The Englishwoman in America Part 5

At half-past three we entered the cars in a long shed, where there were no officials in uniform as in England, and we found our way in as we could.

"All aboard!" is the signal for taking places, but on this occasion a loud shout of "Tumble in for your lives!" greeted my amused ears, succeeded by "Go a-head!" and off we went, the engineer tolling a heavy bell to notify our approach to the pa.s.sengers in _the streets along which we pa.s.sed_.

America has certainly flourished under her motto "Go a-head!" but the cautious "All right!" of an English guard, who waits to start till he is sure of his ground being clear, gives one more confidence. I never experienced the same amount of fear which is expressed by _Bunn_ and other writers, for, on comparing the number of accidents with the number of miles of railway open in America, I did not find the disadvantage in point of safety on her side. The cars are a complete novelty to an English eye.

They are twenty-five feet long, and hold about sixty persons; they have twelve windows on either side, and two and a door at each end; a pa.s.sage runs down the middle, with chairs to hold two each on either side. There is a small saloon for ladies with babies at one end, and a filter containing a constant supply of iced water. There are rings along the roof for a rope which pa.s.ses through each car to the engine, so that anything wrong can be communicated instantly to the engineer. Every car has eight solid wheels, four being placed close together at each end, all of which can be locked by two powerful breaks. At each end of every car is a platform, and pa.s.sengers are "prohibited from standing upon it at their peril," as also from pa.s.sing from car to car while the train is in motion; but as no penalty attaches to this law, it is incessantly and continuously violated, "free and enlightened citizens" being at perfect liberty to imperil their own necks; and "poor, ignorant, benighted Britishers" soon learn to follow their example. Persons are for ever pa.s.sing backwards and forwards, exclusive of the conductor whose business it is, and water- carriers, book, bonbon, and peach venders. No person connected with these railways wears a distinguis.h.i.+ng dress, and the stations, or "depots" as they are called, are generally of the meanest description, mere wooden sheds, with a ticket-office very difficult to discover. If you are so fortunate as to find a man standing at the door of the baggage-car, he attaches copper plates to your trunks, with a number and the name of the place you are going to upon them, giving you labels with corresponding numbers. By this excellent arrangement, in going a very long journey, in which you are obliged to change cars several times, and cross rivers and lakes in steamers, you are relieved of all responsibility, and only require at the end to give your checks to the hotel-porter, who regains your baggage without any trouble on your part.

This plan would be worthily imitated at our termini in England, where I have frequently seen "unprotected females" in the last stage of frenzy at being pushed out of the way, while some persons unknown are running off with their possessions. When you reach a _depot_, as there are no railway porters, numerous men clamour to take your effects to an hotel, but, as many of these are thieves, it is necessary to be very careful in only selecting those who have hotel-badges on their hats.

An emigrant-car is attached to each train, but there is only one cla.s.s: thus it may happen that you have on one side the President of the Great Republic, and on the other the _gentleman_ who blacked your shoes in the morning. The Americans, however, have too much respect for themselves and their companions to travel except in good clothes, and this mingling of all ranks is far from being disagreeable, particularly to a stranger like myself, one of whose objects was to see things in their everyday dress. We must be well aware that in many parts of England it would be difficult for a lady to travel unattended in a second-cla.s.s, impossible in a third-cla.s.s carriage; yet I travelled several thousand miles in America, frequently alone, from the house of one friend to another's, and never met with anything approaching to incivility; and I have often heard it stated that a lady, no matter what her youth or attractions might be, could travel alone through every State in the Union, and never meet with anything but attention and respect.

I have had considerable experience of the cars, having travelled from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, and from the Mississippi to the St. Lawrence, and found the company so agreeable in its way, and the cars themselves so easy, well ventilated, and comfortable, that, were it not for the disgusting practice of spitting upon the floors in which the lower cla.s.ses of Americans indulge, I should greatly prefer them to our own exclusive carriages, denominated in the States "_'c.o.o.n sentry-boxes_." Well, we are seated in the cars; a man shouts "Go a-head!" and we are off, the engine ringing its heavy bell, and thus begin my experiences of American travel.

