Early Western Travels, 1748-1846 (Volume XXVI) Part 9

The pilgrim wanderer in other climes comes back to tell us of sunnier skies and softer winds! The blue heavens of Italy have tasked the inspiration of an hundred bards, and the warm brush of her own Lorraine has swept the canva.s.s with their gorgeous transcript! But what pencil has wandered over the grander scenes of the North American prairie? What bard has struck his lyre to the wild melody of loveliness of the prairie sunset? Yet who shall tell us that there exists not a glory in the scene, amid the untrod wastes of the wilderness West, which even the skies of "sunny Italy" might not blush anew to acknowledge? No wandering Harold has roamed on a pilgrimage of poetry over the sublime and romantic scenery of our land, to hymn its praise in breathing thoughts and glowing words; yet here as there,

"Parting day Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues With a new colour as it gasps away: The last still loveliest, till--'tis gone--and all is gray!"

I cannot tell of the beauties of climes I have never seen; but I have gazed upon all the varied loveliness of my own fair, native land, from the rising {237} sun to its setting, and in vain have tasked my fancy to image a fairer.

A pleasant day's ride directly west from Carlisle, over extensive and beautiful prairies, intersected by shady woods, with their romantic creeks, and the traveller finds himself in the quiet village of Lebanon. Its site is a commanding, mound-like elevation in the skirts of a forest, swelling gently up from the prairie on the west bank of Little Silver Creek.[155] This stream, with the larger branch, received its name from the circ.u.mstance that the early French settlers of the country, in the zeal of their faith and research for the precious metals, a long while mistook the brilliant specula of _horneblende_ which flow in its clear waters for silver, and were unwilling to be undeceived in their extravagant antic.i.p.ations until the absence of the material in their purses aroused them from their error. In the neighbourhood of Rock Spring a shaft for a mine was sunk.[156] It was early one beautiful morning that I found myself approaching the village of Lebanon, though many miles distant in the adjacent plain; appropriately named for its loveliness the "Looking-gla.s.s Prairie." The rosy sunbeams were playing lightly over the pleasant country-seats and neat farmhouses, with their white palings, sprinkled along the declivity before me, imbowered in their young orchards and waving maize-fields; while flocks and herds, {238} gathered in isolated ma.s.ses over the intervening meadow, were cropping the rich herbage. To the right and left, and in the rear, the prairie stretches away beyond the view. The body of the village is situated about one mile from these suburbs, and its character and history may be summed up in the single sentence, _a pleasant little Methodist country village_. The peculiarities of the sect are here strikingly manifested to the traveller in all the ordinary concerns and occupations of life, even in the every-day garb and conversation of its sober-browed citizens. It presents the spectacle, rare as it is cheering, of an entire community characterized by its reverence for religion. Located in its immediate vicinity is a flouris.h.i.+ng seminary, called McKendreean College.[157] It is under the supervision of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and has at present two instructers, with about fifty pupils in the preparatory department. It has a commodious frame building, presenting from its elevated site an imposing view to the traveller. As is usually the case with these little out-of-the-world villages, when any object comes up in the midst around which the feelings and interests of all may cl.u.s.ter, upon this inst.i.tution is centred the heart and soul of every man, to say not a word of all the women and children, in Lebanon; and everything not connected, either remotely or immediately, with its welfare, is deemed of very little, if of any importance. "_The Seminary! The Seminary!_"

I defy a traveller to tarry two hours in the village without hearing rung all the changes upon that topic for his edification. The surrounding region is fertile, populous, {239} and highly cultivated; and for an inland, farming village, it is quite as bustling, I suppose, as should be expected; though, during my visit, its streets--which, by-the-by, are of very liberal breadth--maintained a most Sabbath-like aspect.

