A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America Part 5

"It is equally clear that they were not the work of the Indians. Until the Senecas, who are renowned for their national vanity, had seen the attention of the Americans attracted to these erections, and had invented the fabulous account of which I have spoken, the Indians of the present day did not pretend to know any thing about their origin. They were beyond the reach of all their traditions, and were lost in the abyss of unexplored antiquity."

At the Bull shoals, east branch of White river in Missouri, several feet below the surface of the banks, _reliqua_ were found which indicated that this spot had formerly been the seat of metalurgical operations. The alloy appeared to be lead united with silver. Arrow-heads cut out of flint, and pieces of earthen pots which had evidently undergone the action of fire, were also found here. The period of time at which these operations were carried on in this place must have been very remote, as the present banks have been since entirely formed by alluvial deposits.

Near the _Teel-te-nah_ (or dripping-fork), which empties itself into the La Platte, and not far distant from its junction with that river, there is an extensive cavern, in which are deposited several mummies. Some tribes which roam this region have a tradition, that the first Indian ascended through this aperture, and settled on the earth's surface.

A few years since, on the Merrimac river in St. Louis county, a number of pigmy graves were discovered. The coffins were of stone; and the length of the bodies which they contained, judging from that of the coffins, could not have been more than from three feet and a half to four feet. The graves were numerous, and the skeletons in some instances nearly entire.

In the month of June (1830), a party of gentlemen, whilst in pursuit of wild turkeys, in Hart county, Kentucky, discovered, on the top of a small knoll, a hole sufficiently large to admit a man's body. Having procured lights, they descended, and at the depth of about sixty feet, entered a cavern, sixteen or eighteen feet square, apparently hewn out of solid rock. The whole chamber was filled with human skeletons, which they supposed, _from the size_, to be those of women and children. The place was perfectly dry, and the bones were in a state of great preservation.

They wished to ascertain how deep the bones lay, and dug through them between four and seven feet, but found them quite as plentiful as at the top: on coming to this depth, dampness appeared, and an unpleasant effluvia arising, obliged them to desist. There was no outlet to the cavern. A large snake, which appeared to be perfectly docile, pa.s.sed several times round the apartment whilst they remained.

In a museum at New York, I saw one of those mummies alluded to, which appeared to be remarkably small; but I had not an opportunity of examining it minutely. Those that have been found in the most perfect state of preservation were deposited in nitrous caves, and were enveloped in a manner so different from the practices of the Indians, that the idea cannot be entertained of their being the remains of the ancestors of the present race. Flint gives the following description of one of them which he carefully examined. He says, "The more the subject of the past races of men and animals in this region is investigated, the more perplexed it seems to become. The huge bones of the animals indicate them to be vastly larger than any that now exist on the earth. All that I have seen and heard of the remains of the men, would seem to shew that they were smaller than the men of our times. All the bodies that have been found in that high state of preservation, in which they were discovered in nitrous caves, were considerably smaller than the present ordinary stature of men. The two bodies that were found in the vast limestone cavern in Tennessee, one of which I saw at Lexington, were neither of them more than four feet in height. It seems to me that this must have been nearly the height of the living person. The teeth and nails did not seem to indicate the shrinking of the flesh from them in the desiccating process by which they were preserved. The teeth were separated by considerable intervals; and were small, long, white, and sharp, reviving the horrible images of nursery tales of ogres' teeth. The hair seemed to have been sandy, or inclining to yellow. It is well known that nothing is so uniform in the present Indian as his lank black hair. From the pains taken to preserve the bodies, and the great labour of making the funeral robes in which they were folded, they must have been of the 'blood-royal,' or personages of great consideration in their day. The person that I saw, had evidently died by a blow on the skull. The blood had coagulated there into a ma.s.s, of a texture and colour sufficiently marked to shew that it had been blood. The envelope of the body was double. Two splendid blankets, completely woven with the most beautiful feathers of the wild turkey, arranged in regular stripes and compartments, encircled it. The cloth on which these feathers were woven, was a kind of linen of neat texture, of the same kind with that which is now woven from the fibres of the nettle.

The body was evidently that of a female of middle age, and I should suppose that her majesty weighed, when I saw her, six or eight pounds."

