American Notes for General Circulation

by Dickens, Chales

  and tenderness, and love, and anxiety, as this little woman was:

  and all day long she wondered whether 'He' would be at the wharf;

  and whether 'He' had got her letter; and whether, if she sent the

  baby ashore by somebody else, 'He' would know it, meeting it in the

  street: which, seeing that he had never set eyes upon it in his

  life, was not very likely in the abstract, but was probable enough,

  to the young mother. She was such an artless little creature; and

  was in such a sunny, beaming, hopeful state; and let out all this

  matter clinging close about her heart, so freely; that all the

  other lady passengers entered into the spirit of it as much as she;

  and the captain (who heard all about it from his wife) was wondrous

  sly, I promise you: inquiring, every time we met at table, as in

  forgetfulness, whether she expected anybody to meet her at St.

  Louis, and whether she would want to go ashore the night we reached

  it (but he supposed she wouldn't), and cutting many other dry jokes

  of that nature. There was one little weazen, dried-apple-faced old

  woman, who took occasion to doubt the constancy of husbands in such

  circumstances of bereavement; and there was another lady (with a

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  lap-dog) old enough to moralize on the lightness of human

  affections, and yet not so old that she could help nursing the

  baby, now and then, or laughing with the rest, when the little

  woman called it by its father's name, and asked it all manner of

  fantastic questions concerning him in the joy of her heart.

  It was something of a blow to the little woman, that when we were

  within twenty miles of our destination, it became clearly necessary

  to put this baby to bed. But she got over it with the same good

  humour; tied a handkerchief round her head; and came out into the

  little gallery with the rest. Then, such an oracle as she became

  in reference to the localities! and such facetiousness as was

  displayed by the married ladies! and such sympathy as was shown by

  the single ones! and such peals of laughter as the little woman

  herself (who would just as soon have cried) greeted every jest

  with!

  At last, there were the lights of St. Louis, and here was the

  wharf, and those were the steps: and the little woman covering her

  face with her hands, and laughing (or seeming to laugh) more than

  ever, ran into her own cabin, and shut herself up. I have no doubt

  that in the charming inconsistency of such excitement, she stopped

  her ears, lest she should hear 'Him' asking for her: but I did not

  see her do it.

  Then, a great crowd of people rushed on board, though the boat was

  not yet made fast, but was wandering about, among the other boats,

  to find a landing-place: and everybody looked for the husband:

  and nobody saw him: when, in the midst of us all - Heaven knows

  how she ever got there - there was the little woman clinging with

  both arms tight round the neck of a fine, good-looking, sturdy

  young fellow! and in a moment afterwards, there she was again,

  actually clapping her little hands for joy, as she dragged him

  through the small door of her small cabin, to look at the baby as

  he lay asleep!

  We went to a large hotel, called the Planter's House: built like

  an English hospital, with long passages and bare walls, and skylights

  above the room-doors for the free circulation of air. There

  were a great many boarders in it; and as many lights sparkled and

  glistened from the windows down into the street below, when we

  drove up, as if it had been illuminated on some occasion of

  rejoicing. It is an excellent house, and the proprietors have most

  bountiful notions of providing the creature comforts. Dining alone

  with my wife in our own room, one day, I counted fourteen dishes on

  the table at once.

  In the old French portion of the town, the thoroughfares are narrow

  and crooked, and some of the houses are very quaint and

  picturesque: being built of wood, with tumble-down galleries

  before the windows, approachable by stairs or rather ladders from

  the street. There are queer little barbers' shops and drinkinghouses

  too, in this quarter; and abundance of crazy old tenements

  with blinking casements, such as may be seen in Flanders. Some of

  these ancient habitations, with high garret gable-windows perking

  into the roofs, have a kind of French shrug about them; and being

  lop-sided with age, appear to hold their heads askew, besides, as

  if they were grimacing in astonishment at the American

  Improvements.

  It is hardly necessary to say, that these consist of wharfs and

  warehouses, and new buildings in all directions; and of a great

  many vast plans which are still 'progressing.' Already, however,

  some very good houses, broad streets, and marble-fronted shops,

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  have gone so far ahead as to be in a state of completion; and the

  town bids fair in a few years to improve considerably: though it

  is not likely ever to vie, in point of elegance or beauty, with

  Cincinnati.

  The Roman Catholic religion, introduced here by the early French

  settlers, prevails extensively. Among the public institutions are

  a Jesuit college; a convent for 'the Ladies of the Sacred Heart;'

  and a large chapel attached to the college, which was in course of

  erection at the time of my visit, and was intended to be

  consecrated on the second of December in the next year. The

  architect of this building, is one of the reverend fathers of the

  school, and the works proceed under his sole direction. The organ

  will be sent from Belgium.

