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CHAPTER XI - FROM PITTSBURG TO CINCINNATI IN A WESTERN STEAMBOAT. CINCINNATI
THE Messenger was one among a crowd of high-pressure steamboats,
clustered together by a wharf-side, which, looked down upon from
the rising ground that forms the landing-place, and backed by the
lofty bank on the opposite side of the river, appeared no larger
than so many floating models. She had some forty passengers on
board, exclusive of the poorer persons on the lower deck; and in
half an hour, or less, proceeded on her way.
We had, for ourselves, a tiny state-room with two berths in it,
opening out of the ladies' cabin. There was, undoubtedly,
something satisfactory in this 'location,' inasmuch as it was in
the stern, and we had been a great many times very gravely
recommended to keep as far aft as possible, 'because the steamboats
generally blew up forward.' Nor was this an unnecessary caution,
as the occurrence and circumstances of more than one such fatality
during our stay sufficiently testified. Apart from this source of
self-congratulation, it was an unspeakable relief to have any
place, no matter how confined, where one could be alone: and as
the row of little chambers of which this was one, had each a second
glass-door besides that in the ladies' cabin, which opened on a
narrow gallery outside the vessel, where the other passengers
seldom came, and where one could sit in peace and gaze upon the
shifting prospect, we took possession of our new quarters with much
pleasure.
If the native packets I have already described be unlike anything
we are in the habit of seeing on water, these western vessels are
still more foreign to all the ideas we are accustomed to entertain
of boats. I hardly know what to liken them to, or how to describe
them.
In the first place, they have no mast, cordage, tackle, rigging, or
other such boat-like gear; nor have they anything in their shape at
all calculated to remind one of a boat's head, stem, sides, or
keel. Except that they are in the water, and display a couple of
paddle-boxes, they might be intended, for anything that appears to
the contrary, to perform some unknown service, high and dry, upon a
mountain top. There is no visible deck, even: nothing but a long,
black, ugly roof covered with burnt-out feathery sparks; above
which tower two iron chimneys, and a hoarse escape valve, and a
glass steerage-house. Then, in order as the eye descends towards
the water, are the sides, and doors, and windows of the state-
rooms, jumbled as oddly together as though they formed a small
street, built by the varying tastes of a dozen men: the whole is
supported on beams and pillars resting on a dirty barge, but a few
inches above the water's edge: and in the narrow space between
this upper structure and this barge's deck, are the furnace fires
and machinery, open at the sides to every wind that blows, and
every storm of rain it drives along its path.
Passing one of these boats at night, and seeing the great body of
fire, exposed as I have just described, that rages and roars
beneath the frail pile of painted wood: the machinery, not warded
off or guarded in any way, but doing its work in the midst of the
crowd of idlers and emigrants and children, who throng the lower
deck: under the management, too, of reckless men whose
acquaintance with its mysteries may have been of six months'
standing: one feels directly that the wonder is, not that there
should be so many fatal accidents, but that any journey should be
safely made.
Within, there is one long narrow cabin, the whole length of the
boat; from which the state-rooms open, on both sides. A small
portion of it at the stern is partitioned off for the ladies; and
the bar is at the opposite extreme. There is a long table down the
centre, and at either end a stove. The washing apparatus is
forward, on the deck. It is a little better than on board the
canal boat, but not much. In all modes of travelling, the American
customs, with reference to the means of personal cleanliness and
wholesome ablution, are extremely negligent and filthy; and I
strongly incline to the belief that a considerable amount of
illness is referable to this cause.
We are to be on board the Messenger three days: arriving at
Cincinnati (barring accidents) on Monday morning. There are three
meals a day. Breakfast at seven, dinner at half-past twelve,
supper about six. At each, there are a great many small dishes and
plates upon the table, with very little in them; so that although
there is every appearance of a mighty 'spread,' there is seldom
really more than a joint: except for those who fancy slices of
beet-root, shreds of dried beef, complicated entanglements of
yellow pickle; maize, Indian corn, apple-sauce, and pumpkin.
