Chapter XI: Part 11

{81} After a ride of a few miles my path suddenly emerged from the forest upon the edge of a boundless prairie, from whose dark-rolling herbage, here and there along the distant swells, was thrown back the glorious moonlight, as if from the restless, heaving bosom of the deep. An extensive prairie, beneath a full burst of summer moonlight, is, indeed, a magnificent spectacle. One can hardly persuade himself that he is not upon the ocean-shore. And now a wild, fresh breeze, which all the day had been out playing among the perfumed flowers and riding the green-crested waves, came rolling in from the prairie, producing an undulation of its surface and a murmuring in the heavy forest-boughs perfect in the illusion. All along the low, distant horizon hung a thin mist of silvery gauze, which, as it rose and fell upon the dark herbage, gave an idea of mysterious boundlessness to the scene. Here and there stood out a lonely, weather-beaten tree upon the plain, its trunk shrouded in obscurity, but its leafy top sighing in the night-breeze, and gleaming like a beacon-light in the beams of the cloudless moon. There was a dash of fascinating romance about the scene, which held me involuntarily upon the spot until reminded by the chill dews of night that I had, as yet, no shelter. On casting around my eye, I perceived a low log cabin, half buried in vegetation, standing alone in the skirt of the wood. Although a miserable tenement, necessity compelled me to accept its hospitality, and I entered. It consisted of a single apartment, in which two beds, two stools, a cross-legged deal table, {82} and a rough clothes-press, were the only household furniture. A few indispensable iron utensils sat near the fire; the water-pail and gourd stood upon the shelf, and a half-consumed flitch of bacon hung suspended in the chimney; but the superlatives of andirons, shovel and tongs, etc., etc., were all unknown in this primitive abode. A pair of "lost rocks"--_lost_, indeed--supplied the first, and the gnarled branch of an oak was substituted for the latter. The huge old chimney and fireplace were, as usual, fashioned of sticks and bedaubed with clay; yet everything looked neat, yea, _comfortable_, in very despite of poverty itself. A young female with her child, an infant boy, in her arms, was superintending the preparation of the evening meal. Her language and demeanour were superior to the miserable circumstances by which she was surrounded; and though she moved about her narrow demesne with a quiet, satisfied air, I was not long in learning that _affection_ alone had transplanted this exotic of the prairie from a more congenial soil. What woman does not love to tell over those passages of her history in which the _heart_ has ruled lord of the ascendant? and how very different in this respect is our sex from hers! Man, proud man, "the creature of interest and ambition," often blushes to be reminded that he has a heart, while woman's cheek mantles with the very intensity of its pulsation! The husband in a few minutes came in from attending to my horse; the rough table was spread; a humble fare was produced; all were seated; and then, beneath that miserable roof, {83} around that meager board, before a morsel of the food, poor as it was, passed the lip of an individual, the iron hand of toil was reverently raised, and a grateful heart called down a blessing from the Mightiest! Ah! thought I, as I beheld the peaceful, satisfied air of that poor man, as he partook of his humble evening meal with gratefulness, little does the son of luxury know the calm contentment which fills his breast! And the great God, as he looks down upon his children and reads their hearts, does he not listen to many a warmer, purer thank-offering from beneath the lowly roof-tree of the wilderness, than from all the palaces of opulence and pride? So it has ever been--so it has _ever_ been--and so can it never cease to be while the heart of man remains attempered as it is.

The humble repast was soon over; and, without difficulty, I entered into conversation with the father of the family. He informed me that he had been but a few years a resident of Illinois; that he had been unfortunate; and that, recently, his circumstances had become more than usually circumscribed, from his endeavours to save from speculators a pre-emption right of the small farm he was cultivating. This farm was his _all_; and, in his solicitude to retain its possession, he had disposed of every article of the household which would in any way produce money, even of a part of his own and his wife's wardrobe. I found him a man of considerable intelligence, and he imparted to me some facts respecting that singular sect styling themselves Mormonites of which I was previously hardly aware. Immense {84} crowds of these people had passed his door on the great road from Terre Haute, all with families and household effects stowed away in little one-horse wagons of peculiar construction, and on their journey to Mount Zion, the New Jerusalem, situated near Independence, Jackson county, Missouri! Their observance of the Sabbath was almost pharisaically severe, never permitting themselves to travel upon that day; the men devoting it to hunting, and the females to washing clothes, and other operations of the camp! It was their custom, likewise, to hold a preachment in every village or settlement, whether men would hear or forbear: the latter must have been the case with something of a majority, I think, since no one with whom I have ever met could, for the life of him, give a subsequent expose of _Mormonism_, "though often requested."

"I never heard or could engage
A person yet by prayers, or bribes, or tears,
To name, define by speech, or write on page,
The _doctrines_ meant precisely by that word,
Which surely is exceedingly absurd."

