The Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet in California, Sonora, and Western Part 29

"My dear young man," said he, "I will give you a hint, which will enable you to travel safely through the Arkansas. Beware of pretty girls, and honest, clever people; never say you are travelling further than from the last city to the nearest, as a long journey generally implies that you have cash; and, if possible, never put your horse in a stable.

Farewell."

The soil in the Arkansas is rocky and mountainous as far as to the western border of the state, when you enter upon the great American desert, which continues to the other side of the Cimarron, nearly to the foot of the Cordilleras. The eastern portion of Arkansas, which is watered by the Mississippi, is an unknown swamp, for there the ground is too soft even for the light-footed Indian; and, I may say, that the whole territory contained between the Mississippi and the St. Francis river is nothing but a continued river-bottom.

It is a.s.serted, on the authority of intelligent residents, that the river-bottoms of the St. Francis were not subject to be overflowed previous to the earthquakes of 1811 and 1812, when an extensive tract in the valley of that river sank to a considerable depth. According to Stoddart, who knew nothing of the shocks of 1811, earthquakes have been common here from the first settlement of the country; he himself experienced several shocks at Kaskaskia, in 1804, by which the soldiers stationed there were aroused from sleep, and the buildings were much shaken and disjointed. Oscillations still occur with such frequency as to be regarded with indifference by the inhabitants, who familiarly call them _shakes_. But the earthquakes of 1811 and 1812, which were felt from New England to New Orleans, are the only ones known to have left permanent traces, although there is every probability that this part of the valley of the Mississippi has been much convulsed at former periods.

In 1812 the earth opened in wide chasms, from which columns of water and sand burst forth; hills disappeared, and their sites were occupied by lakes; the beds of the lakes were raised, and their waters flowed off, leaving them dry; the courses of the streams were changed by the elevation of their beds and the falling of their banks; for one whole hour the current of the Mississippi was turned backwards towards its source, until its acc.u.mulated waters were able to break through the barrier which had dammed them up; boats were dashed on the banks, or suddenly left dry in the deserted channel, or hurried backwards and forwards with the surging eddies; while in the midst of these awful changes, electric fires, accompanied by loud rumblings, flashed through the air, which was darkened with clouds and vapour.

In some places, submerged forests and cane-brakes are still visible at a great depth, on the bottom of lakes, which were then formed. That the causes of these convulsions were not local, as some have imagined, is evident enough from the fact, that the Azores, the West India Islands, and the northern coast of South America were unusually agitated at the same time, and the cities of Carracas, Laguayra, and some others were totally destroyed.

I had been advised not to stop at any house on the borders, and would have proceeded on to Missouri, bivouacking during the night, had it not been that the rainy season had just commenced, and it was far from pleasant to pa.s.s the night exposed to the most terrific showers of rain that could be imagined. When I arrived upon the St. Francis river, I found myself compelled by the state of the weather to stop at a parson's--I don't know what particular sect he professed to belong to; but he was reputed to be the greatest hypocrite in the world, and the "smartest scoundrel" in the Arkansas.

My horse was put into the stable, my saddle into the hall, and I brought my saddle-bags into the sitting-room. Then, as usual, I went to the well for a purification after my day's ride. To my astonishment, I found, on my return, that my saddlebags had already disappeared. I had in them jewels and money to rather a considerable amount for a person in my position, and I inquired of a woman cooking in the next room what had become of them. She answered she did not know, but that probably her father had put them out of the way.

I waited a long while, standing at the door, with no small anxiety, till at last I perceived the parson crossing an Indian-corn field, and coming towards the house. I went to meet him, and asked what he had done with my saddle-bags; to which question he answered angrily, he did not know what I meant; that I had no saddle-bags when I came to his house; that he suspected I was a knowing one, but could not come round so old a fox as he was.