I found myself in company with eleven gentlemen and a lady from Prince Edward Island, whom a strange gregarious instinct had thus drawn together.

The engine gave a hollow groan, very unlike our cheerful whistle, and, soon moving through the town, we reached the open country.

Fair was the country that we pa.s.sed through in the States of Maine, New Hamps.h.i.+re, and Ma.s.sachusetts. Oh very fair! smiling, cultivated, and green, like England, but far happier; for slavery which disgraces the New World, and poverty which desolates the Old, are nowhere to be seen.

There were many farmhouses surrounded by the nearly finished harvest, with verandahs covered with vines and roses; and patriarchal-looking family groups seated under them, engaged in different employments, and enjoying the sunset, for here it was gorgeous summer. And there were smaller houses of wood painted white, with bright green jalousies, in gardens of pumpkins, and surrounded by orchards. Apples seemed almost to grow wild; there were as many orchards as corn-fields, and apple and pear trees grew in the very hedgerows.

And such apples! not like our small, sour, flavourless _things_, but like some southern fruit; huge b.a.l.l.s, red and yellow, such as are caricatured in wood, weighing down the fine large trees. There were heaps of apples on the ground, and horses and cows were eating them in the fields, and rows of freight-cars at all the stations were laden with them, and little boys were selling them in the cars; in short, where were they not? There were smiling fields with verdant hedgerows between them, unlike the untidy snake-fences of the colonies, and meadows like parks, dotted over with trees, and woods filled with sumach and scarlet maple, and rapid streams hurrying over white pebbles, and villages of green-jalousied houses, with churches and spires, for here all places of wors.h.i.+p have spires; and the mellow light of a declining sun streamed over this varied scene of happiness, prosperity, and comfort; and for a moment I thought--O traitorous thought!--that the New England was fairer than the Old.

Nor were the more material evidences of prosperity wanting, for we pa.s.sed through several large towns near the coast--Newbury Port, Salem, and Portsmouth--with populations varying from 30,000 to 50,000 souls. They seemed bustling, thriving places, with handsome stores, which we had an opportunity of observing, as in the States the cars run right into the streets along the carriage-way, traffic being merely diverted from the track while the cars are upon it.

Most of the railways in the States have only one track or line of rails, with occasional sidings at the stations for the cars to pa.s.s each other. A fence is by no means a matter of necessity, and two or three animals are destroyed every day from straying on the line. The engines, which are nearly twice the size of ours, with a covered enclosure for the engineer and stoker, carry large _fenders_ or guards in front, to lift inc.u.mbrances from the track. At eight o'clock we found ourselves pa.s.sing over water, and between long rows of gas-lights, and shortly afterwards the cars stopped at Boston, the Athens of America. Giving our baggage-checks to the porter of the American House, we drove to that immense hotel, where I remained for one night. It was crammed from the very bas.e.m.e.nt to the most undesirable locality nearest the moon; I believe it had seven hundred inmates. I had arranged to travel to Cincinnati, and from thence to Toronto, with Mr. and Mrs. Walrence, but on reaching Boston I found that they feared fever and cholera, and, leaving me to travel alone from Albany, would meet me at Chicago. Under these circ.u.mstances I remained with my island friends for one night at this establishment, a stranger in a land where I had few acquaintances, though I was well armed with letters of introduction. One of these was to Mr. Amy, a highly respected merchant of Boston, who had previously informed me by letter of the best route to the States, and I immediately despatched a note to him, but he was absent at his country-house, and I was left to a.n.a.lyse the feeling of isolation inseparable from being alone in a crowd. Having received the key of my room, I took my supper in an immense hall, calculated for dining 400 persons. I next went into the ladies' parlour, and felt rather out of place among so many richly dressed females; for as I was proceeding to write a letter, a porter came in and told me that writing was not allowed in that saloon. "Freedom again," thought I. On looking round I did feel that my antiquated goose-quill and rusty-looking inkstand were rather out of place. The carpet of the room was of richly flowered Victoria pile, rendering the heaviest footstep noiseless; the tables were marble on gilded pedestals, the couches covered with gold brocade. At a piano of rich workmans.h.i.+p an elegantly dressed lady was seated, singing "And will you love me always?"--a question apparently satisfactorily answered by the speaking eyes of a bearded Southerner, who was turning over the pages for her. A fountain of antique workmans.h.i.+p threw up a _jet d'eau_ of iced water, scented with _eau de Cologne_; and the whole was lighted by four splendid chandeliers interminably reflected, for the walls were mirrors divided by marble pillars. The room seemed appropriate to the purposes to which it was devoted--music, needlework, conversation, and flirting. With the single exception of the rule against writing in the ladies' saloon, a visitor at these immense establishments is at perfect liberty to do as he pleases, provided he pays the moderate charge of two dollars, or 8_s._ a day. This includes, even at the best hotels, a splendid _table-d'hote_, a comfortable bedroom, lights, attendance, and society in abundance. From the servants one meets with great attention, not combined with deference of manner, still less with that obsequiousness which informs you by a suggestive bow, at the end of your visit, that it has been meted out with reference to the probable amount of half-sovereigns, s.h.i.+llings, and sixpences at your disposal.