They assert that an angelic messenger has appeared to Joe Smith, announcing the millennial dawn at hand; that a glorious city of the faithful--the New Jerusalem, with streets of gold and gates of pearl--is about to be reared upon Mount Zion, Mo., where the Saviour will descend and establish a kingdom to which there shall be no end; ergo, argue these everlasting livers, it befits all good citizens to get to Independence, Jackson county, aforesaid, as fast as one-horse wagons will convey them![200] Large quantities of arms and ammunition have, moreover, been {85} forwarded, so that the item of "the sword being beaten into a ploughshare, and spear into pruning-hook," seems not of probable fulfilment according to these worthies. The truth of the case is, they anticipated a brush with the long-haired "pukes"[201] before securing a "demise, release, and for ever quitclaim" to Zion Hill, said _pukes_ having already at sundry times manifested a refractory spirit, and, from the following anecdote of my good man of the hut, in "rather a ridic'lous manner." I am no voucher for the story: I give it as related; "and," as Ben Jonson says, "what he has possessed me withal, I'll discharge it amply."

"One Sabbath evening, when the services of the congregation of the Mormonites were over, the Rev. Joe Smith, priest and prophet, announced to his expectant tribe that, on the succeeding Sabbath, the baptismal sacrament would take place, when an angel would appear on the opposite bank of the stream. Next Sabbath came, and 'great was the company of the people' to witness the miraculous visitation. The baptism commenced, and was now wellnigh concluded: 'Do our eyes deceive us! can such things _be_! The prophecy! the angel!' were exclamations which ran through the multitude, as a fair form, veiled in a loose white garment, with flowing locks and long bright pinions, stood suddenly before the assembled multitude upon the opposite shore, and then disappeared! All was amazement, consternation, awe! But where is Joe Smith? In a few moments Joe Smith was with them, and their faith was confirmed.

{86} "Again was a baptism appointed--again was the angel announced--a larger congregation assembled--and yet again did the angel appear. At that moment two powerful men sprang from a thicket, rushed upon the angelic visitant, and, amid mingling exclamations of horror and _execrations_ of piety from the spectators, tore away his long white wings, his hair and robe, and plunged him into the stream! By some unaccountable metamorphosis, the angel emerged from the river honest Joe Smith, priest of Mormon, finder of the golden plates, etc., etc., and the magi of the enchantment were revealed in the persons of two brawny _pukes_." Since then, the story concludes, not an angel has been seen all about Mount Zion! The miracle of walking upon water was afterward essayed, but failed by the removal, by some impious wags, of the _benches_ prepared for the occasion. It is truly astonishing to what lengths superstition has run in some sections of this same Illinois. Not long since, a knowing farmer in the county of Macon conceived himself ordained of heaven a promulgator to the world of a system of "New Light," so styled, upon "a plan entirely new." No sooner did the idea strike his fancy, than, leaving the plough in the middle of the furrow, away sallies he to the nearest village, and admonishes every one, everywhere, forthwith to be baptized by his heaven-appointed hands, and become a regenerate man on the spot. Many believed--was there ever faith too preposterous to obtain proselytes? the doctrine, in popular phrase, "took mightily;" and, it must be confessed, the whole world, men, women, and children, were {87} in a fair way for regeneration. Unfortunately for that desirable consummation, at this crisis certain simple-hearted people thereabouts, by some freak of fancy or other, took it into their heads that the priest himself manifested hardly that _quantum_ of the regenerated spirit that beseemed so considerable a functionary. Among other peccadilloes, he had unhappily fallen into a habit every Sabbath morning, when he rode in from his farmhouse--a neat little edifice which the good people had erected for his benefit in the outskirts of the village--of trotting solemnly up before the grocery-door upon his horse, receiving a glass of some dark-coloured liquid, character unknown, drinking it off with considerable gusto, dropping a _picayune_ into the tumbler, then proceeding to the pulpit, and, on the inspiration of the mysterious potation, holding vehemently forth. Sundry other misdeeds of the reverend man near about the same time came to light, so that at length the old women pronounced that terrible fiat, "the preacher was no _better_ than he should be;" which means, as everybody knows, that he was a good deal _worse_. And so the men, old and young, chimed in, and the priest was politely advised to decamp before the doctrine should get unsavoury. Thus ended the glorious discovery of New-lightism!

It is a humiliating thing to review the aberrations of the human mind: and, believe me, reader, my intention in reviewing these instances of religious fanaticism has been not to excite a smile of transient merriment, nor for a moment to call in question the {88} reality of true devotion. My intention has been to show to what extremes of preposterous folly man may be hurried when he once resigns himself to the vagaries of fancy upon a subject which demands the severest deductions of reason. It is, indeed, a _melancholy_ consideration, that, in a country like our own, which we fondly look upon as the hope of the world, and amid the full-orbed effulgence of the nineteenth century, there should exist a body of men, more than twelve thousand in number, as is estimated, professing belief in a faith so unutterably absurd as that styled Mormonism; a faith which would have disgraced the darkest hour of the darkest era of our race.[202] But it is not for me to read the human _heart_.

_Shelbyville, Ill._

XXX

"The day is lowering; stilly black
Sleeps the grim waste, while heaven's rack,
Dispersed and wild, 'tween earth and sky
Hangs like a shatter'd canopy!"
_Fire-worshippers._

"Rent is the fleecy mantle of the sky;
The clouds fly different; and the sudden sun
By fits effulgent gilds the illumined fields,
And black by fits the shadows sweep along."
THOMSON.

"The bleak winds
Do sorely ruffle; for many miles about
There's scarce a bush."
_Lear, Act 2._

"These are the Gardens of the Desert."
BRYANT.