Some people fancy all these little dainties together (and sweet
preserves beside), by way of relish to their roast pig. They are
generally those dyspeptic ladies and gentlemen who eat unheard-of
quantities of hot corn bread (almost as good for the digestion as a
kneaded pin-cushion), for breakfast, and for supper. Those who do
not observe this custom, and who help themselves several times
instead, usually suck their knives and forks meditatively, until
they have decided what to take next: then pull them out of their
mouths: put them in the dish; help themselves; and fall to work
again. At dinner, there is nothing to drink upon the table, but
great jugs full of cold water. Nobody says anything, at any meal,
to anybody. All the passengers are very dismal, and seem to have
tremendous secrets weighing on their minds. There is no
conversation, no laughter, no cheerfulness, no sociality, except in
spitting; and that is done in silent fellowship round the stove,
when the meal is over. Every man sits down, dull and languid;
swallows his fare as if breakfasts, dinners, and suppers, were
necessities of nature never to be coupled with recreation or
enjoyment; and having bolted his food in a gloomy silence, bolts
himself, in the same state. But for these animal observances, you
might suppose the whole male portion of the company to be the
melancholy ghosts of departed book-keepers, who had fallen dead at
the desk: such is their weary air of business and calculation.
Undertakers on duty would be sprightly beside them; and a collation
of funeral-baked meats, in comparison with these meals, would be a
sparkling festivity.
The people are all alike, too. There is no diversity of character.
They travel about on the same errands, say and do the same things
in exactly the same manner, and follow in the same dull cheerless
round. All down the long table, there is scarcely a man who is in
anything different from his neighbour. It is quite a relief to
have, sitting opposite, that little girl of fifteen with the
loquacious chin: who, to do her justice, acts up to it, and fully
identifies nature's handwriting, for of all the small chatterboxes
that ever invaded the repose of drowsy ladies' cabin, she is the
first and foremost. The beautiful girl, who sits a little beyond
her - farther down the table there - married the young man with the
dark whiskers, who sits beyond HER, only last month. They are
going to settle in the very Far West, where he has lived four
years, but where she has never been. They were both overturned in
a stage-coach the other day (a bad omen anywhere else, where
overturns are not so common), and his head, which bears the marks
of a recent wound, is bound up still. She was hurt too, at the
same time, and lay insensible for some days; bright as her eyes
are, now.
Further down still, sits a man who is going some miles beyond their
place of destination, to 'improve' a newly-discovered copper mine.
He carries the village - that is to be - with him: a few frame
cottages, and an apparatus for smelting the copper. He carries its
people too. They are partly American and partly Irish, and herd
together on the lower deck; where they amused themselves last
evening till the night was pretty far advanced, by alternately
firing off pistols and singing hymns.
They, and the very few who have been left at table twenty minutes,
rise, and go away. We do so too; and passing through our little
state-room, resume our seats in the quiet gallery without.
A fine broad river always, but in some parts much wider than in
others: and then there is usually a green island, covered with
trees, dividing it into two streams. Occasionally, we stop for a
few minutes, maybe to take in wood, maybe for passengers, at some
small town or village (I ought to say city, every place is a city
here); but the banks are for the most part deep solitudes,
overgrown with trees, which, hereabouts, are already in leaf and
very green. For miles, and miles, and miles, these solitudes are
unbroken by any sign of human life or trace of human footstep; nor
is anything seen to move about them but the blue jay, whose colour
is so bright, and yet so delicate, that it looks like a flying
flower. At lengthened intervals a log cabin, with its little space
of cleared land about it, nestles under a rising ground, and sends
its thread of blue smoke curling up into the sky. It stands in the
corner of the poor field of wheat, which is full of great unsightly
stumps, like earthy butchers'-blocks. Sometimes the ground is only
just now cleared: the felled trees lying yet upon the soil: and
the log-house only this morning begun. As we pass this clearing,
the settler leans upon his axe or hammer, and looks wistfully at
the people from the world. The children creep out of the temporary
hut, which is like a gipsy tent upon the ground, and clap their
hands and shout. The dog only glances round at us, and then looks
up into his master's face again, as if he were rendered uneasy by
any suspension of the common business, and had nothing more to do
with pleasurers. And still there is the same, eternal foreground.
The river has washed away its banks, and stately trees have fallen
down into the stream. Some have been there so long, that they are
mere dry, grizzly skeletons. Some have just toppled over, and
having earth yet about their roots, are bathing their green heads
in the river, and putting forth new shoots and branches. Some are
almost sliding down, as you look at them. And some were drowned so
long ago, that their bleached arms start out from the middle of the
current, and seem to try to grasp the boat, and drag it under
water.