The route from Lebanon to Belleville is, in fine weather, very excellent. Deep woods on either side of the hard, smooth, winding pathway, throw their boughs over the head, sometimes lengthening away into an arched vista miles in extent. It was a sultry afternoon when I was leisurely travelling along this road; and the shadowy coolness of the atmosphere, the perfume of wild flowers and aromatic herbs beneath the underbrush, and the profusion of summer fruit along the roadside, was indescribably delightful. Near sunset, a graceful bend of the road around a clump of trees placed before me the pretty little village of Belleville; its neat enclosures and white cottages peeping through the shrubbery, now gilded by the mellow rays of sunset in every leaf and spray.[158] Whether it was owing to this agreeable coincidence, or to the agreeable visit I here enjoyed, that I conceived such an attachment for the place, I cannot say; but sure it is, I fell in love with the little town at _first_ sight; and, what is more marvellous, was not, according to all precedent, cured at second, when on the following morning I sallied forth to reconnoitre its beauties "at mine own good leisure." Now it is to be presumed that, agreeable to the taste of six travellers in a dozen, I have pa.s.sed through many a village in Illinois quite as attractive as this same Belleville: but to convince me of the fact would be no {240} easy task. "Man is the sport of circ.u.mstance," says the fatalist; and however this may be in the moral world, if any one feels disposed to doubt upon the matter in the item before us, let him disembark from a ca.n.a.l-boat at Pittsburgh on a rainy, misty, miserable morning; and then, unable to secure for his houseless head a shelter from the pitiless peltings, let him hurry away through the filthy streets, deluged with inky water, to a crowded Ohio steamer; and if "_circ.u.mstances_" do not force him to dislike Pittsburgh ever after, then his human nature is vastly more forbearing than my own. Change the picture. Let him enter the quiet little Illinois village at the gentle hour of sunset; let him meet warm hospitality, and look upon fair forms and bright faces, and if he fail to be pleased with that place, why, "he's not the man I took him for."

The public buildings of Belleville are a handsome courthouse of brick, a wretched old jail of the same material, a public hall belonging to a library company, and a small framed Methodist house of wors.h.i.+p. It is situated in the centre of "Turkey-hill Settlement," one of the oldest and most flouris.h.i.+ng in the state, and has a fine timber tract and several beautiful country-seats in its vicinity.

Leaving Belleville with some reluctance, and not a few "longing, lingering looks behind," my route continued westward over a broken region of alternating forest and prairie, spa.r.s.ely sprinkled with trees, and yet more spa.r.s.ely with inhabitants. At length, having descended a precipitous hill, the rounded summit of which, as well as the adjoining heights, commanded an immense expanse of level {241} landscape, stretching off from the base, I stood once more upon the fertile soil of the "_American Bottom_." The sharp, heavy-roofed French cottages, with low verandahs running around; the ungainly outhouses and enclosures; the curiously-fas.h.i.+oned vehicles and instruments of husbandry in the barnyards and before the doors; the foreign garb and dialect of the people; and, above all, the amazing fertility of the soil, over whose exhaustless depths the maize has rustled half a century, const.i.tute the most striking characteristics of this interesting tract, in the section over which I was pa.s.sing.

This settlement, extending from the foot of the bluffs for several miles over the Bottom, was formed about forty years ago by a colony from Cahokia, and known by the name of "_Little French Village_;" it now comprises about twenty houses and a grogshop. In these bluffs lies an exhaustless bed of bituminous coal: vast quant.i.ties have been transported to St. Louis, and for this purpose princ.i.p.ally is the railway to the river designed. This vein of coal is said to have been discovered by the rivulet of a spring issuing from the base of the bluffs. The stratum is about six feet in thickness, increasing in size as it penetrates the hill horizontally. Though somewhat rotten and slaty, it is in some particulars not inferior to the coal of the Alleghanies; and the vein is thought to extend from the mouth of the Kaskaskia to that of the Illinois. About three miles below the present shaft, a continuation of the bed was discovered by fire communicated from the root of a tree; the bank of coal burnt for upward of a {242} twelvemonth, and the conflagration was then smothered only by the falling in of the superinc.u.mbent soil. St. Clair county, which embraces a large portion of the American Bottom, is the oldest settlement in the state. In 1795 the county was formed by the Legislature of the Northwestern Territory, and then included all settlements in Illinois east of the Mississippi.

I had just cleverly cleared the outskirts of the little antediluvian village beneath the bluffs, when a dark, watery-looking cloud came tumbling up out of the west; the thunder roared across the Bottom and was reverberated from the cliffs, and in a few moments down came the big rain-drops dancing in torrents from the clouds, and pattering up like mist along the plain. Verily, groaned forth the wo-begone traveller, this is the home of clouds and the realm of thunder! Never did hapless mortals sustain completer drenchings than did the traveller and his steed, notwithstanding upon the first onset they had plunged themselves into the sheltering depths of the wood. A half hour's gallop over the slippery bottom, and the stern roar of a steamer's 'scape-pipe informed me that I was not far from the "great waters." A few yards through the belt of forest, and the city of San Louis, with towers and roofs, stood before me.

_St. Louis._

XXII

"I have no wife nor children, good or bad, to provide for; a mere spectator of other men's fortunes and adventures, and how they play their parts."--_Anat. of Melancholy._

"Oh ye dread scenes, where Nature dwells alone, Serenely glorious on her craggy throne; Ye citadels of rock, gigantic forms, Veiled by the mists, and girdled by the storms; Ravines, and glens, and deep-resounding caves, That hold communion with the torrent waves."