  In addition to these establishments, there is a Roman Catholic

  cathedral, dedicated to Saint Francis Xavier; and a hospital,

  founded by the munificence of a deceased resident, who was a member

  of that church. It also sends missionaries from hence among the

  Indian tribes.

  The Unitarian church is represented, in this remote place, as in

  most other parts of America, by a gentleman of great worth and

  excellence. The poor have good reason to remember and bless it;

  for it befriends them, and aids the cause of rational education,

  without any sectarian or selfish views. It is liberal in all its

  actions; of kind construction; and of wide benevolence.

  There are three free-schools already erected, and in full operation

  in this city. A fourth is building, and will soon be opened.

  No man ever admits the unhealthiness of the place he dwells in

  (unless he is going away from it), and I shall therefore, I have no

  doubt, be at issue with the inhabitants of St. Louis, in

  questioning the perfect salubrity of its climate, and in hinting

  that I think it must rather dispose to fever, in the summer and

  autumnal seasons. Just adding, that it is very hot, lies among

  great rivers, and has vast tracts of undrained swampy land around

  it, I leave the reader to form his own opinion.


  As I had a great desire to see a Prairie before turning back from

  the furthest point of my wanderings; and as some gentlemen of the

  town had, in their hospitable consideration, an equal desire to

  gratify me; a day was fixed, before my departure, for an expedition

  to the Looking-Glass Prairie, which is within thirty miles of the

  town. Deeming it possible that my readers may not object to know

  what kind of thing such a gipsy party may be at that distance from

  home, and among what sort of objects it moves, I will describe the

  jaunt in another chapter.

  CHAPTER XIII - A JAUNT TO THE LOOKING-GLASS PRAIRIE AND BACK

  I MAY premise that the word Prairie is variously pronounced

  PARAAER, PAREARER, PAROARER. The latter mode of pronunciation is

  perhaps the most in favour.

  We were fourteen in all, and all young men: indeed it is a

  singular though very natural feature in the society of these

  distant settlements, that it is mainly composed of adventurous

  persons in the prime of life, and has very few grey heads among it.

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  There were no ladies: the trip being a fatiguing one: and we were

  to start at five o'clock in the morning punctually.

  I was called at four, that I might be certain of keeping nobody

  waiting; and having got some bread and milk for breakfast, threw up

  the window and looked down into the street, expecting to see the

  whole party busily astir, and great preparations going on below.

  But as everything was very quiet, and the street presented that

  hopeless aspect with which five o'clock in the morning is familiar

  elsewhere, I deemed it as well to go to bed again, and went

  accordingly.

  I woke again at seven o'clock, and by that time the party had

  assembled, and were gathered round, one light carriage, with a very

  stout axletree; one something on wheels like an amateur carrier's

  cart; one double phaeton of great antiquity and unearthly

  construction; one gig with a great hole in its back and a broken

  head; and one rider on horseback who was to go on before. I got

  into the first coach with three companions; the rest bestowed

  themselves in the other vehicles; two large baskets were made fast

  to the lightest; two large stone jars in wicker cases, technically

  known as demi-johns, were consigned to the 'least rowdy' of the

  party for safe-keeping; and the procession moved off to the

  ferryboat, in which it was to cross the river bodily, men, horses,

  carriages, and all, as the manner in these parts is.

  We got over the river in due course, and mustered again before a

  little wooden box on wheels, hove down all aslant in a morass, with

  'MERCHANT TAILOR' painted in very large letters over the door.

  Having settled the order of proceeding, and the road to be taken,

  we started off once more and began to make our way through an illfavoured

  Black Hollow, called, less expressively, the American

  Bottom.

  The previous day had been - not to say hot, for the term is weak

  and lukewarm in its power of conveying an idea of the temperature.

  The town had been on fire; in a blaze. But at night it had come on

  to rain in torrents, and all night long it had rained without

  cessation. We had a pair of very strong horses, but travelled at

  the rate of little more than a couple of miles an hour, through one

  unbroken slough of black mud and water. It had no variety but in

  depth. Now it was only half over the wheels, now it hid the

  axletree, and now the coach sank down in it almost to the windows.

  The air resounded in all directions with the loud chirping of the

  frogs, who, with the pigs (a coarse, ugly breed, as unwholesomelooking

  as though they were the spontaneous growth of the country),

  had the whole scene to themselves. Here and there we passed a log

  hut: but the wretched cabins were wide apart and thinly scattered,

  for though the soil is very rich in this place, few people can

  exist in such a deadly atmosphere. On either side of the track, if

  it deserve the name, was the thick 'bush;' and everywhere was

  stagnant, slimy, rotten, filthy water.