Through such a scene as this, the unwieldy machine takes its
hoarse, sullen way: venting, at every revolution of the paddles, a
loud high-pressure blast; enough, one would think, to waken up the
host of Indians who lie buried in a great mound yonder: so old,
that mighty oaks and other forest trees have struck their roots
into its earth; and so high, that it is a hill, even among the
hills that Nature planted round it. The very river, as though it
shared one's feelings of compassion for the extinct tribes who
lived so pleasantly here, in their blessed ignorance of white
existence, hundreds of years ago, steals out of its way to ripple
near this mound: and there are few places where the Ohio sparkles
more brightly than in the Big Grave Creek.
All this I see as I sit in the little stern-gallery mentioned just
now. Evening slowly steals upon the landscape and changes it
before me, when we stop to set some emigrants ashore.
Five men, as many women, and a little girl. All their worldly
goods are a bag, a large chest and an old chair: one, old, high-
backed, rush-bottomed chair: a solitary settler in itself. They
are rowed ashore in the boat, while the vessel stands a little off
awaiting its return, the water being shallow. They are landed at
the foot of a high bank, on the summit of which are a few log
cabins, attainable only by a long winding path. It is growing
dusk; but the sun is very red, and shines in the water and on some
of the tree-tops, like fire.
The men get out of the boat first; help out the women; take out the
bag, the chest, the chair; bid the rowers 'good-bye;' and shove the
boat off for them. At the first plash of the oars in the water,
the oldest woman of the party sits down in the old chair, close to
the water's edge, without speaking a word. None of the others sit
down, though the chest is large enough for many seats. They all
stand where they landed, as if stricken into stone; and look after
the boat. So they remain, quite still and silent: the old woman
and her old chair, in the centre the bag and chest upon the shore,
without anybody heeding them all eyes fixed upon the boat. It
comes alongside, is made fast, the men jump on board, the engine is
put in motion, and we go hoarsely on again. There they stand yet,
without the motion of a hand. I can see them through my glass,
when, in the distance and increasing darkness, they are mere specks
to the eye: lingering there still: the old woman in the old
chair, and all the rest about her: not stirring in the least
degree. And thus I slowly lose them.
The night is dark, and we proceed within the shadow of the wooded
bank, which makes it darker. After gliding past the sombre maze of
boughs for a long time, we come upon an open space where the tall
trees are burning. The shape of every branch and twig is expressed
in a deep red glow, and as the light wind stirs and ruffles it,
they seem to vegetate in fire. It is such a sight as we read of in
legends of enchanted forests: saving that it is sad to see these
noble works wasting away so awfully, alone; and to think how many
years must come and go before the magic that created them will rear
their like upon this ground again. But the time will come; and
when, in their changed ashes, the growth of centuries unborn has
struck its roots, the restless men of distant ages will repair to
these again unpeopled solitudes; and their fellows, in cities far
away, that slumber now, perhaps, beneath the rolling sea, will read
in language strange to any ears in being now, but very old to them,
of primeval forests where the axe was never heard, and where the
jungled ground was never trodden by a human foot.
Midnight and sleep blot out these scenes and thoughts: and when
the morning shines again, it gilds the house-tops of a lively city,
before whose broad paved wharf the boat is moored; with other
boats, and flags, and moving wheels, and hum of men around it; as
though there were not a solitary or silent rood of ground within
the compass of a thousand miles.
Cincinnati is a beautiful city; cheerful, thriving, and animated.
I have not often seen a place that commends itself so favourably
and pleasantly to a stranger at the first glance as this does:
with its clean houses of red and white, its well-paved roads, and
foot-ways of bright tile. Nor does it become less prepossessing on
a closer acquaintance. The streets are broad and airy, the shops
extremely good, the private residences remarkable for their
elegance and neatness. There is something of invention and fancy
in the varying styles of these latter erections, which, after the
dull company of the steamboat, is perfectly delightful, as
conveying an assurance that there are such qualities still in
existence. The disposition to ornament these pretty villas and
render them attractive, leads to the culture of trees and flowers,
and the laying out of well-kept gardens, the sight of which, to
those who walk along the streets, is inexpressibly refreshing and
agreeable. I was quite charmed with the appearance of the town,
and its adjoining suburb of Mount Auburn: from which the city,
lying in an amphitheatre of hills, forms a picture of remarkable
beauty, and is seen to great advantage.