It will not be out of place here to give a sketch of the peculiarities of the American hotel system, which const.i.tutes such a distinctive feature of life in the States, and is a requirement arising out of the enormous extent of their territory, and the nomade life led by vast numbers of the most restless and energetic people under the sun.

"People will turn hastily over the pages when they corne to this" was the remark of a lively critic on reading this announcement; but while I promise my readers that hotels shall only be described _once_, I could not reconcile it to myself not to give them information on "Things as they are in America," when I had an opportunity of acquiring it.

The American House at Boston, which is a fair specimen of the best cla.s.s of hotels in the States, though more frequented by mercantile men than by tourists, is built of grey granite, with a frontage to the street of 100 feet. The ground floor to the front is occupied by retail stores, in the centre of which a lofty double doorway denotes the entrance, marked in a more characteristic manner by groups of gentlemen smoking before it. This opens into a lofty and very s.p.a.cious hall, with a chequered floor of black and white marble; there are lounges against the wall, covered over with buffalo-skins; and, except at meal-times, this capacious apartment is a scene of endless busy life, from two to three hundred gentlemen constantly thronging it, smoking at the door, lounging on the settees, reading the newspapers, standing in animated groups discussing commercial matters, arriving, or departing. Piles of luggage, in which one sees with dismay one's light travelling valise crushed under a gigantic trunk, occupy the centre; porters seated on a form wait for orders; peripatetic individuals walk to and fro; a confused Babel of voices is ever ascending to the galleries above; and at the door, hacks, like the "_eilwagon_" of Germany, are ever depositing fresh arrivals. There is besides this a private entrance for ladies. Opposite the entrance is a counter, where four or five clerks constantly attend, under the superintendence of a cas.h.i.+er, to whom all applications for rooms are personally made. I went up to this functionary, wrote my name in a book, he placed a number against it, and, giving me a key with a corresponding number attached, I followed a porter down a long corridor, and up to a small clean room on the third story, where to all intents and purposes my ident.i.ty was lost--merged in a mere numeral. At another side of the hall is the bar, a handsomely decorated apartment, where lovers of such beverages can procure "toddy," "night- caps," "mint julep," "gin sling," &c. On the door of my very neat and comfortable bed-room was a printed statement of the rules, times of meals, and charge per diem. I believe there are nearly 300 rooms in this house, some of them being bed-rooms as large and commodious as in a private mansion in England.

On the level of the entrance is a magnificent eating saloon, princ.i.p.ally devoted to male guests, and which is 80 feet long. Upstairs is a large room furnished with a rare combination of splendour and taste, called "The Ladies' Ordinary," where families, ladies, and their invited guests take their meals. Breakfast is at the early hour of seven, and remains on the table till nine; dinner is at one, and tea at six. At these meals "every delicacy of the season" is served in profusion; the daily bill of fare would do credit to a banquet at the Mansion House; the _chef de cuisine_ is generally French, and an epicure would find ample scope for the gratification of his palate. If people persist in taking their meals in a separate apartment, they are obliged to pay dearly for the indulgence of their exclusiveness. There are more than 100 waiters, and the ladies at table are always served first, and to the best pieces.

