is our doughty steamer ever and anon would puff and blow like a porpoise or a narwhal; and then would she swelter from every pore and quiver in every limb with the ponderous labouring of her huge enginery, and the steam would shrilly whistle and shriek like a spirit in its confinement, till at length she united her whirlwind voice to the general roar around; and all this indicated, indubitably, an intention to be off and away; but a knowing one was he who could determine the _when_.

Among the causes of our wearisome detention was one of a nature too melancholy, too painfully interesting lightly to be alluded to. Endeavouring to while away the tedium of delay, I was pacing leisurely back and forth upon the _guard_, surveying the lovely scenery of the opposite shore, and the neat little houses of the village sprinkled upon the plain beyond, when a wild, piercing shriek struck upon my ear. I was hurrying immediately forward to the spot whence it seemed to proceed, {16} when I was intercepted by some of our boat's crew bearing a mangled body. It was that of our second engineer, a fine, laughing young fellow, who had been terribly injured by becoming entangled with the flywheel of the machinery while in motion. He was laid upon the passage floor. I stood at his head; and never, I think, shall I forget those convulsed and agonized features. His countenance was ghastly and livid; beaded globules of cold sweat started out incessantly upon his pale brow; and, in the paroxysms of pain, his dark eye would flash, his nostril dilate, and his lips quiver so as to expose the teeth gnashing in a fearful manner; while a muttered execration, dying away from exhaustion, caused us all to shudder. And then that wild despairing roll of the eyeball in its socket as the miserable man would glance hurriedly around upon the countenances of the bystanders, imploring them, in utter helplessness, to lend him relief. Ah! it is a fearful thing to look upon these strivings of humanity in the iron grasp of a power it may in vain resist! From the quantity of blood thrown off, the oppressive fulness of the chest, and the difficult respiration, some serious pulmonary injury had evidently been sustained; while a splintered clavicle and limbs shockingly shattered racked the poor sufferer with anguish inexpressible. It was evident he believed himself seriously injured, for at times he would fling out his arms, beseeching those around him to "hold him back," as if even then he perceived the icy grasp of the death angel creeping over his frame.

{17} Perhaps I have devoted more words to the detail of this melancholy incident than would otherwise have been the case, on account of the interest which some circumstances in the sufferer's history, subsequently received from the captain of our steamer, inspired.

"Frank, poor fellow," said the captain, "was a native of Ohio, the son of a lone woman, a widow. He was all her hope, and to his exertions she was indebted for a humble support."

Here, then, were circumstances to touch the sympathies of any heart possessed of but a tithe of the nobleness of our nature; and I could not but reflect, as they were recounted, how like the breath of desolation the first intelligence of her son's fearful end must sweep over the spirit of this lonely widow; for, like the wretched Constance, she can "never, never behold him more."[3]

"Her life, her joy, her food, her all the world!
Her widow-comfort, and her sorrow's cure!"

While indulging in these sad reflections a gay burst of music arrested my attention; and, looking up, I perceived the packet-boat "Lady Marshall" dropping from her mooring at the quay, her decks swarming with passengers, and under high press of steam, holding her bold course against the current, while the merry dashing of the wheels, mingling with the wild clang of martial music, imparted an air almost of romance to the scene. How strangely did this contrast with that misery from which my eye had just turned!

There are few objects more truly grand--I had {18} almost said sublime--than a powerful steamer struggling triumphantly with the rapids of the Western waters. The scene has in it a something of that power which we feel upon us in viewing a ship under full sail; and, in some respects, there is more of the sublime in the humbler triumph of man over the elements than in that more vast. Sublimity is a result, not merely of massive, extended, unmeasured greatness, but oftener, and far more impressively, does the sentiment arise from a _combination_ of vast and powerful objects. The mighty stream rolling its volumed floods through half a continent, and hurrying onward to mingle its full tide with the "Father of Waters," is truly sublime; its resistless power is sublime; the memory of its by-gone scenes, and the venerable moss-grown forests on its banks, are sublime; and, lastly, the noble fabric of man's workmanship struggling and groaning in convulsed, triumphant effort to overcome the resistance offered, completes a picture which demands not the heaving ocean-waste and the "oak leviathan" to embellish.