Merrily, merrily did the wild night-wind howl, and whistle, and rave around the little low cabin beneath whose humble roof-tree the traveller had lain himself to rest. Now it would roar and rumble down the huge wooden chimney, and anon sigh along the tall grass-tops and through the crannies like the wail of some lost one of the waste. The moonbeams, at intervals darkened by the drifting clouds and again pouring gloriously forth, streamed in long threads of silver through the shattered walls; while the shaggy forest in the back-ground, tossing its heavy branches against the troubled sky, {90} roared forth a deep chorus to the storm. It was a wild night, and so complete was the illusion that, in the fitful lullings of the tempest, one almost imagined himself on the ocean-beach, listening to the confused weltering of the surge. There was much of high sublimity in all this; and hours passed away before the traveller, weary as he was, could quiet his mind to slumber. There are seasons when every chord, and nerve, and sinew of the system seems wound up to its severest tension; and a morbid, unnatural excitement broods over the mind, forbidding all approach to quietude. Every one has _experienced_ this under peculiar circumstances; few can _describe_ it.

The night wore tediously away, and at the dawn the traveller was again in the saddle, pushing forth like a "pilgrim-bark" upon the swelling ocean-waste, sweeping even to the broad curve of undulating horizon beyond. There is always something singularly unpleasant in the idea of going out upon one of these vast prairies _alone_; and such the sense of utter loneliness, that the solitary traveller never fails to cast back a lingering gaze upon the last low tenement he is leaving. The winds were still up, and the rack and clouds were scudding in wild confusion along the darkened sky;

"Here, flying loosely as the mane
Of a young war-horse in the blast;
There, roll'd in masses dark and swelling,
As proud to be the thunder's dwelling!"

From time to time a heavy blast would come careering {91} with resistless fury along the heaving plain, almost tearing the rider from his horse. The celebrated "Grand Prairie," upon which I was now entering, stretched itself away to the south thirty miles, a vast, unbroken meadow; and one may conceive, not describe, the terrible fury of a storm-wind sweeping over a surface like this.[203] As the morning advanced, the violence of the tempest lulled into fitful gusts; and, as the centre of the vast amphitheatre was attained, a scene of grandeur and magnificence opened to my eye such as it never before had looked upon. Elevated upon a full roll of the prairie, the glance ranged over a scene of seemingly limitless extent; for upon every side, for the first time in my ramble, the deep blue line of the horizon and the darker hue of the waving verdure blended into one.

The touching, delicate loveliness of the lesser prairies, so resplendent in brilliancy of hue and beauty of outline, I have often dwelt upon with delight. The graceful undulation of slope and swell; the exquisite richness and freshness of the verdure flashing in native magnificence; the gorgeous dies of the matchless and many-coloured flowers dallying with the winds; the beautiful woodland points and promontories shooting forth into the mimic sea; the far-retreating, shadowy _coves_, going back in long vistas into the green wood; the curved outline of the dim, distant horizon, caught at intervals through the openings of the forest; and the whole gloriously lighted up by the early radiance of morning, as with rosy footsteps she came dancing {92} over the dew-gemmed landscape; all these constituted a scene in which beauty unrivalled was the sole ingredient. And then those bright enamelled clumps of living emerald, sleeping upon the wavy surface like the golden Hesperides of classic fiction, or, like another cluster of Fortunate Isles in the dark-blue waters, breathing a fragrance as from oriental bowers; the wild-deer bounding in startled beauty from his bed, and the merry note of the skylark, whistling, with speckled vest and dew-wet wing, upon the resin-weed, lent the last touchings to Nature's _chef d'oeuvre_.

"Oh, beautiful, still beautiful,
Though long and lone the way."

But the scene amid which I was now standing could boast an aspect little like this. Here, indeed, were the rare and delicate flowers; and life, in all its fresh and beautiful forms, was leaping forth in wild and sportive luxuriance at my feet. But all was vast, measureless, Titanic; and the loveliness of the picture was lost in its grandeur. Here was no magnificence of _beauty_, no _gorgeousness_ of vegetation, no _splendour_ of the wilderness;

"Green isles and circling shores _ne'er_ blended here
In wild reality!"

All was bold and impressive, reposing in the stern, majestic solitude of Nature. On every side the earth heaved and rolled like the swell of troubled waters; now sweeping away in the long heavy wave of ocean, and now rocking and curling like the abrupt, broken bay-billow tumbling around the {93} crag. Between the lengthened parallel ridges stretch the ravines by which the prairie is drained; and, owing to the depth and tenacity of the soil, they are sometimes almost impassable. Ascending from these, the elevation swells so gradually as to be almost imperceptible to the traveller, until he finds himself upon the summit, and the immense landscape is spread out around him.

"The clouds
Sweep over with their shadows, and beneath,
The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye;
Dark hollows seem to glide along and chase
The sunny ridges."

The diversity of light and shade upon the swells and depressions at the hour of sunrise, or when at midday clouds are drifting along the sky, is endless. A few points here and there are thrown into prominent relief; while others, deeply retreating, constitute an imaginary back-ground perfect in its kind. And then the sunlight, constantly changing its position, is received upon such a variety of angles, and these, too, so rapidly vary as the breeze rolls over the surface, that it gives the scene a wild and shifting aspect to the eye at times, barely reconcilable with the idea of reality.