There happened to be a great Temperance Convention held here on the
day after our arrival; and as the order of march brought the
procession under the windows of the hotel in which we lodged, when
they started in the morning, I had a good opportunity of seeing it.
It comprised several thousand men; the members of various
'Washington Auxiliary Temperance Societies;' and was marshalled by
officers on horseback, who cantered briskly up and down the line,
with scarves and ribbons of bright colours fluttering out behind
them gaily. There were bands of music too, and banners out of
number: and it was a fresh, holiday-looking concourse altogether.
I was particularly pleased to see the Irishmen, who formed a
distinct society among themselves, and mustered very strong with
their green scarves; carrying their national Harp and their
Portrait of Father Mathew, high above the people's heads. They
looked as jolly and good-humoured as ever; and, working (here) the
hardest for their living and doing any kind of sturdy labour that
came in their way, were the most independent fellows there, I
thought.
The banners were very well painted, and flaunted down the street
famously. There was the smiting of the rock, and the gushing forth
of the waters; and there was a temperate man with 'considerable of
a hatchet' (as the standard-bearer would probably have said),
aiming a deadly blow at a serpent which was apparently about to
spring upon him from the top of a barrel of spirits. But the chief
feature of this part of the show was a huge allegorical device,
borne among the ship-carpenters, on one side whereof the steamboat
Alcohol was represented bursting her boiler and exploding with a
great crash, while upon the other, the good ship Temperance sailed
away with a fair wind, to the heart's content of the captain, crew,
and passengers.
After going round the town, the procession repaired to a certain
appointed place, where, as the printed programme set forth, it
would be received by the children of the different free schools,
'singing Temperance Songs.' I was prevented from getting there, in
time to hear these Little Warblers, or to report upon this novel
kind of vocal entertainment: novel, at least, to me: but I found
in a large open space, each society gathered round its own banners,
and listening in silent attention to its own orator. The speeches,
judging from the little I could hear of them, were certainly
adapted to the occasion, as having that degree of relationship to
cold water which wet blankets may claim: but the main thing was
the conduct and appearance of the audience throughout the day; and
that was admirable and full of promise.
Cincinnati is honourably famous for its free schools, of which it
has so many that no person's child among its population can, by
possibility, want the means of education, which are extended, upon
an average, to four thousand pupils, annually. I was only present
in one of these establishments during the hours of instruction. In
the boys' department, which was full of little urchins (varying in
their ages, I should say, from six years old to ten or twelve), the
master offered to institute an extemporary examination of the
pupils in algebra; a proposal, which, as I was by no means
confident of my ability to detect mistakes in that science, I
declined with some alarm. In the girls' school, reading was
proposed; and as I felt tolerably equal to that art, I expressed my
willingness to hear a class. Books were distributed accordingly,
and some half-dozen girls relieved each other in reading paragraphs
from English History. But it seemed to be a dry compilation,
infinitely above their powers; and when they had blundered through
three or four dreary passages concerning the Treaty of Amiens, and
other thrilling topics of the same nature (obviously without
comprehending ten words), I expressed myself quite satisfied. It
is very possible that they only mounted to this exalted stave in
the Ladder of Learning for the astonishment of a visitor; and that
at other times they keep upon its lower rounds; but I should have
been much better pleased and satisfied if I had heard them
exercised in simpler lessons, which they understood.
As in every other place I visited, the judges here were gentlemen
of high character and attainments. I was in one of the courts for
a few minutes, and found it like those to which I have already
referred. A nuisance cause was trying; there were not many
spectators; and the witnesses, counsel, and jury, formed a sort of
family circle, sufficiently jocose and snug.
The society with which I mingled, was intelligent, courteous, and
agreeable. The inhabitants of Cincinnati are proud of their city
as one of the most interesting in America: and with good reason:
for beautiful and thriving as it is now, and containing, as it
does, a population of fifty thousand souls, but two-and-fifty years
have passed away since the ground on which it stands (bought at
that time for a few dollars) was a wild wood, and its citizens were
but a handful of dwellers in scattered log huts upon the river's
shore.
Content of CHAPTER XI - FROM PITTSBURG TO CINCINNATI IN A WESTERN STEAMBOAT. CINCINNATI [Charles Dickens' novel: American Notes]
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