American Notes for General Circulation

by Dickens, Chales

  linen, which was in some cases as yellow as the little rivulets

  that had trickled from the corners of their mouths in chewing, and

  dried there. Nor was the atmosphere quite free from zephyr

  whisperings of the thirty beds which had just been cleared away,

  and of which we were further and more pressingly reminded by the

  occasional appearance on the table-cloth of a kind of Game, not

  mentioned in the Bill of Fare.

  And yet despite these oddities - and even they had, for me at

  least, a humour of their own - there was much in this mode of

  travelling which I heartily enjoyed at the time, and look back upon

  with great pleasure. Even the running up, bare-necked, at five

  o'clock in the morning, from the tainted cabin to the dirty deck;

  scooping up the icy water, plunging one's head into it, and drawing

  it out, all fresh and glowing with the cold; was a good thing. The

  fast, brisk walk upon the towing-path, between that time and

  breakfast, when every vein and artery seemed to tingle with health;

  the exquisite beauty of the opening day, when light came gleaming

  off from everything; the lazy motion of the boat, when one lay idly

  on the deck, looking through, rather than at, the deep blue sky;

  the gliding on at night, so noiselessly, past frowning hills,

  sullen with dark trees, and sometimes angry in one red, burning

  spot high up, where unseen men lay crouching round a fire; the

  shining out of the bright stars undisturbed by noise of wheels or

  steam, or any other sound than the limpid rippling of the water as

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  the boat went on: all these were pure delights.

  Then there were new settlements and detached log-cabins and framehouses,

  full of interest for strangers from an old country: cabins

  with simple ovens, outside, made of clay; and lodgings for the pigs

  nearly as good as many of the human quarters; broken windows,

  patched with worn-out hats, old clothes, old boards, fragments of

  blankets and paper; and home-made dressers standing in the open air

  without the door, whereon was ranged the household store, not hard

  to count, of earthen jars and pots. The eye was pained to see the

  stumps of great trees thickly strewn in every field of wheat, and

  seldom to lose the eternal swamp and dull morass, with hundreds of

  rotten trunks and twisted branches steeped in its unwholesome

  water. It was quite sad and oppressive, to come upon great tracts

  where settlers had been burning down the trees, and where their

  wounded bodies lay about, like those of murdered creatures, while

  here and there some charred and blackened giant reared aloft two

  withered arms, and seemed to call down curses on his foes.

  Sometimes, at night, the way wound through some lonely gorge, like

  a mountain pass in Scotland, shining and coldly glittering in the

  light of the moon, and so closed in by high steep hills all round,

  that there seemed to be no egress save through the narrower path by

  which we had come, until one rugged hill-side seemed to open, and

  shutting out the moonlight as we passed into its gloomy throat,

  wrapped our new course in shade and darkness.

  We had left Harrisburg on Friday. On Sunday morning we arrived at

  the foot of the mountain, which is crossed by railroad. There are

  ten inclined planes; five ascending, and five descending; the

  carriages are dragged up the former, and let slowly down the

  latter, by means of stationary engines; the comparatively level

  spaces between, being traversed, sometimes by horse, and sometimes

  by engine power, as the case demands. Occasionally the rails are

  laid upon the extreme verge of a giddy precipice; and looking from

  the carriage window, the traveller gazes sheer down, without a

  stone or scrap of fence between, into the mountain depths below.

  The journey is very carefully made, however; only two carriages

  travelling together; and while proper precautions are taken, is not

  to be dreaded for its dangers.

  It was very pretty travelling thus, at a rapid pace along the

  heights of the mountain in a keen wind, to look down into a valley

  full of light and softness; catching glimpses, through the treetops,

  of scattered cabins; children running to the doors; dogs

  bursting out to bark, whom we could see without hearing: terrified

  pigs scampering homewards; families sitting out in their rude

  gardens; cows gazing upward with a stupid indifference; men in

  their shirt-sleeves looking on at their unfinished houses, planning

  out to-morrow's work; and we riding onward, high above them, like a

  whirlwind. It was amusing, too, when we had dined, and rattled

  down a steep pass, having no other moving power than the weight of

  the carriages themselves, to see the engine released, long after

  us, come buzzing down alone, like a great insect, its back of green

  and gold so shining in the sun, that if it had spread a pair of

  wings and soared away, no one would have had occasion, as I

  fancied, for the least surprise. But it stopped short of us in a

  very business-like manner when we reached the canal: and, before

  we left the wharf, went panting up this hill again, with the

  passengers who had waited our arrival for the means of traversing

  the road by which we had come.

  On the Monday evening, furnace fires and clanking hammers on the

  banks of the canal, warned us that we approached the termination of

  this part of our journey. After going through another dreamy place

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  - a long aqueduct across the Alleghany River, which was stranger

  than the bridge at Harrisburg, being a vast, low, wooden chamber

  full of water - we emerged upon that ugly confusion of backs of

  buildings and crazy galleries and stairs, which always abuts on

  water, whether it be river, sea, canal, or ditch: and were at

  Pittsburg.

  Pittsburg is like Birmingham in England; at least its townspeople

  say so. Setting aside the streets, the shops, the houses, waggons,

  factories, public buildings, and population, perhaps it may be. It

  certainly has a great quantity of smoke hanging about it, and is

  famous for its iron-works. Besides the prison to which I have

  already referred, this town contains a pretty arsenal and other

  institutions. It is very beautifully situated on the Alleghany

  River, over which there are two bridges; and the villas of the

  wealthier citizens sprinkled about the high grounds in the

  neighbourhood, are pretty enough. We lodged at a most excellent

  hotel, and were admirably served. As usual it was full of

  boarders, was very large, and had a broad colonnade to every story

  of the house.

  We tarried here three days. Our next point was Cincinnati: and as

  this was a steamboat journey, and western steamboats usually blow

  up one or two a week in the season, it was advisable to collect

  opinions in reference to the comparative safety of the vessels

  bound that way, then lying in the river. One
called the Messenger

  was the best recommended. She had been advertised to start

  positively, every day for a fortnight or so, and had not gone yet,

  nor did her captain seem to have any very fixed intention on the

  subject. But this is the custom: for if the law were to bind down

  a free and independent citizen to keep his word with the public,

  what would become of the liberty of the subject? Besides, it is in

  the way of trade. And if passengers be decoyed in the way of

  trade, and people be inconvenienced in the way of trade, what man,

  who is a sharp tradesman himself, shall say, 'We must put a stop to

  this?'

  Impressed by the deep solemnity of the public announcement, I

  (being then ignorant of these usages) was for hurrying on board in

  a breathless state, immediately; but receiving private and

  confidential information that the boat would certainly not start

  until Friday, April the First, we made ourselves very comfortable

  in the mean while, and went on board at noon that day.

  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

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  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 staterooms,

  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

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  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 m
eal 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.