HEMANS.

Ah, the single blessedness of the unmarried state! Such is the sentiment of an ancient worthy, quietly expressed in the lines which I have selected for a motto. After dozing away half his days and all his energies within the dusky walls of a university, tumbling over musty tomes and shrivelled parchments until his very brain had become cobwebbed as the alcoves he haunted, and the blood in his veins was all "adust and thin;" then, forsooth, the shameless old fellow issues forth with his vainglorious sentiment upon his lips! And yet, now that we consider, there is marvellous "method" in the old man's "madness!"

In very truth and soberness, there is a blessedness which the bachelor can boast, _single_ though it be, in which the "man of family," though _doubly_ blessed, cannot share! To the former, life may be made one long holyday, and its path a varied and flowery one! while to the poor {244} victim of matrimonial toils, _wife and children_ are the Alpha and Omega of a weary existence! Of all travelling companions.h.i.+p, forfend us from that of a married man! Independence! He knows not of it! Such is the text and such the commentary: now for the practical application.

It was a balmy July morning, and the flutelike melody of the turtle-dove was ringing through the woodlands. Leaving the pleasant villa of Dr. F. in the environs of North St. Louis, I found myself once more fairly _en route_, winding along that delightful road which sweeps the western bottom of the Mississippi. Circ.u.mstances not within my control, Benedict though I am, had recalled me, after a ramble of but a few weeks over the prairies, again to the city, and compelled me to relinquish my original design of a tour of the extreme Northwest.

Ah, the despotism of circ.u.mstance! My delay, however, proved a brief, though pleasant one; and with a something of mingled _regret_ and antic.i.p.ation it was that I turned from the bright eyes and dark locks of St. Louis--"forgive my folly"--and once again beheld its imposing structures fade in distance.

By far the most delightful drive in the vicinity of St. Louis is that of four or five miles in its northern suburbs, along the river bottom.

The road, emerging from the streets of the city through one of its finest sections, and leaving the "Big Mound" upon the right, sweeps off for several miles upon a succession of broad plateaux, rolling up from the water's edge. To the left lies an extensive range of heights, surmounted by ancient mounds and crowned with {245} groves of the shrub-oak, which afford a delightful shade to the road running below.

Along this elevated ridge beautiful country-seats, with graceful piazzas and green Venitian blinds, are caught from time to time glancing through the shrubbery; while to the right, smooth meadows spread themselves away to the heavy belt of forest which margins the Mississippi. Among these pleasant villas the little white farm-cottage, formerly the residence of Mr. C., beneath the hills, surrounded by its handsome grounds, and gardens, and glittering fishponds, partially shrouded by the broad leaved catalpa, the willow, the acacia, and other ornamental trees, presents, perhaps, the rarest instance of natural beauty adorned by refined taste. A visit to this delightful spot during my stay at St. Louis informed me of the fact that, within as well as abroad, the hand of education and refinement had not been idle. Paintings, busts, medallions, Indian curiosities, &c., &c., tastefully arranged around the walls and shelves of an elegant library, presented a feast to the visiter as rare in the Far West as it is agreeable to a cultivated mind. Near this cottage is the intended site of the building of the St. Louis Catholic University, a lofty and commanding spot.[159] A considerable tract was here purchased, at a cost of thirty thousand dollars; but the design of removal from the city has for the present been relinquished.

Immediately adjoining is situated the stately villa of Colonel O'Fallon, with its highly-cultivated gardens and its beautiful park sweeping off in the rear. In a very few years this must become one of the most delightful spots {246} in the West. For its elegant grounds, its green and hot houses, and its exotic and indigenous plants, it is, perhaps, already unequalled west of Cincinnati. No expense, attention, or taste will be wanting to render it all of which the spot is capable.