The silly attempts that have been made to establish an oriental origin for the North American Indians, have never produced any other conviction in an unbiased mind, than that the _facts_ brought forward to support that theory existed only in the imaginations of those who advanced them. The colour, the form, the manners, habits, and propensities of the Indians, all combine to establish that they are a distinct race of human beings, and could never have emanated from any people of European, Asiatic, or African origin. The notion that climate would be sufficient to produce an essential change in the appearance of any number of individuals, cannot now be maintained; since from the discovery of America, Europeans, Africans, and Indians have inhabited all regions of this vast continent, without undergoing the slightest characteristic change from the descendants of the original stock, who have remained in their primitive locations. The Power that induces the existence of plants and lower animals indigenous to the different sections of the earth, seems also to induce the existence of a race of men peculiar to the regions in which they are found.

The languages of America are radically different from those of the old world; and no similitude can be traced between the tongues of the red men, and those of any other people hitherto known. Jarvis, in his Paper on the Religion of the Indian Tribes of North America, says, "The best informed writers agree, that there are, exclusive of the Karalit or Esquimaux, three radical languages spoken by the Indians of North America.

Mr. Heckwelder denominates them the Iroquois, the Lenape, and the Floridian. The Iroquois is spoken by the Six Nations, the Wyandots, or Hurons, the Nandowessies, the a.s.siniboils, and other tribes beyond the St.

Lawrence. The Lenape, which is the most widely extended language on this side the Mississippi, was spoken by the tribes now extinct, who formerly inhabited Nova Scotia and the present state of Maine, the Abenakis, Micmacs, Canibas, Openangos, Socc.o.kis, Etchemins, and Souriquois; dialects of it are now spoken by the Miamis, the Potawatomies, Missisangoes, and Kickapoos; the Eonestogas, Nantic.o.kes, Shawanese, and Mohicans; the Algonquins, Knisteneaux, and Chippeways. The Floridian includes the languages of the Creeks, or Muskohgees, Chickesaws, Choctaws, Pascagoulas, Cherokees, Seminolese, and several other tribes in the southern states and Florida. These three languages are primitive; that is to say, are so distinct as to have no perceivable affinity. All, therefore, cannot be derived from the Hebrew; for it is a contradiction in terms to speak of three languages radically different, as derived from a common source.

Which, then, we may well ask, is to be selected as the posterity of the Israelites: the Iroquois, the Lenape, or the southern Indians?

"Besides, there is one striking peculiarity in the construction of American languages, which has no counterpart in the Hebrew. Instead of the ordinary division of genders, they divide into animate and inanimate. It is impossible to conceive that any nation, in whatever circ.u.mstances they might be placed, could depart in so remarkable a manner from the idioms of their native language."

M. Duponceau, a Frenchman settled at Philadelphia, who is perhaps one of the first philologists of the age, concludes a treatise on the same subject with the following deductions:

1.--"That the American languages, in general, are rich in words and in grammatical forms; and that in their complicated construction, the greatest order, method, and regularity prevail."

2.--"That these complicated forms, which I call polysinthetic, appear to exist in all those languages, from Greenland to Cape Horn."[8]

3.--"That these forms appear to differ essentially from those of the ancient and modern languages of the old hemisphere."

We intended to proceed direct from the banks of the Mississippi to Edwardsville, which lies in a north-easterly direction from St. Louis, but unfortunately got on the wrong track, an occurrence by no means uncommon on the prairies, and by this casualty visited Troy, a _town_ containing two houses, namely, a "groggery," and a farm-house, both owned by the one person. The only resemblance this trans-Atlantic Ilium can possibly bear to the city of the ten years' siege, lies in the difficulty of ascertaining its location; for had we not been informed that here stood the town of Troy, we should have pa.s.sed through this, as we did through many others, without ever suspecting the fact. Town-making is quite a speculation in the western country; and the first thing a man does after purchasing a few hundred acres of ground, is to "lay off a town lot:" this causes the maps to be studded with little circular dots, and great big names attached to them, which would lead one to suppose the population to be much greater than it is in reality.

From Edwardsville, we proceeded by Ripley and Greenville, to Vandalia, the seat of government of the state.

The prairies had lost much of the brilliant green colour which they possessed when we before crossed them, and they were now a.s.suming rather a burnt appearance. Towards the close of autumn the gra.s.s generally becomes so dry as to be easily ignited, which formerly took place by accident, or otherwise, almost every year. The sight must be grand indeed; and we almost regretted that we were not so fortunate as to be in danger of being burnt alive--the sight would be worth the risk. There is a penalty attached to the firing of the woods or prairies, as the plantations are now becoming too numerously scattered over the country, and property is likely to be injured by these conflagrations.