As by that time I was perfectly _au fait_ to all the tricks of Arkansas smartness, I returned to the hall, took my pistols from the holsters, placed them in my belt, and, seizing my rifle, I followed his trail upon the soft ground of the fields. It led me to a corn-house, and there, after an hour's search, I found my lost saddle-bags. I threw them upon my shoulders, and returned to the house just as a terrible shower had commenced. When within fifteen yards from the threshold, the parson, with his wife and daughter, a pretty girl of sixteen, in tears, came up to me to apologize. The mother declared the girl would be the death of her, and the parson informed me, with great humility, that his daughter, having entered the room, and seeing the saddle-bags, had taken and hidden them, believing that they belonged to her sweetheart, who was expected on a visit. Upon this, the girl cried most violently, saying she only wished to play a trick to Charley. She was an honest girl, and no thief.

I thought proper to pretend to be satisfied with this explanation and ordered my supper, and, shortly afterwards, to my great relief, new guests arrived; they were four Missourian planters, returning home from a bear-hunt in the swamps of the St. Francis. One of them was a Mr.

Courtenay, to whom I had a letter from Captain Finn, and, before the day had closed, I received a cordial invitation to go and stay with him for at least a week.

As he spoke French, I told him, in that language, my saddle-bag adventure; he was not surprised, as he was aware of the character of our host. It was arranged that Mr. Courtenay and I should sleep in a double-bedded room on the first floor; the other hunters were accommodated in another part of the house. Before retiring for the night, they all went to visit their horses, and the young girl took that opportunity to light me to the room.

"Oh, Sir," she said to me, after she had closed the door, "pray do not tell the other travellers what I did, or they would all say that I am courting Charley, and my character would be lost."

"Mark me," replied I, "I have already told the story, and I know the Charley story is nothing but a--what your father ordered you to say.

When I went to the corn-house, the tracks I followed were those made by your father's heavy boots, and not by your light pumps and small feet.

The parson is a villain; tell him that; and if it were not too much trouble, I would summon him before some magistrate."

The girl appeared much shocked, and I repented my harshness, and was about to address her more kindly, when she interrupted me.

"Spare me, Sir," she said, "I know all; I am so unhappy; if I had but a place to go to, where I could work for bread, I would do it in a minute, for here I am very, very miserable."

At that moment the poor girl heard the footsteps of the hunters, returning from the stable, and she quitted me in haste.

When Mr. Courtenay entered the room, he told me he expected that the parson was planning some new iniquity, for he had seen him just then crossing the river in a dug-out. As everything was to be feared from the rascal, after the circ.u.mstance of the saddle-bags, we resolved that we would keep a watch; we dragged our beds near the window, and lay down without undressing.

To pa.s.s away the time, we talked of Captain Finn and of the Texans. Mr.

Courtenay related to me a case of negro-stealing by the same General John Meyer, of whom my fellow companion, the parson, had already talked so much while we travelling in Texas. One winter, Mr. Courtenay, returning from the East, was stopped In Vincennes (Indiana) by the depth of the snow, which for a few days rendered the roads impa.s.sable.

There he saw a very fine breed of sheep, which he determined to introduce upon his plantation; and hearing that the general would be coming down the river in a large flat boat as soon as the ice would permit, he made an agreement with him that he should bring a dozen of the animals to the plantation, which stood a few miles below the mouth of the Ohio, on the other side of the Mississippi.

Meyer made his bargain, and two months afterwards delivered the live stock, for which he received the price agreed upon. Then he asked permission to encamp upon Mr. Courtenay's land, as his boat had received some very serious injury, which could not be repaired under five or six days. Mr. Courtenay allowed Meyer and his people to take shelter in a brick barn, and ordered his negroes to furnish the boat-men with potatoes and vegetables of all descriptions.

Three or four days afterwards he was astonished by, several of his slaves informing him the general had been tampering with them, saying they were fools to remain slaves, when they could be as free as white men, and that if they would come down the river with him, he would take them to Texas, where he would pay them twenty dollars a month for their labour.

Courtenay advised them, by all means, to seem to accede to the proposition, and gave them instructions as to how they were to act. He then despatched notes to some twenty neighbours, requesting them to come to the plantation, and bring their whips with them, as they would be required.