As the sun reached the meridian the winds went down, and then the stillness of death hung over the prairie. The utter desolateness of such a scene is indescribable. Not a solitary tree to intercept the vision or to break the monotony; not a sound to cheer the ear or relieve the desolation; not a living {94} thing in all that vast wild plain to tell the traveller that he was not

"Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide, wide sea!"

It is at such a season that the question presents itself with more than ordinary vehemence to the mind, _To what circumstance do these vast prairies owe their origin_? Amid what terrible convulsion of the elements did these great ocean-plains heave themselves into being? What mighty voice has rolled this heaped-up surface into tumult, and then, amid the storm and the tempest, bid the curling billows stand, and fixed them there?

"The hand that built the firmament hath heaved
And smooth'd these verdant swells."

The origin of the prairie has given rise to much speculation. Some contend that we are to regard these vast plains in the same light as mountains, valleys, forests, and other grand features of Nature's workmanship. And, it is very true, plains of a character not dissimilar are to be met with all over our earth; at every degree of elevation of every extent, and of every stage of fertility, from the exhaustless fecundity of the delta of the Nile to the barren sterility of the sands of the desert. Northern Asia has her boundless _pastures_ and _steppes_, where the wild Tartar feeds his flock; Africa may boast her Bedouin _sands_, her _tablelands_, and her _karroos_; South America her grassy _llanos_ and _pampas_; Europe her purple _heather_; India her _jungles_; the southern sections of our own land their beautiful _savannas_; and wherefore not the {95} vast regions of the "Far West" their broad-rolling _prairies_? The word is of French derivation, signifying _meadow_; and is applied to every description of surface destitute of timber and clothed with grass. It was, then, upon their own fair prairies of Judea and Mesopotamia that the ancient patriarchs pitched their tents. The tough sward of the prairie, when firmly formed, it is well known, refuses to receive the forest; but, once broken into by the ploughshare or by any other cause, and protected from the autumnal flames, and all is soon rolling with green; and the sumach, the hazel, and the wild-cherry are succeeded by the oak. Such is the argument for the _natural_ origin of the prairie, and its cogency none will deny. But, assuming for a moment a _diluvial_ origin to these vast plains, as a thousand circumstances concur to indicate, and the phenomena are far more satisfactorily and philosophically resolved. In a soil so exhaustlessly fertile, the grasses and herbs would first secure possession of the surface. Even now, whenever the earth is thrown up, from whatever depth, it is immediately mossed with verdure by the countless embryos buried in its teeming bosom; a proof incontestable of secondary origin. After the grasses succeeded flowering shrubs; then the larger weeds; eventually, thickets were formed; the surface was baked and hardened by the direct rays of the sun, and the bosom of the soil, bound up as if by bands of brass and iron, utterly refused to receive or nourish the seeds of the forest now strewn over it. This is the unavoidable conclusion wherever natural {96} causes have held their sway. Upon the borders of rivers, creeks, and overflowing streams, or wherever the soil has become broken, this series of causes was interrupted, and the result we see in the numerous island-groves, and in the forests which invariably fringe the water-courses, great and small. The autumnal fires, too, aboriginal tradition informs us, have annually swept these vast plains from an era which the memory of man faileth to record, scathing and consuming every bush, shrub, or thicket which in the lapse of ages might have aspired to the dignity of a tree; a nucleus around which other trees might have clustered. Here and there, indeed, amid the heaving waste, a desolate, wind-shaken, flame-blackened oak rears its naked branches in the distance; but it is a stricken thing, and only confirms the position assumed. From a concurrence of fortuitous circumstances easily conceived, the solitary seed was received into a genial soil; the tender shrub and the sapling were protected from destruction, and at length it had struggled into the upper air, and defied alike the flames and blasts of the prairie.

The argument of _analogy_ for the _natural origin_ of the prairie may also be fairly questioned, since careful examination of the subject must convince any unprejudiced mind that the similarity of feature between these plains and others with which we are acquainted is not sufficiently striking to warrant comparison. The _pampas_, the _steppes_, and the _sand-plains_, though not unlike in the more prominent characteristics, are yet widely different {97} in configuration, extent, and soil. The prairie combines characteristics of each, exhibiting features of all in _common_, of no one in _particular_. Who would institute comparison between the dark-rolling luxuriance of the North American prairie, and the gloomy moor of Northern Europe, with its heavy, funereal mantle of heather and _ling_. Could the rifest fancy conjure up the _weird sisters_, all "so withered and so wild in their attire," upon these beautiful plains of the departed Illini! Nor do we meet in the thyme-breathing downs of "merry England," the broad rich levels of France, the grape-clad highlands of Spain, or in the golden mellowness of the Italian _Campagna_, with a similitude of feature sufficiently striking to identify our own glorious prairies with them. Europe can boast, indeed, no peculiarity of surface assuming like configuration or exhibiting like phenomena.