It was not until the afternoon was far advanced that we found ourselves fairly embarked. A rapid freshet had within a few hours swollen the tranquil Ohio far beyond its ordinary volume and velocity, and its turbid waters were rolling onward between the green banks, bearing on their bosom all the varied spoils of their mountain-home, and of the rich region through which they had been flowing. The finest site from which to view the city we found to be the channel of the Falls upon the Indiana side of the stream, called the _Indian_ {19} chute, to distinguish it from two others, called the _Middle_ chute and the _Kentucky_ chute. The prospect from this point is noble, though the uniformity of the structures, the fewness of the spires, the unimposing character of the public edifices, and the depression of the site upon which the city stands, give to it a monotonous, perhaps a lifeless aspect to the stranger.

It was in the year 1778 that a settlement was first commenced upon the spot on which the fair city of Louisville now stands.[4] In the early spring of that year, General George Rodgers Clarke, under authority of the State of Virginia, descended the Ohio with several hundred men, with the design of reducing the military posts of Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Fort Vincent, then held by British troops. Disembarking upon Corn Island at the Falls of the Ohio, opposite the present city, land sufficient for the support of six families, which were left, was cleared and planted with _corn_. From this circumstance the island received a name which it yet retains. General Clarke proceeded upon his expedition, and, in the autumn returning successful, the emigrants were removed to the main land, and a settlement was commenced where Louisville now stands. During the few succeeding years, other families from Virginia settled upon the spot, and in the spring of 1780 seven stations were formed upon Beargrass Creek,[5] which here empties into the Mississippi, and Louisville commenced its march to its present importance.

The view of the city from the Falls, as I have remarked, is not at all imposing; the view of the {20} Falls from the city, on the contrary, is one of beauty and romance. They are occasioned by a parapet of limestone extending quite across the stream, which is here about one mile in width; and when the water is low the whole chain sparkles with bubbling foam-bells. When the stream is full the descent is hardly perceptible but for the increased rapidity of the current, which varies from ten to fourteen miles an hour.[6] Owing to the height of the freshet, this was the case at the time when we descended them, and there was a wild air of romance about the dark rushing waters: and the green woodlands upon either shore, overshadowed as they were by the shifting light and shade of the flitting clouds, cast over the scene a bewitching fascination. "_Corn Island_," with its legendary associations, rearing its dense clump of foliage as from the depths of the stream, was not the least beautiful object of the panorama; while the receding city, with its smoky roofs, its bustling quay, and the glitter and animation of an extended line of steamers, was alone necessary to fill up a scene for a limner.[7] And our steamer swept onward {21} over the rapids, and threaded their maze of beautiful islands, and passed along the little villages at their foot and the splendid steamers along their shore, till twilight had faded, and the dusky mantle of departed day was flung over forest and stream.

_Ohio River._

"How beautiful is this visible world!
How glorious in its action and itself!"
MANFRED.

"The woods--oh! solemn are the boundless woods
Of the great Western World when day declines,
And louder sounds the roll of distant floods."
HEMANS.

Long before the dawn on the morning succeeding our departure we were roused from our rest by the hissing of steam and the rattling of machinery as our boat moved slowly out from beneath the high banks and lofty sycamores of the river-side, where she had in safety been moored for the night, to resume her course. Withdrawing the curtain from the little rectangular window of my stateroom, the dark shadow of the forest was slumbering in calm magnificence upon the waters; and glancing upward my eye, the stars were beaming out in silvery brightness; while all along the eastern horizon, where

"The gray coursers of the morn
Beat up the light with their bright silver hoofs
And drive it through the sky,"

{22} rested a broad, low zone of clear heaven, proclaiming the coming of a glorious dawn. The hated clang of the bell-boy was soon after heard resounding far and wide in querulous and deafening clamour throughout the cabins, vexing the dull ear of every drowsy man in the terrible language of Macbeth's evil conscience, "sleep no more!" In a very desperation of self-defence I arose. The mists of night had not yet wholly dispersed, and the rack and fog floated quietly upon the placid bosom of the stream, or ascended in ragged masses from the dense foliage upon its banks. All this melted gently away like "the baseless fabric of a vision," and "the beauteous eye of day" burst forth in splendour, lighting up a scene of unrivalled loveliness.

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Flagg's The Far West, 1836-1837, part 1Chapter I: Part 1

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