Though it is not part of the hotel system, I cannot forbear mentioning the rapidity with which the Americans despatch their meals. My next neighbour has frequently risen from his seat after a substantial and varied dinner while I was sending away my soup-plate. The effect of this at a _table- d'hote_, where 400 or 600 sit down to dine, is unpleasant, for the swing- door is incessantly in motion. Indeed, the utter absence of repose is almost the first thing which strikes a stranger. The incessant sound of bells and gongs, the rolling of hacks to and from the door, the arrivals and departures every minute, the trampling of innumerable feet, the flirting and talking in every corridor, make these immense hotels more like a human beehive than anything else.

The drawing-rooms are always kept very hot by huge fires of anthracite coal, and the doors are left open to neutralise the effect. The temperance at table filled me with surprise. I very seldom saw any beverage but pure iced-water. There are conveniences of all descriptions for the use of the guests. The wires of the electric telegraph, constantly attended by a clerk, run into the hotel; porters are ever ready to take your messages into the town; pens, paper, and ink await you in recesses in the lobbies; a man is ever at hand to clean and brush soiled boots--in short, there is every contrivance for abridging your labour in mounting up stairs. But the method of avoiding the confusion and din of two or three hundred bells must not be omitted. All the wires from the different rooms centre at one bell, which is located in a case in the lobby, with the mechanism seen on one side through a sheet of plate-gla.s.s. The other side of the case is covered with numbers in rows. By each number is a small straight piece of bra.s.s, which drops and hangs down when the bell is sounded, displaying the number to the attention of the clerk, who sends a waiter to the apartment, and places the piece of bra.s.s in its former position.

Steam laundries are connected with all the large hotels. At American House the laundry is under the management of a clerk, who records all the minor details. The linen is cleansed in a churn-like machine moved by steam, and wrung by a novel application of the principle of centrifugal force; after which the articles are dried by being pa.s.sed through currents of hot air, so that they are washed and ironed in the s.p.a.ce of a few minutes. The charge varies from six to ten s.h.i.+llings a dozen. There are also suites of hot and cold baths, and barbers' shops.

Before I understood the mysteries of these hotels, I used to be surprised to see gentlemen travelling without even carpet-bags, but it soon appeared that razors and hair-brushes were superfluous, and that the possessor of one s.h.i.+rt might always pa.s.s as the owner of half a dozen, for, while taking a bath, the magic laundry would reproduce the article in its pristine glories of whiteness and starch. Every attention to the comfort and luxury of the guest is paid at American House, and its spirited proprietor, Mr. Rice, deserves the patronage which the travelling public so liberally bestow upon him. On ringing my bell it was answered by a garcon, and it is rather curious seldom or never to see a chambermaid.

CHAPTER VI.

A suspected bill--A friend in need--All aboard for the Western cars--The wings of the wind-American politeness--A loquacious conductor--Three minutes for refreshments--A conversation on politics--A confession--The emigrant car--Beauties of the woods--A forest on fire--Dangers of the cars--The Queen City of the West.

I rose the morning after my arrival at five, hoping to leave Boston for Cincinnati by the _Lightning Express_, which left at eight. But on summoning the cas.h.i.+er (or rather _requesting_ his attendance, for one never _summons_ any one in the States), and showing him my hill of exchange drawn on Barclay and Company of London, he looked at _me_, then at _it_, suspiciously, as if doubting whether the possessor of such a little wayworn portmanteau could he the _bona fide_ owner of such a sum as the figures represented. "There's so much bad paper going about, we can't possibly accommodate you," was the discouraging reply; so I was compelled patiently to submit to the detention.