When, then, we reflect, that of all those plains which spread out themselves upon our globe, the North American prairie possesses characteristics peculiar to itself, and to be met with nowhere beside; when we consider the demonstrations of a soil of origin incontestably diluvial; when we wander over the heaving, billowy surface, and behold it strewed with the rocky offspring of another region, and, at intervals, encased in the saline crust of the ocean-sediment; when we dive into its fathomless bosom, and bring forth the crumbling relics of man and animal from sepulchres into which, for untold cycles, they have been entombed; and when we linger along those rolling streams by which they {98} are intersected, and behold upon their banks the mighty indications of whirling, subsiding floods, and behold buried in the heart of the everlasting rock productions only of the sea, the conviction is forced upon us, almost resistlessly, that here the broad ocean once heaved and roared. To what circumstance, indeed, but a revolution of nature like this, are we to refer that uniform deposition of earthy strata upon the alluvial bottom-land of every stream? to what those deep-cut race-paths which the great streams have, in the lapse of centuries, worn for themselves through the everlasting rock, hundreds of feet? to what those vast salt-plains of Arkansas? those rocky heaps of the same mineral on the Missouri, or those huge isolated masses of limestone, rearing themselves amid the lonely grandeur, a wonder to the savage? Or to what else shall we refer those collections of enormous seashells, heaped upon the soil, or thrown up to its surface from a depth of fifty feet?

Many phenomena in the Valley of the Mississippi concur to confirm the idea that its vast delta-plains, when first forsaken by the waters of the ocean, were possessed by extensive canebrakes, covering, indeed, its entire surface. If, then, we suppose the Indians, who passed from Asia to America in the early centuries of the Christian era, to have commenced the fires in autumn when the reed was like tinder, and the conflagration would sweep over boundless regions, we at once have an hypothesis which accounts for the origin of the prairies. It is at least as plausible as some others. The occasions of the autumnal fires may have been {99} various. The cane-forests must have presented an insurmountable obstacle in travelling, hunting, agriculture, or even residence; while the friction caused by the tempestuous winds of autumn may have kindled numerous fires among the dry reeds.

The surface peculiar to the prairie is first perceived in the State of Ohio. As we proceed north and west it increases in extent, until, a few hundred miles beyond the Mississippi, it rolls on towards the setting sun, in all the majesty and magnificence of boundlessness, to the base of the Rocky Mountains. Such are the beautiful prairies of the fair Far West; and if, gentle reader, my pen, all rapid though it be, has lingered tediously to thee along their fairy borders, it may yet prove no small consolation to thy weariness to reflect that its errings upon the subject are wellnigh ended.

It was yet early in the day, as I have intimated, when I reached the centre of that broad branch of the Grand Prairie over which I was passing; and, mile after mile, the narrow pathway, almost obliterated here and there by the waving vegetation, continued to wind itself along. With that unreflecting carelessness which characterizes the inexperienced wayfarer, I had left behind me the last human habitation I was for hours to look upon, without the slightest refreshment; and now the demands of unappeased nature, sharpened by exercise, by the keen atmosphere of the prairies, and, probably, by the force of fancy, which never fails to aggravate privations which we know to be remediless, had become absolutely painful. The faithful animal beneath {100} me, also, from the total absence of water along our path, was nearly exhausted; and there, before and around, and on every side, not an object met the view but the broad-rolling, limitless prairie, and the dim, misty horizon in the distance. Above, the heavens were calm and blue, and the bright sun was careering on in his giant course as gloriously as if the storm-cloud had never swept his path. League after league the prairie lay behind me, and still swell upon swell, wave after wave, heaved up itself in endless succession before the wearied eye. There _is_ a point, reader, in physical, not less than in moral affairs, where forbearance ceases to be a virtue; and, veritably, suggestions bordering on the horrible were beginning to flit athwart the fancy, when, happily, a long, low, wavering cloud-like line was caught stretching itself upon the extremest verge of the misty horizon. My jaded animal was urged onward; and slowly, _very_ slowly, the dim outline undulated upward, and the green forest rose gradually before the gladdened vision! A few miles, the path plunged into the green, fresh woods; crossed a deep creek, which betrayed its meandering by the grove along its banks, and the hungry traveller threw himself from his horse before a log cabin imbowered in the trees. The spot was one of those luxuriant copses in the heart of the prairie, comprising several hundred acres, so common in the northern sections of Illinois. "_Victuals and drink!_" were, of course, the first demand from a female who showed herself at the door; and, "_I judge_" was the laconic but cheering {101} reply. She stared with uncontrolled curiosity at her stranger-guest. At the moment he must have looked a perfect incarnation of ferocity; a very genius of famine and starvation; but, all in good time, he was luxuriating over a huge fragment of swine's flesh, a bowl of honey, and a loaf of bread; and soon were his _miseries_ over. What! honey and hog's flesh not a luxury! Say ye so, reader! Verily, then, were ye never half starved in the heart of a Western prairie!

_Salem, Ill._

XXXI

"No leave take I, for I will ride
As far as land will let me."

"The long sunny lapse of a summer's daylight."