Meyer having repaired his boats, came to return thanks, and to announce his departure early on the following morning. At eleven o'clock, when he thought everybody in the house was asleep, he hastened, with two of his sons, to a lane, where he had made an appointment with the negroes to meet him and accompany him to his boat, which was ready to start. He found half-a-dozen of the negroes, and, advising them not to speak before they were fairly off the plantation, desired them to follow him to the boat; but, to his astonishment, he soon discovered that the lane was occupied with other negroes and white men, armed with the much-dreaded cow-hides. He called out to his two sons to fly, but it was too late.

The general and his two sons were undoubtedly accustomed to such disasters, for they showed amazing dexterity in taking advantage of the angles of the fences, to evade the lashes: but, in spite of all their devices, they were cruelly punished, as they had nearly a quarter of a mile of gauntlet to run through before they were clear of the lane. In vain they groaned, and swore, and prayed; the blows fell thicker and thicker, princ.i.p.ally from the hands of the negroes, who, having now and then tasted of the cow-hide, were in high glee at the idea of flogging white men.

The wors.h.i.+pful general and his dutiful sons at last arrived at their boat, quite exhausted, and almost fainting under the agony of the well-applied lashes. Once on board, they cut their cable, and pushed into the middle of the stream; and although Meyer had come down the river at least ten times since, he always managed to pa.s.s the plantation during night, and close to the bank of the opposite sh.o.r.e.

I told Mr. Courtenay what I knew myself about General John Meyer; while I was talking, his attention was attracted by a noise near the stables, which were situated at the bottom of a lane, before our windows. We immediately suspected that there would be an attempt to steal our horses; so I handed my rifle to my companion, who posted himself in a position commanding the lane, through which the thief or thieves must necessarily pa.s.s.

We waited thus in suspense for a few minutes, till Mr. Courtenay desired me to take his place, saying,--

"If any one pa.s.ses the lane with any of our horses, shoot him; I will go down myself and thrash the blackguard, for I suspect the parson will turn them into the swamps, where he is pretty certain of recovering them afterwards."

Saying this, he advanced to the door, and was just putting has hand upon the latch, when we heard a most terrific yell, which was followed by a neighing, which I recognized as that of my horse. Taking our pistols and bowie-knives, we hurried down the lane.

We found that our two horses, with a third, belonging to one of the hunters, were out of the stable, and tied neck and tail, so as to require only one person to lead them. The first one had the bridle on, and the last, which was mine, was in a state of excitement, as if something unusual had happened to him. On continuing our search, we found the body of a young man, most horribly mangled, the breast being entirely open, and the heart and intestines hanging outside.

It appeared that my faithful steed, which had already shown, in Texas, a great dislike to being taken away from me, had given the thief the terrible kick, which had thrown him ten or fifteen yards, as I have said a mangled corpse. By this time, the other hunters came out to us; lights were procured, and then we learned that the victim was the parson's eldest son, newly married, and settled on the east side of the St.

Francis. The parson was not long himself in making his appearance; but he came from an opposite direction to that of the house, and he was dressed as on the evening before: he had evidently not been to bed during that night.

As soon as he became aware of the melancholy circ.u.mstance, he raved and swore that he would have the lives of the d.a.m.ned Frenchman and his d.a.m.nation horse; but Mr. Courtenay went to him, and said--

"Hold your tongue, miserable man! See your own work, for you have caused this death. It was to fetch your son, to help you to steal the horses, that you crossed the river in the dug-out. Be silent, I say; you know me; look at your eldest-born, villain that you are! May the chain of your future misery be long, and the last link of it the gibbet, which you deserve!"

The parson was silent, even when his sobbing wife reproached him. "I warned thee, husband," she said; "even now has this come, and I fear that worse is still to come. Unlucky was the hour we met: still more so when the child was born;" and, leaning against the fence, she wept bitterly.

I will pa.s.s over the remainder of this melancholy scene. We all felt for the mother and the poor girl, who stood by with a look of despair.

Saddling our horses, Mr. Courtenay and I resumed our journey, the hunters remaining behind till the arrival of the magistrate, whom we promised to send. To procure one, we were obliged to quit the high road, and, after a ride of several miles, having succeeded in finding his house, we woke him, gave him the necessary directions, and, at sunrise, forded the river.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

At last we arrived at the plantation of Mr. Courtenay: the house was one of the very few buildings in the United States in which taste was displayed. A graceful portico, supported by columns; large verandahs, sheltered by jessamine; and the garden so green and so smiling, with its avenues of acacias and live fences of holly and locust, all recalled to my mind the scenes of my childhood in Europe. Every thing was so neat and comfortable; the stables so airy, the dogs so well housed, and the slaves so good-humoured-looking, so clean and well dressed.