I breakfasted at seven in the ladies' ordinary, without exchanging a syllable with any one, and soon after my kind friend, Mr. Amy, called upon me. He proved himself a friend indeed, and his kindness gave me at once a favourable impression of the Americans. First impressions are not always correct, but I am happy to say they were fully borne out in this instance by the uniform kindness and hospitality which I experienced during my whole tour. Mr. Amy soon procured me the money for my bill, all in five- dollar notes, and I was glad to find the exchange greatly in favour of England. He gave me much information about my route, and various cautions which I found very useful, and then drove me in a light "waggon" round the antiquated streets of Boston, crowded with the material evidences of prosperity, to his pretty villa three miles distant, in one of those villages of ornamental dwelling-houses which render the appearance of the environs of Boston peculiarly attractive. I saw a good deal of the town in my drive, but, as I returned to it before leaving the States, I shall defer my description of it, and request my readers to dash away at once with me to the "far west," the goal alike of the traveller and the adventurer, and the El Dorado of the emigrant's misty ideas.

Leaving American House with its hall swarming like a hive of bees, I drove to the _depot_ in a hack with several fellow-pa.s.sengers, Mr. Amy, who was executing a commission for me in the town, having promised to meet me there, but, he being detained, I arrived alone, and was deposited among piles of luggage, in a perfect Babel of men vociferating, "Where are you for?" "Lightning Express!" "All aboard for the Western cars," &c. Some one pounced upon my trunks, and was proceeding to weigh them, when the stage- driver stepped forward and said, "It's a lady's luggage," upon which he relinquished his intention. He also took my ticket for me, handed me to the cars, and then withdrew, wis.h.i.+ng me a pleasant journey, his prompt civility having a.s.sisted me greatly in the chaotic confusion which attends the departure of a train in America. The cars by which I left were guaranteed to take people to Cincinnati, a distance of 1000 miles, in 40 hours, allowing time for refreshments! I was to travel by five different lines of railway, but this part of the railway system is so well arranged that I only took a ticket once, rather a curious doc.u.ment--a strip of paper half a yard long, with pa.s.ses for five different roads upon it; thus, whenever I came upon a fresh line, the conductor tore off a piece, giving me a ticket in exchange. Tickets are not only to be procured at the stations, but at several offices in every town, in all the steamboats, and in the cars themselves. For the latter _luxury_, for such it must certainly be considered, as it enables one to step into the cars at the last moment without any preliminaries, one only pays five cents extra.

The engine tolled its heavy bell, and soon we were amid the beauties of New England; rocky hills, small lakes, rapid streams, and trees distorted into every variety of the picturesque. At the next station from Boston the Walrences joined me. We were to travel together, with our ulterior destination a settlement in Canada West, but they would not go to Cincinnati; there were lions in the street; cholera and yellow fever, they said, were raging; in short, they left me at Springfield, to find my way in a strange country as best I might; our _rendezvous_ to be Chicago.

At Springfield I obtained the first seat in the car, generally the object of most undignified elbowing, and had s.p.a.ce to admire the beauties among which we pa.s.sed. For many miles we travelled through a narrow gorge, between very high precipitous hills, clothed with wood up to their summits; those still higher rising behind them, while the track ran along the very edge of a clear rus.h.i.+ng river. The darkness which soon came on was only enlivened by the sparks from the wood fire of the engine, so numerous and continuous as to look like a display of fireworks. Just before we reached Albany a very respectable-looking man got into the car, and, as his manners were very quiet and civil, we entered into conversation about the trade and manufactures of the neighbourhood. When we got out of the cars on the east side of the river, he said he was going no farther, but, as I was alone, he would go across with me, and see me safe into the cars on the other side. He also offered to carry my reticule and umbrella, and look after my luggage. His civility so excited my suspicions of his honesty, that I did not trust my luggage or reticule out of my sight, mindful of a notice posted up at all the stations, "Beware of swindlers, pickpockets, and luggage-thieves."