Towards the latter end of October, the season peculiar to this country, denominated the "Indian summer," commences, and lasts for some weeks. At this period, the atmosphere is suffused with a vapour which at a distance has the appearance of smoke, arising as it were from fires in the forest.

The air is always calm and mild on those days, and the sun's disk a.s.sumes a broad, reddish appearance.

Vandalia is the capital of Illinois, and is seated on the Kaskaskia river, which is only navigable to this point during the "freshets" in autumn and spring. The positions of the capitals are chosen for their centrality alone, and not with reference to any local advantages they may possess.

Illinois is a free state, and its const.i.tution is but a counterpart of those of Ohio and Indiana. The extent is 380 miles from north to south, and about 140 miles from east to west: area, 52,000 square miles, or 33,280,000 acres. The population in 1810, was 12,282; in 1820, 55,211: white males, 29,401; white females, 24,387; slaves, 917; militia in 1821, 2,031. The present population is, according to the last census, 157,575.

The increase within the last ten years has been nearly 186 per cent.

This state is better circ.u.mstanced than any other in the west. It is bounded on the north by the north-west territory; on the south by the Ohio; on the east by the Wabash and Lake Michigan; and on the west by the Mississippi. The Illinois river is navigable at almost all seasons to very nearly its head waters; and by means of a very short portage a communication is established between it and Lake Michigan. A ca.n.a.l is contemplated between this lake and the Wabash.

The heath-hen (_tetrao cupido_), or as it is here called, the 'Prairie-hen,' abounds on the prairies, particularly in the neighbourhood of barrens. This species of grouse, I believe, is not to be met with in Europe; nor has it been accurately described by any ornithologist before Wilson. One habit of the male of this bird is remarkable: at the season of incubation, the c.o.c.ks a.s.semble every morning just before day-break, outside the wood, and there exercise themselves tilting until the sun appears, when they disperse. Hunters have not failed to note the circ.u.mstance, and take advantage of it.

We were frequently amused with the movements of the "Turkey buzzard"

(_vultur aura_). This bird is well known in the southern and western states; and in the former is considered of so much utility that a penalty is inflicted on any person who may wantonly destroy it. It is perfectly harmless, never attacking even the smallest living animal, and seems always to prefer carrion when in a state of putrefaction. Except when rising from the ground, the buzzard never flaps its wings, but literally floats through the atmosphere, forming graceful ogees.

During our journeys across Illinois, we pa.s.sed several large bodies of settlers on their way to Sangamon and Morgan counties in that state. These counties are situated on the Illinois river, and are said to be fertile tracts. The ma.s.s of those persons were Georgians, Virginians, and Kentuckians, whose comparative poverty rendered their residence in slave states unpleasant.

Perhaps there is nothing more remarkable in the character of the Americans than the indifference with which they leave their old habitations, friends, and relations. Each individual is taught to depend mainly on his own exertions, and therefore seldom expects or requires extraordinary a.s.sistance from any man. Attachments seldom exist here beyond that of ordinary acquaintances--these are easily found wherever one may go, arising from a variety of circ.u.mstances connected with their inst.i.tutions and their necessities; and thus one of the great objections that present themselves to change with Europeans scarcely exists here. Observe, I apply this remark more particularly to the western and southern states; for the eastern states being longer settled and more thickly populated, these feelings, although they exist, yet they do so in a more modified degree.

The appearance presented by the forests at this season is very beautiful--the trees are covered with leaves of almost every colour, from bright crimson to nearly snow-white; the admixture of green, brown, yellow, scarlet, &c., such as is almost peculiar to an American forest, produces a very pleasing combination.

We again reached Albion, and retraced our steps from thence to Harmony, where we deposited our friend B----; and after having remained there for a few days to refresh ourselves and horse, set forward for Ohio. The weather had now become unfavourable, and the frequent rains and high winds were shaking the leaves down in myriads--the entire of our journey through Indiana being across forests, we were under one constant shower of leaves from Harmony to Cincinnati.