  As it is the custom in these parts to give a horse a gallon or so

  of cold water whenever he is in a foam with heat, we halted for

  that purpose, at a log inn in the wood, far removed from any other

  residence. It consisted of one room, bare-roofed and bare-walled

  of course, with a loft above. The ministering priest was a swarthy

  young savage, in a shirt of cotton print like bed-furniture, and a

  pair of ragged trousers. There were a couple of young boys, too,

  nearly naked, lying idle by the well; and they, and he, and THE

  traveller at the inn, turned out to look at us.

  The traveller was an old man with a grey gristly beard two inches

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  long, a shaggy moustache of the same hue, and enormous eyebrows;

  which almost obscured his lazy, semi-drunken glance, as he stood

  regarding us with folded arms: poising himself alternately upon

  his toes and heels. On being addressed by one of the party, he

  drew nearer, and said, rubbing his chin (which scraped under his

  horny hand like fresh gravel beneath a nailed shoe), that he was

  from Delaware, and had lately bought a farm 'down there,' pointing

  into one of the marshes where the stunted trees were thickest. He

  was 'going,' he added, to St. Louis, to fetch his family, whom he

  had left behind; but he seemed in no great hurry to bring on these

  incumbrances, for when we moved away, he loitered back into the

  cabin, and was plainly bent on stopping there so long as his money

  lasted. He was a great politician of course, and explained his

  opinions at some length to one of our company; but I only remember

  that he concluded with two sentiments, one of which was, Somebody

  for ever; and the other, Blast everybody else! which is by no means

  a bad abstract of the general creed in these matters.

  When the horses were swollen out to about twice their natural

  dimensions (there seems to be an idea here, that this kind of

  inflation improves their going), we went forward again, through mud

  and mire, and damp, and festering heat, and brake and bush,

  attended always by the music of the frogs and pigs, until nearly

  noon, when we halted at a place called Belleville.

  Belleville was a small collection of wooden houses, huddled

  together in the very heart of the bush and swamp. Many of them had

  singularly bright doors of red and yellow; for the place had been

  lately visited by a travelling painter, 'who got along,' as I was

  told, 'by eating his way.' The criminal court was sitting, and was

  at that moment trying some criminals for horse-stealing: with whom

  it would most likely go hard: for live stock of all kinds being

  necessarily very much exposed in the woods, is held by the

  community in rather higher value than human life; and for this

  reason, juries generally make a point of finding all men indicted

 
; for cattle-stealing, guilty, whether or no.

  The horses belonging to the bar, the judge, and witnesses, were

  tied to temporary racks set up roughly in the road; by which is to

  be understood, a forest path, nearly knee-deep in mud and slime.

  There was an hotel in this place, which, like all hotels in

  America, had its large dining-room for the public table. It was an

  odd, shambling, low-roofed out-house, half-cowshed and halfkitchen,

  with a coarse brown canvas table-cloth, and tin sconces

  stuck against the walls, to hold candles at supper-time. The

  horseman had gone forward to have coffee and some eatables

  prepared, and they were by this time nearly ready. He had ordered

  'wheat-bread and chicken fixings,' in preference to 'corn-bread and

  common doings.' The latter kind of rejection includes only pork

  and bacon. The former comprehends broiled ham, sausages, veal

  cutlets, steaks, and such other viands of that nature as may be

  supposed, by a tolerably wide poetical construction, 'to fix' a

  chicken comfortably in the digestive organs of any lady or

  gentleman.

  On one of the door-posts at this inn, was a tin plate, whereon was

  inscribed in characters of gold, 'Doctor Crocus;' and on a sheet of

  paper, pasted up by the side of this plate, was a written

  announcement that Dr. Crocus would that evening deliver a lecture

  on Phrenology for the benefit of the Belleville public; at a

  charge, for admission, of so much a head.

  Straying up-stairs, during the preparation of the chicken fixings,

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  I happened to pass the doctor's chamber; and as the door stood wide

  open, and the room was empty, I made bold to peep in.

  It was a bare, unfurnished, comfortless room, with an unframed

  portrait hanging up at the head of the bed; a likeness, I take it,

  of the Doctor, for the forehead was fully displayed, and great

  stress was laid by the artist upon its phrenological developments.

  The bed itself was covered with an old patch-work counterpane. The

  room was destitute of carpet or of curtain. There was a damp

  fireplace without any stove, full of wood ashes; a chair, and a

  very small table; and on the last-named piece of furniture was

  displayed, in grand array, the doctor's library, consisting of some

  half-dozen greasy old books.