We emerged from the cars upon the side of the Hudson river, in a sea of mud, where, had not my friend offered me his arm, as Americans of every cla.s.s invariably do to an "unprotected female" in a crowd, I should have been borne down and crushed by the shoals of knapsack-carrying pedestrians and truck-pus.h.i.+ng porters who swarmed down upon the dirty wharf. The transit across occupied fully ten minutes, in consequence of the numerous times the engine had to be reversed, to avoid running over the small craft which infest this stream. My volunteer escort took me through a crowd through which I could not have found my way alone, and put me into the cars which started from the side of a street in Albany, requesting the conductor, whose countenance instantly prepossessed me in his favour, to pay me every attention on the route. He remained with me until the cars started, and told me that when he saw ladies travelling alone he always made a point of a.s.sisting them. I shook hands with him at parting, feeling real regret at losing so kind and intelligent a companion. This man was a working engineer.

Some time afterwards, while travelling for two successive days and nights in an unsettled district in the west, on the second night, fairly overcome with fatigue, and unable, from the crowded state of the car, to rest my feet on the seat in front, I tried unsuccessfully to make a pillow for my head by rolling up my cloak, which attempts being perceived by a working mechanic, he accosted me thus: "Stranger, I guess you're almost used up?

Maybe you'd be more comfortable if you could rest your head." Without further parley he spoke to his companion, a man in a similar grade in society; they both gave up their seats, and rolled a coat round the arm of the chair, which formed a very comfortable sofa; and these two men stood for an hour and a half, to give me the advantage of it, apparently without any idea that they were performing a deed of kindness. I met continually with these acts of hearty unostentatious good nature. I mention these in justice to the lower cla.s.ses of the United States, whose rugged exteriors and uncouth vernacular render them peculiarly liable to be misunderstood.

The conductor quite verified the good opinion which I had formed of him.

He turned a chair into a sofa, and lent me a buffalo robe (for, hot though the day had been, the night was intensely cold), and several times brought me a cup of tea. We were talking on the peculiarities and amount of the breakage power on the American lines as compared with ours, and the interest of the subject made him forget to signal the engine-driver to stop at a station. The conversation concluded, he looked out of the window. "Dear me," he said, "we ought to have stopped three miles back; likely there was no one to get out!"

At midnight I awoke s.h.i.+vering with cold, having taken nothing for twelve hours; but at two we stopped at something called by courtesy a station, and the announcement was made, "Cars stop three minutes for refreshments."

I got out; it was pitch dark; but I, with a young lady, followed a lantern into a frame-shed floored by the bare earth. Visions of Swindon and Wolverton rose before me, as I saw a long table supported on rude trestles, bearing several cups of steaming tea, while a dirty boy was opening and frizzling oysters by a wood fire on the floor. I swallowed a cup of scalding tea; some oysters were put upon my plate; "Six cents" was shouted by a nasal voice in my ear, and, while hunting for the required sum, "All aboard" warned me to be quick; and, jumping into the cars just as they were in motion, I left my untasted supper on my plate. After "Show your tickets," frequently accompanied by a shake, had roused me several times from a sound sleep, we arrived at Rochester, an important town on the Gennessee Falls, surrounded by extensive clearings, then covered with h.o.a.r frost.

Here we were told to get out, as there were twenty minutes for breakfast.

But whither should we go when we had got out? We were at the junction of several streets, and five engines, with cars attached, were snorting and moving about. After we had run the gauntlet of all these, I found men ringing bells, and negroes rus.h.i.+ng about, tumbling over each other, striking gongs, and all shouting "The cheapest house in all the world-- house for all nations--a splenderiferous breakfast for 20 cents!" and the like. At length, seeing an una.s.suming placard, "Hot breakfast, 25 cents,"

I ventured in, but an infusion of mint was served instead of the China leaf; and I should be afraid to p.r.o.nounce upon the antecedents of the steaks. The next place of importance we reached was Buffalo, a large thriving town on the south sh.o.r.e of Lake Erie. There had been an election for Congress at some neighbouring place the day before, and my _vis-a- vis_, the editor of a Buffalo paper, was arguing vociferously with a man on my right.