One day while getting our horse fed at a tavern in Indiana, the following conversation took place between the persons there a.s.sembled. We were sitting at the door, surrounded by captains, lawyers, and squires, when one of the gentlemen demanded of another if there had not been a "gouging sc.r.a.pe" at the "Colonel's tavern" the evening before. He replied in the affirmative; and after having related the cause of quarrel, and said that the lie had been given, he continued, "the judge knocked the major right over, and jumped on to him in double quick time--they had it rough and tumble for about ten minutes--Lord J---s Alm----y!--as pretty a sc.r.a.pe as ever you _see'd_--the judge is a wonderfully lovely fellow." Then followed a description of the divers punishments inflicted by the combatants on each other--the major had his eye nearly "gouged" out, and the judge his chin almost bitten off. During the recital, the whole party was convulsed with laughter--in which we joined most heartily.

We of course returned by a different route through Indiana, pa.s.sing from Princeton to Portersville, and from thence through Paoli, Salem, and New Lexington, to Madison. The country about Madison is hilly and broken, which makes travelling tedious in the extreme. From the mouth of the Big Miami to Blue river, a range of hills runs parallel to the Ohio, alternately approaching to within a few perches of the river, and receding to a distance of one to two miles. Below Blue river the hills disappear, and the land becomes level and heavily timbered. There is also another range of hills, extending from the Falls of Ohio to the Wabash in a south-westerly direction, which are called the "k.n.o.bs:" to the west of these are the "flats;" and from the Wabash to lake Michigan the country is champaign.

Indianopolis is the capital of Indiana, and is seated on the White river.

This state averages about 270 miles from north to south, and 144 miles from east to west: area, 37,000 square miles, or 23,680,000 acres. The population in 1810, was 24,520--in 1820, 147,178: white males, 79,919; white females, 69,107; slaves, 190; militia in 1821, 14,990. The present population is 341,582.

Vast quant.i.ties of hogs are bred in the state of Indiana, and are suffered to rove at large in the forests in search of mast. They are in general perfectly wild, and when encountered suddenly bristle up like an enraged porcupine. Their legs are long; bodies thin; and tail lengthy and straight. I was informed that if one of those animals be wounded, its screams will draw an immense concourse of its brethren around it, and that the situation of a person under these circ.u.mstances, is by no means void of danger; as they will not fail to attack him _en ma.s.se_. We were once very nigh getting into a sc.r.a.pe of this description. Driving along through the forest, we had to pa.s.s a tract covered with a thick growth of brushwood--my friend seeing something stirring among the bushes, drew up, and taking it for a deer, called out to me to fire--I stood up in the vehicle, and levelled where I saw the movement, when, lo! out starts a bristling hog, with a grunt just in time to escape with a whole skin.

One night having been accidently separated from my fellow-traveller, I had to stay in a miserable-looking hut close to a creek, the habitation of a backwoodsman. This person's appearance was extremely unprepossessing. The air of ferocity and wildness which characterized his countenance, added to his unhealthy, cadaverous aspect, would have been sufficient in any other country to make one feel unpleasant at pa.s.sing the night alone under his roof. He resided in this unhealthy situation, because the land was extremely fertile; but stated that every fall some one of his family was ill, and none of them enjoyed good health. Now when we summed up the consequent loss of labour incident to ill health, the balance of profit seemed to be greatly against bottom land, and much in favour of the healthful prairies.

The farmers use, almost exclusively, the sugar of the maple (_acer saccharinum_) which they manufacture themselves. The s.p.a.ce in which a number of these trees are found, they call a "sugar camp." The process of manufacturing is as follows:--After the first frost, the trees are tapped, by perforating the trunk in an ascending direction. A spout of alder is inserted in the perforation, and the sap drips through this conduit into a trough of wood. The sap is then boiled with a spoonful of slacked lime, the white of an egg or two, and about a pint of milk, to every fifteen gallons. An ordinary tree commonly gives four pounds of good coa.r.s.e brown sugar, which when refined can be made equal to superior lump sugar.

A great portion of the roads through which we pa.s.sed were mere horse paths, full of stumps, with shrubs entangled across them so thickly, that we were often obliged to dismount in order to cut away part of the impediment. Large trees which have fallen across the road, frequently intercept your pa.s.sage, and you have no alternative but to lift the wheels of the vehicle over them.