"What fool is this!"
_As You Like It._

Among that novel variety of feature which the perspicacity of European tourists in America has enabled them to detect of Cis-atlantic character, two traits seem ever to stand forth in striking relief, and are dwelt upon with very evident satisfaction: I allude to Avarice and Curiosity. Upon the former of these characteristics it is not my purpose to comment; though one can hardly have been a traveller, in any acceptation of the term, or in almost any section of our land, without having arrived at a pretty decided opinion upon the subject. Curiosity, {102} however, it will not, I am persuaded, be denied, _does_ constitute a feature, and no inconsiderable one, in our national character; nor would it, perhaps, prove a difficult task to lay the finger upon those precise circumstances in our origin and history as a people which have tended to superinduce a trait of this kind--a trait so disgusting in its ultra development; and yet, in its ultimate nature, so indispensably the mainspring of everything efficient in mind. "_Low vice_," as the author of Childe Harold has been pleased to stigmatize it; yet upon this single propellant may, in retrospect, be predicated the cause of more that contributes to man's happiness than perhaps upon any other. _Frailty of a little mind_, as it _may_ be, and is often deemed; yet not the less true is it that the omnipotent workings of this passion have ever been, and must, until the nature of the human mind is radically changed, continue to remain, at once the necessary concomitant and the essential element of a vigorous understanding. If it be, then, indeed true, as writers and critics beyond the waters would fain have us believe, that American national character is thus compounded, so far from blushing at the discovery, we would hail it as a leading cause of our unparalleled advancement as a people in the time past, and as an unerring omen of progression in future.

My pen has been insensibly betrayed into these remarks in view of a series of incidents which, during my few months rambling, have from time to time transpired; and which, while they illustrate forcibly to my mind the position I have assumed, {103} have also demonstrated conclusively the minor consideration, that the passion, in all its _phenomena_, is by no means, as some would have us believe, restricted to any one portion of our land; that it _is_, in verity, a characteristic of the entire Anglo-American race! Thus much for _sage forensic_ upon "that low vice, curiosity."

My last number left me luxuriating, with all the gusto of an amateur prairie-wolf fresh from his starving lair, upon the _fat_ and _honey_ of Illinois. During these blessed moments of trencher devotion, several inmates of the little cabin whose hospitality I was enjoying, who had been labouring in the field, successively made their appearance; and to each individual in turn was the traveller handed over, like a bale of suspected contraband merchandise, for supervision. The interrogatories of each were quite the same, embracing name and nativity, occupation, location, and destination, administered with all the formal exactitude of a county-court lawyer. With the inquiries of none, however, was I more amused than with those of a little corpulent old fellow ycleped "Uncle Bill," with a proboscis of exceeding rubicundity, and eyes red as a weasel's, to say nothing of a voice melodious in note as an asthmatic clarionet. The curiosity of the Northern Yankee is, in all conscience, unconscionable enough when aroused; but, for the genuine quintessence of inquisitiveness, commend your enemy, if you have one, to an army of starving gallinippers, or to a backwoods' family of the Far West, who see a traveller twice a year, and don't take the newspaper! Now {104} mark me, reader! I mention this not as a _fault_ of the worthy "Suckers:"[204] it is rather a misfortune; or, if otherwise, it surely "leans to virtue's side." A _peculiarity_, nevertheless, it certainly is; and a striking one to the stranger. Inquiries are constantly made with most unblushing effrontery, which, under ordinary circumstances, would be deemed but a single remove from insult, but at which, under those to which I refer, a man of sense would not for a moment take exception. It is _true_, as some one somewhere has said, that a degree of inquisitiveness which in the more crowded walks of life would be called impertinent, is perfectly allowable in the wilderness; and nothing is more conceivable than desire for its gratification. As to the people of Illinois, gathered as they are from every "kindred, and nation, and tribe, and language under heaven," there are traits of character among them which one could wish universally possessed. Kind, hospitable, open-hearted, and confiding have I ever found them, whether in the lonely log cabin of the prairie or in the overflowing settlement; and some noble spirits _I_ have met whose presence would honour any community or people.

After my humble but delicious meal was concluded, mine host, a tall, well-proportioned, sinewy young fellow, taking down his rifle from the _beckets_ in which it was reposing over the rude mantel, very civilly requested me to accompany him on a hunting ramble of a few hours in the vicinity for deer. Having but a short evening ride before me, I readily consented; and, leaving the cabin, we strolled {105} leisurely through the shady woods, along the banks of the creek I have mentioned, for several miles; but, though indications of deer were abundant, without success. We were again returning to the hut, which was now in sight on the prairie's edge, when, in the middle of a remark upon the propriety of "_disposing of a part of his extensive farm_," the rifle of my companion was suddenly brought to his eye; a sharp crack, and a beautiful doe, which the moment before was bounding over the nodding wild-weeds like the summer wind, lay gasping at our feet.

So agreeable did I find my youthful hunter, that I was wellnigh complying with his request to "tarry with him yet a few days," and try my own hand and eye, all unskilled though they be, in _gentle venerie_; or, at the least, to taste a steak from the fine fat doe. _Sed fugit, interea fugit, irreparabile tempus_; and when the shades of evening were beginning to gather over the landscape, I had passed over a prairie some eight miles in breadth; and, chilled and uncomfortable from the drenching of a heavy shower, was entering the village of Shelbyville through the trees.[205]

This is a pleasant little town enough, situated on the west bank of the Kaskaskia River, in a high and heavily-timbered tract. It is the seat of justice for the county from which it takes its name, which circumstance is fearfully portended by a ragged, bleak-looking structure called a courthouse. Its shattered windows, and flapping doors, and weather-stained bricks, when associated with the object to which it is appropriated, perched up as it is in the {106} centre of the village, reminds one of a cornfield scarecrow, performing its duty by looking as hideous as possible. _In terrorem_, in sooth. Dame Justice seems indeed to have met with most shameful treatment all over the West, through her legitimate representative the courthouse. The most interesting object in the vicinity of Shelbyville is a huge sulphur-spring, which I did not tarry long enough to visit.