At length he began to talk to me very vivaciously on politics, and concluded by asking me what I thought of the late elections. Wis.h.i.+ng to put an end to the conversation, which had become tedious, I replied that I was from England. "Englis.h.!.+ you surprise me!" he said; "you've not the _English accent_ at all." "What do you think of our government?" was his next question. "Considering that you started free, and had to form your inst.i.tutions in an enlightened age, that you had the estimable parts of our const.i.tution to copy from, while its faults were before you to serve as beacons, I think your const.i.tution ought to be nearer perfection than it is." "I think our const.i.tution is as near perfection as anything human can be; we are the most free, enlightened, and progressive people under the sun," he answered, rather hotly; but in a few minutes resuming the conversation with his former companion, I overheard him say, "I think I shall give up politics altogether; _I don't believe we have a single public man who is not corrupt_." "A melancholy result of a perfect const.i.tution, and a humiliating confession for an American," I observed.

The conversations in the cars are well worth a traveller's attention. They are very frequently on politics, but often one hears stories such as the world has become familiarised with from the early pages of Barnum's Autobiography, abounding in racy anecdote, broad humour, and cunning imposition. At Erie we changed cars, and I saw numerous emigrants sitting on large blue boxes, looking disconsolately about them; the Irish physiognomy being the most predominant. They are generally so dirty that they travel by themselves in a partially lighted van, called the Emigrants' car, for a most trifling payment. I once got into one by mistake, and was almost sickened by the smell of tobacco, spirits, dirty fustian, and old leather, which a.s.sailed my olfactory organs. Leaving Erie, beyond which the lake of the same name stretched to the distant horizon, blue and calm like a tideless sea, we entered the huge forests on the south sh.o.r.e, through which we pa.s.sed, I suppose, for more than 100 miles.

My next neighbour was a stalwart, bronzed Kentucky farmer, in a palm-leaf hat, who, strange to say, never made any demonstrations with his bowie- knife, and, having been a lumberer in these forests, pointed out all the objects of interest.

The monotonous sublimity of these primeval woods far exceeded my preconceived ideas. We were locked in among gigantic trees of all descriptions, their huge stems frequently rising without a branch for a hundred feet; then breaking into a crown of the most luxuriant foliage.

There were walnut, hickory, elm, maple, beech, oak, pine, and hemlock trees, with many others which I did not know, and the only undergrowth, a tropical-looking plant, with huge leaves, and berries like bunches of purple grapes. Though it was the noon of an unclouded sun, all was dark, and still, and lonely; no birds twittered from the branches; no animals enlivened the gloomy shades; no trace of man or of his works was there, except the two iron rails on which we flew along, unfenced from the forest, and those trembling electric wires, which will only cease to speak with the extinction of man himself.

Very occasionally we would come upon a log shanty, that most picturesque of human habitations; the walls formed of large logs, with the interstices filled up with clay, and the roof of rudely sawn boards, projecting one or two feet, and kept in their places by logs placed upon them. Windows and doors there were none, but, where a door was _not_, I generally saw four or five shoeless, ragged urchins, whose light tangled hair and general aspect were sufficient to denote their nationality. Sometimes these cabins would be surrounded by a little patch of cleared land, prolific in Indian corn and pumpkins; the brilliant orange of the latter contrasting with the charred stumps among which they grew; but more frequently the lumberer supported himself solely by his axe. These dwellings are suggestive, for they are erected by the pioneers of civilization; and if the future progress of America be equal in rapidity to its past, in another fifty years the forests will have been converted into lumber and firewood--rich and populous cities will have replaced the cabins and shanties--and the children of the urchins who gazed vacantly upon the cars will have a.s.serted their claims to a voice in the councils of the nation.