As we approached Cincinnati the difficulty of travelling became greatly augmented. The rains had cut up the roads into ravines, sometimes full three feet in depth, which, added to the clayey nature of the soil, completely exhausted the horse, and rendered him incapable of proceeding faster than a slow walk, even with the empty carriage.

There are a number of Baptists residing at Cincinnati, who frequently entertain the inhabitants with public baptisms in the Ohio river. At one of those ceremonies, about this time, rather a ludicrous occurrence took place. The baptizing preacher stands up to his middle in the water, and the person to be baptized is led to him by another preacher. On this occasion the officiating clergyman was rather a slight man, and the lady to be baptized was extremely large and corpulent--he took her by the hands to perform the immersion, but notwithstanding his most strenuous exertions, he was thrown off his centre. She finding him yield, held still harder, until they both sowsed completely under the water, where they lay floundering and struggling for some time, amidst the shouts and laughter of the mult.i.tude a.s.sembled on sh.o.r.e. At length their brethren extricated them from this perilous situation.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] M. Duponceau adduces the following examples: "In the Arancanian language the word '_idnancloclavin_' means 'I do not wish to eat with him.' There is a similar verb in the Delaware tongue--'_n'schingiwipona_,'

which means 'I do not like to eat with him.' To which may be added another example in the latter tongue--'_macht.i.tschwanne_,'--this must be translated 'a cl.u.s.ter of islands with channels every way, so that it is in no place shut up, or impa.s.sable for craft.' This term is applied to the islands in the bay of New York."

CHAPTER VII.

The weather having become cold and disagreeable towards the latter end of December, I set out for New Orleans. The larger cla.s.s of steam-boats lay then at s.h.i.+ppingsport, immediately below the falls of Ohio, the river not being sufficiently high to enable them to pa.s.s over those rapids. Boats drawing from nineteen to twenty-six inches water can almost at all seasons ply on the Upper Ohio, and during the periods that the large boats are detained below the Falls, they are constantly employed in transporting produce, intended for the markets on the Mississippi, to Louisville, from whence it is drayed round to s.h.i.+ppingsport and re-s.h.i.+pped. Flat-boats are also employed for this purpose, and they are preferred, as they pa.s.s over the Falls, and thus land-carriage is avoided.

Louisville is the chief town of Jefferson county, in Kentucky, and at present it is estimated to contain about 12,000 inhabitants, including slaves and free people of colour. The store-keepers here are more wealthy than those of Cincinnati, and their manners less disagreeable. The inhabitants of the latter town being mostly from the New England states, have in their dealings and manners that dry shrewdness which is the true Yankee characteristic. There are also located in Cincinnati some Irish pedlars, who have by all manner of means acquired wealth, and are now the "biggest bugs"[9] in the place.

The public buildings of Louisville are few, and the streets are laid out in the usual style, crossing each other at right angles. It contains a few good brick dwelling-houses, and a number of excellent hack-carriages are stationed near the steam-boat landing. A ca.n.a.l round the Falls, from Beargra.s.s-creek to s.h.i.+ppingsport, is being constructed, which will enable steam-boats of the largest tonnage to pa.s.s through; and thus it will open an uninterrupted intercourse between the Upper and Lower Ohio, and the Mississippi. The length of this ca.n.a.l is about two and a half miles, and the original estimate was 200,000 dollars, but this sum has been found insufficient.

At Louisville I took a berth on board a boat for New Orleans. The steam-boats on the Mississippi are large, and splendidly appointed; the interior has more the appearance of a well fitted up dining-room than the cabin of a boat. The charge is twenty-five dollars, for which you are found in every thing except liquors. Meats, fowls, vegetables, fruits, preserves, &c., are served in abundance, and of the very best quality.

Here you may see tradesmen, "n.i.g.g.e.r traders," farmers, "congress men,"

captains, generals, and judges, all seated at the same table, in true republican simplicity. There is no appearance of awkwardness in the behaviour of the humblest person you see seated at those tables; and indeed their general good conduct is remarkable--I mean when contrasted with that of the same cla.s.s in England. The truth is, the tradesman here finds himself of some importance in the scale of society, and endeavours to show that he is fully qualified to be seated at the same table, _en pa.s.sant_, with the most wealthy citizen. No doubt the higher cla.s.ses have some of that high polish rubbed off by these occasional contacts with their less-civilized fellow citizens; but the humbler cla.s.ses decidedly gain what _they_ lose. All dress well, and are _American_ gentlemen.