"Will you be pleased, sir, to register your name?" was the modest request of mine host, as, having _settled the bill_, with foot in stirrup, I was about mounting my steed at the door of the little hostlerie of Shelbyville the morning after my arrival. Tortured by the pangs of a curiosity which it was quite evident must now or never be gratified, he had pursued his guest _beyond the threshold_ with this _dernier resort_ to elicit _a_ name and residence. "Register my name, sir!" was the reply. "And pray, let me ask, where do you intend that desirable operation to be performed?" The discomfited publican, with an expression of ludicrous dismay, hastily retreating to the bar-room, soon reappeared gallanting a mysterious-looking little blue-book, with "Register" in ominous characters portrayed upon the back thereof. _A_ name was accordingly soon despatched with a pencil, beneath about a dozen others, which the honest man had probably managed to _save_ in as many years; and, applying the spur, the last glance of the traveller caught the eager features of his host poring over this new accession to his treasure.

{107} The early air of morning was intensely chilling as I left the village and pursued my solitary way through the old woods; but, as the sun went up the heavens, and the path emerged upon the open prairie, the transition was astonishing. The effect of emerging from the dusky shades of a thick wood upon a prairie on a summer day is delightful and peculiar. I have often remarked it. It impresses one like passing from the damp, gloomy closeness of a cavern into the genial sunshine of a flower-garden. For the first time during my tour in Illinois was my horse now severely troubled by that terrible insect, so notorious all over the West, the large green-bottle prairie-fly, called the "green-head." My attention was first attracted to it by observing several gouts of fresh blood upon the rein; and, glancing at my horse's neck, my surprise was great at beholding an orifice quite as large as that produced by the _fleam_ from which the dark fluid was freely streaming. The instant one of these fearful insects plants itself upon a horse's body, the rider is made aware of the circumstance by a peculiar restlessness of the animal in every limb, which soon becomes a perfect agony, while the sweat flows forth at every pore. The last year[206] was a remarkable one for countless swarms of these flies; many animals were _killed_ by them; and at one season it was even dangerous to venture across the broader prairies except before sunrise or after nightfall. In the early settlement of the county, these insects were so troublesome as in {108} a great measure to retard the cultivation of the prairies; but, within a few years, a yellow insect larger than the "green-head" has made its appearance wherever the latter was found, and, from its sweeping destruction of the annoying fly, has been called the "horse-guard." These form burrows by penetrating the earth to some depth, and there depositing the slaughtered "green-heads." It is stated that animals become so well aware of the relief afforded by these insects and of their presence, that the traveller recognises their arrival at once by the quiet tranquillity which succeeds the former agitation. Ploughing upon the prairies was formerly much delayed by these insects, and heavy netting was requisite for the protection of the oxen.

At an inconsiderable settlement called _Cold Spring_, after a ride of a dozen miles, I drew up my horse for refreshment.[207] My host, a venerable old gentleman, with brows silvered over by the frosts of sixty winters, from some circumstance unaccountable, presumed his guest a political circuit-rider, and arranged his remarks accordingly. The old man's politics were, however, not a little musty. Henry Clay was spoken of rather as a young aspirant for distinction, just stepping upon the arena of public life, than as the aged statesman about resigning "the seals of office," and, hoary with honour, withdrawing from the world. Nathless, much pleased was I with my host. He was a native of Connecticut, and twenty years had seen him a resident in "the Valley."

Resuming my route, the path conducted through {109} a high wood, and for the first time since my departure from New-England was my ear charmed by the sweet, melancholy note of the robin, beautiful songster of my own native North. A wanderer can hardly describe his emotions on an occurrence like this. The ornithology of the West, so far as a limited acquaintance will warrant assertion, embraces many of the most magnificent of the feathered creation. Here is found the jay, in gold and azure, most splendid bird of the forest; here the woodpecker, with flaming crest and snowy capote; the redbird; the cardinal grosbeak, with his mellow whistle, gorgeous in crimson dies; the bluebird, delicate as an iris; the mockbird, unrivalled chorister of our land; the thrush; the wishton-wish; the plaintive whippoorwill; and last, yet not the least, the turtle-dove, with her flutelike moaning. How often, on my solitary path, when all was still through the grove, and heaven's own breathings for a season seemed hushed, have I reined up my horse, and, with feelings not to be described, listened to the redundant pathos of that beautiful woodnote swelling on the air! Paley has somewhere[208] told us, that by nothing has he been so touchingly reminded of the benevolence of Deity as by the quiet happiness of the infant on its mother's breast. To myself there is naught in all Nature's beautiful circle which speaks a richer eloquence of praise to the goodness of our God than the gushing joyousness of the forest-bird!