The rays of the sun never penetrate the forest, and evening was deepening the gloom of the artificial twilight, when gradually we became enveloped in a glare, redder, fiercer, than that of moonlight; and looking a head I saw the forest on fire, and that we were rus.h.i.+ng into the flames. "Close the windows, there's a fire a-head," said the conductor; and after obeying this _commonplace_ direction, many of the pa.s.sengers returned to the slumbers which had been so unseasonably disturbed. On, on we rushed--the flames encircled us round--we were enveloped in clouds of stifling smoke-- crack, crash went the trees--a blazing stem fell across the line--the fender of the engine pushed it aside--the flames hissed like tongues of fire, and then, leaping like serpents, would rush up to the top of the largest tree, and it would blaze like a pine-knot, There seemed no egress; but in a few minutes the raging, roaring conflagration was left behind. A forest on fire from a distance looks very much like 'Punch's' picture of a naval review; a near view is the height of sublimity.

The dangers of the cars, to my inexperience, seemed by no means over with the escape from being roasted alive. A few miles from Cleveland they rushed down a steep incline, apparently into Lake Erie; but in _reality_ upon a platform supported on piles, so narrow that the edges of the cars hung over it, so that I saw nothing but water. A gale was blowing, and drove the surf upon the platform, and the spray against the windows, giving such a feeling of insecurity, that for a moment I wished myself in one of our "'c.o.o.n sentry-boxes." The cars were very full after leaving Cleveland, but I contrived to sleep soundly till awakened by the intense cold which attends dawn.

It was a glorious morning. The rosy light streamed over hills covered with gigantic trees, and park-like glades watered by the fair Ohio. There were bowers of myrtle, and vineyards ready for the vintage, and the rich aromatic scent wafted from groves of blossoming magnolias told me that we were in a different clime, and had reached the sunny south. And before us, placed within a perfect amphitheatre of swelling hills, reposed a huge city, whose countless spires reflected the beams of the morning sun--the creation of yesterday--Cincinnati, the "_Queen City of the West_." I drove straight to Burnet House, almost the finest edifice in the town, and after travelling a thousand miles in forty-two hours, without either water or a hair-brush, it was the greatest possible luxury to be able to remove the acc.u.mulations of soot, dust, and cinders of two days and nights. I spent three days at Clifton, a romantic village three miles from Cincinnati, at the hospitable house of Dr. Millvaine, the Bishop of Ohio; but it would be an ill return for the kindness which I there experienced to give details of my visit, or gratify curiosity by describing family life in one of the "homes of the New World."

CHAPTER VII.

The Queen City continued--Its beauties--Its inhabitants human and equine-- An American church--Where chairs and bedsteads come from--Pigs and pork--A peep into Kentucky--Popular opinions respecting slavery--The curse of America.

The important towns in the United States bear designations of a more poetical nature than might be expected from so commercial a people. New York is the Empire City--Philadelphia the City of Brotherly Love-- Cleveland the Forest City--Chicago the Prairie City--and Cincinnati the Queen City of the West. These names are no less appropriate than poetical, and none more so than that applied to Cincinnati. The view from any of the terraced heights round the town is magnificent. I saw it first bathed in the mellow light of a declining sun. Hill beyond hill, clothed with the rich verdure of an almost tropical clime, slopes of vineyards just ready for the wine-press, [Footnote: Grapes are grown in such profusion in the Southern and Western States, that I have seen damaged bunches thrown to the pigs. Americans find it difficult to understand how highly this fruit is prized in England. An American lady, when dining at Apsley House, observed that the Duke of Wellington was cutting up a cl.u.s.ter of grapes into small bunches, and she wondered that this ill.u.s.trious man should give himself such unnecessary trouble. When the servant handed round the plate containing these, she took them all, and could not account for the amused and even censuring looks of some of the other guests, till she heard that it was expected that she should have helped herself to one bunch only of the hothouse treasure.] magnolias with their fragrant blossoms, and that queen of trees the beautiful ilanthus, the "tree of heaven" as it is called; and everywhere foliage so luxuriant that it looked as if autumn and decay could never come. And in a hollow near us lay the huge city, so full of life, its busy hum rising to the height where I stood; and 200 feet below, the beautiful cemetery, where its dead await the morning of the resurrection. Yet, while contrasting the trees and atmosphere here with the comparatively stunted, puny foliage of England, and the chilly skies of a northern clime, I thought with Cowper respecting my own dear, but far distant land--