When we descended from our horses, a handsome lady appeared at the portico, with joy and love beaming in her face, as five or six beautiful children, having at last perceived our arrival, left their play to welcome and kiss their father. A lovely vision of youth and beauty also made its appearance--one of those slender girls of the South, a woman of fifteen years old, with her dark eyelashes and her streaming ebony hair; slaves of all ages--mulattoes and quadroon girls, old negroes and boy negroes, all calling together--"Eh! Ma.s.sa Courtenay, kill plenty bear, dare say; now plenty grease for black family, good Ma.s.sa Courtenay."

Add to all this, the dogs barking and the horses neighing, and truly the whole _tableau_ was one of unbounded affection and happiness, I doubt if, in all North America, there is another plantation equal to that of Mr. Courtenay.

I soon became an inmate of the family, and for the first time enjoyed the pleasures of highly-polished society. Mrs. Courtenay was an admirable performer upon the harp; Miss Emma Courtenay, her niece, was a delightful pianist; and my host himself was no mean amateur upon the flute. Our evenings would pa.s.s quickly away, in reading Shakspeare, Corneille, Racine, Metastasio, or the modern writers of English literature: after which we would remain till the night had far advanced, enjoying the beautiful compositions of Beethoven, Gluck, and Mozart, or the brilliant overtures of Donizetti, Bellini, and Meyerbeer.

Thus my time pa.s.sed like a happy dream, and as, from the rainy season having just set in, all travelling was impossible. I remained many weeks with my kind entertainers, the more willingly, that the various trials I had undergone had, at so early an age, convinced me that, upon earth, happiness was too scarce not to be enjoyed when presented to you. Yet in the midst of pleasure I did not forget the duty I owed to my tribe, and I sent letters to Joe Smith, the Mormon leader at Nauvoo, that we might at once enter into an arrangement. Notwithstanding the bad season, we had some few days of suns.h.i.+ne, in which pretty Miss Emma and I would take long rambles in the woods; and sometimes, too, my host would invite the hunters of his neighbourhood, for a general _battue_ against bears, deer, and wild cats. Then we would encamp out under good tents, and during the evening, while smoking near our blazing fires, I would hear stories which taught me more of life in the United States than if I had been residing there for years.

"Dis-moi qui tu frequentes, je te dirai qui tu es," is the old French proverb. Mr. Courtenay never chose his companions but among the more intellectual cla.s.ses of the society around him, and, of course, these stories were not only well told, but interesting in their subject. Often the conversation would fall upon the Mormons, and perceiving how anxious I was to learn anything about this new sect, my host introduced me to a very talented gentleman, who had every information connected with their history. From him I learned the particulars which gave rise to Mormonism, undoubtedly the most extraordinary imposition of the nineteenth century.

There existed years ago a Connecticut man, named Solomon Spalding, a relation of the one who invented the wooden nut-megs. By following him through his career, the reader will find him a Yankee of the true stock.

He appears at first as a law student; then as a preacher, a merchant, and a bankrupt; afterwards he becomes a blacksmith in a small western village: then a land speculator and a county schoolmaster; later still, he becomes the owner of an iron-foundry; once more a bankrupt; at last a writer and a dreamer.

As might be expected, he died a beggar somewhere in Pennsylvania, little thinking that, by a singular coincidence, one of his productions (the "Ma.n.u.script found"), redeemed from oblivion by a few rogues, would prove in their hands a powerful weapon, and be the basis of one of the most anomalous, yet powerful secessions which has ever been experienced by the Established Church.

We find, under the t.i.tle of the "Ma.n.u.script found," an historical romance of the first settlers of America, endeavouring to show that the American Indians are the descendants of the Jews, or the lost tribes. It gives a detailed account of their journey from Jerusalem, by land and by sea, till they arrived in America, under the command of Nephi and Lehi.