All day I continued my journey over hill and {110} dale, creek and ravine, woodland and prairie, until, near sunset, I reined up my weary animal to rest a while beneath the shade of a broad-boughed oak by the wayside, of whose refreshing hospitality an emigrant, with wagon and family, had already availed himself. The leader of the caravan, rather a young man, was reclining upon the bank, and, according to his own account, none the better for an extra dram. From a few remarks which were elicited from him, I soon discovered--what I had suspected, but which he at first had seemed doggedly intent upon concealing--that he belonged to that singular sect to which I have before alluded, styling themselves Mormonites, and that he was even then on his way to Mount Zion, Jackson county, Mo.! By contriving to throw into my observations a few of those tenets of the sect which, during my wanderings, I had gathered up, the worthy Mormonite was soon persuaded--pardon my insincerity, reader--that he had stumbled upon a veritable brother; and, without reserve or mental reservation, laid open to my cognizance, as we journeyed along, "the reasons of the faith that was in him," and the ultimate, proximate, and intermediate designs of the _party_. And such a chaotic fanfaronade of nonsense, absurdity, nay, madness, was an idle curiosity never before punished with. The most which could be gathered of any possible "_account_" from this confused, disconnected mass of rubbish, was the following: That Joe Smith, or Joe Smith's father, or the devil, or some other great personage, had somewhere dug up the golden {111} plates upon which were graven the "Book of Mormon:" that this all-mysterious and much-to-be-admired book embraced the chronicles of the lost kings of Israel: that it derived its cognomen from one Mormon, its principal hero, son of Lot's daughter, king of the Moabites: that Christ was crucified on the spot where Adam was interred: that the descendants of Cain were all now under the curse, and no one could possibly designate who they were: that the Saviour was about to descend in Jackson county, Missouri; the millennium was dawning, and that all who were not baptized by Joe Smith or his compeers, and forthwith repaired to Mount Zion, Missouri, aforesaid, would assuredly be cut off, and that without remedy. These may, perhaps, serve as a specimen of a host of wild absurdities which fell from the lips of my Mormonite; but, the instant argument upon any point was pressed, away was he a thousand miles into the fields of mysticism; or he laid an immediate embargo on farther proceedings by a barefaced _petitio principii_ on the faith of the golden plates; or by asserting that the stranger knew more upon the matter than he! At length the stranger, coming to the conclusion that he could at least boast as _much_ of Mormonism, he spurred up, and left the man still jogging onward, to Mount Zion. And yet, reader, with all his nonsense, my Mormonite was by no means an ignorant fanatic. He was a native of Virginia, and for fifteen years had been a pedagogue west of the Blue Ridge, from which edifying profession he had at length been {112} enticed by the eloquence of sundry preachers who had held forth in his schoolhouse. Thereupon taking to himself a brace of wives and two or three braces of children by way of stock in trade for the community at Mount Zion, and having likewise taken to himself a one-horse wagon, into which were bestowed the moveables, not forgetting a certain big-bellied stone bottle which hung ominously dangling in the rear; I say, having done this, and having, moreover, pressed into service a certain raw-boned, unhappy-looking horse, and a certain fat, happy-looking cow, which was driven along beside the wagon, away started he all agog for the promised land.

The grand tabernacle of these fanatics is said to be at a place they call _Kirtland_, upon the shores of Lake Erie, some twenty miles from Cleveland, and numbers no less than four thousand persons. Their leader is Joe Smith, and associated with him is a certain shrewd genius named Sydney Rigdom, a quondam preacher of the doctrine of Campbell.[209] Under the control of these worthies as president and cashier, a banking-house was established, which issued about $150,000, and then deceased. The private residences are small, but the temple is said to be an elegant structure of stone, three stories in height, and nearly square in form. Each of its principal apartments is calculated to contain twelve hundred persons, and has six pulpits arranged gradatim, three at each extremity of the "Aaronic priesthood," and in the same manner with the "priesthood of Melchisedek." The {113} slips are so constructed as to permit the audience to face either pulpit at pleasure. In the highest seat of the "Aaronic priesthood" sits the venerable sire of the prophet, and below sit his hopeful Joe and Joe's prime minister, Sydney Rigdom. The attic of the temple is occupied for schoolrooms, five in number, where a large number of students are taught the various branches of the English, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages. The estimated cost of this building is $60,000.[210] Smith is represented as a quiet, placid-seeming knave, with passionless features, perfectly composed in the midst of his heterogeneous multitude of dupes. Rigdom, on the contrary, has a face full of fire, a fine tenour voice, and a mild and persuasive eloquence of speech. Many of their followers are said to be excellent men. The circumstances of the origin, rise, and progress of this singular sect have been given to the public by the pen of an eccentric but polished writer, and there is nothing material to add.

The close of the day found me once more upon the banks of the Kaskaskia; and early on the succeeding morning, fording the stream, I pursued my route along the great national road towards Terre Haute. This road is projected eighty feet in breadth, with a central carriage-path of thirty feet, elevated above all standing water, and in no instance to exceed three degrees from a perfect level. The work has been commenced along the whole {114} line, and is under various stages of advancement; for most of the way it is perfectly _direct_. The bridges are to be of limestone, and of massive structure, the base of the abutments being equal in depth to one third their altitude. The work was for a while suspended, for the purpose of investigating former operations, and subsequently through failure of an appropriation from Congress; but a grant has since been voted sufficient to complete the undertaking so far as it is now projected.[211] West of Vandalia the route is not yet located, though repeated surveys with reference to this object have been made. St. Louis, Alton, Beardstown, and divers other places upon the Mississippi and its branches present claims to become the favoured point of its destination. Upon this road I journeyed some miles; and, even in its present unfinished condition, it gives evidence of its enormous character. Compare this grand national work with the crumbling relics of the mound-builders scattered over the land, and remark the contrast: yet how, think you, reader, would an hundred thousand men regard an undertaking like this?