Leaving the Bottom, the road winds gracefully off from the Mississippi, over the hard soil of the bluffs, through a region broken up by sink-holes, and covered with a meager growth of oaks, with small farms at intervals along the route, until at length the traveller finds himself at that beautiful spot on the Missouri, Belle Fontaine, fifteen miles from St. Louis. On account of the salubrity and beauty of the site, an army cantonment was located here by General Wilkinson in the early part of the present century, and fortifications consisting of palisade-work existed, and a line of log-barracks sufficient to quarter half a regiment. Nothing now remains but a pile of ruins. "The barracks have crumpled into dust, and the ploughshare has pa.s.sed over the promenade of the sentinel." Jefferson Barracks, in the southern environs of the city, have superseded the old fortress, and the spot has been sold to a company, which has here laid off a town; and as most of the lots have been disposed of, and a turnpike-road from St. Louis has been chartered, a succeeding tourist may, at no distant period, pencil it in his notebook "a flouris.h.i.+ng village." _Cold Water Creek_ is the name of a clear stream which empties itself into the Missouri just above, upon which are several mill-privileges; and from the base of the bluff itself gushes a fountain, on account {247} of which the place received its name from the French. The site for the new town is a commanding and beautiful one, being a bold, green promontory, rising from the margin of the stream about four miles above its confluence with the Mississippi. The view developed to the eye of the spectator from this spot on a fine day is one of mingled sublimity and beauty. For some miles these old giants of the West are beheld roaming along through their deep, fertile valleys, so different in character and aspect that one can hardly reconcile with that diversity the fact that their destiny is soon to become _one_ and unchangeably the same. And then comes the mighty "meeting of the waters," to which no pen can hope to render justice.

There is a singular circ.u.mstance related of the discovery of a large _human tooth_ many years since at Belle Fontaine, in excavating a well, when at the depth of forty feet. This was the more extraordinary as the spot was not alluvion, and could have undergone no change from natural causes for centuries. Various strata of clay were pa.s.sed through before the _tooth_ was thrown up; and this circ.u.mstance, together with the situation of the place, would almost preclude the possibility of a vein of subterraneous water having conveyed it to the spot. This is mysterious enough, certainly; but the fact is authentic.

Returning at an angle of forty-five degrees with the road by which he approaches, a ride of a dozen miles up the Missouri places the traveller upon a bold roll of the prairie, from which, in the beautiful {248} valley below, rising above the forest, appear the steep roofs and tall chimneys of the little hamlet of Florissant.[160]

Its original name was St. Ferdinand, t.i.tular saint of its church; and though one of the most advanced in years, it is by no means the most antique-looking of those ancient villages planted by the early French.

Its site is highly romantic, upon the banks of a creek of the same name, and in the heart of one of the most fertile and luxuriant valleys ever subjected to cultivation.[161] The village now embraces about thirty or forty irregular edifices, somewhat modernized in style and structure, surrounded by extensive corn-fields, wandering flocks of Indian ponies, and herds of cattle browsing in the plain. Here also is a Catholic Church, a neat building of brick, with belfry and bell; connected with which is a convent of nuns, and by these is conducted a Seminary for young ladies of some note. This inst.i.tution--if the Hibernian hostess of the little inn at which I dined is to be credited in her statements--is the most flouris.h.i.+ng establishment in all the region far and near! and "_heducates_ the young _leddies_ in everything but religion!" For the redoubtable _Tonish_, who whilom figured so bravely on the prairies and in print, I made diligent inquiry. His cottage--the best in the village--and a dirty little brood of his posterity, were pointed out to me, but the old worthy himself was, as usual, in the regions of the Rocky Mountains: when last seen, he could still tell the stoutest lie with the steadiest muscles of any man in the village, while he and his {249} hopeful son could cover each other's trail so nicely that a lynx-eye would fail to detect them. In the vicinity of Florissant is a settlement called Owen's Station, formerly the site of a stoccade fort for defence against the Indians, and of a Spanish _station_ on account of a fine fountain in the vicinity.[162]

The direct route from St. Louis to Florissant is an excellent one, over a high rolling prairie, and commands a n.o.ble sweep of scenery.

From several elevated points, the white cliffs beyond the American Bottom, more than twenty miles distant, may be seen, while farmhouses and villas are beheld in all directions gleaming through the groves.

Scenery of the same general character presents itself upon the direct route to St. Charles, with the exception of steeper hills and broader plains. Upon this route my path entered nearly at right angles soon after leaving the French village. Upon the right sh.o.r.e of the Missouri, not far above Florissant, is situated _La Charbonniere_, a name given to a celebrated coal-bank in a bluff about two hundred feet in alt.i.tude, and about twice as long.[163] The stratum of coal is about a dozen feet in thickness, and lies directly upon the margin of the river: the quant.i.ty in the bank is said to be immense, and it contains an unusual proportion of bitumen. Iron ore has also been discovered at this spot.

The road over the Missouri Bottom was detestable, as never fails to be the case after a continued rain-storm, and my horse's leg sank to the middle in the black, unctuous loam almost at every step. Upon either side, like colonnades, rose up those {250} enormous shafts of living verdure which strike the solitary traveller upon these unfrequented bottoms with such awe and veneration; while the huge whirls of the writhing wild-vine hung dangling, like gigantic serpents, from the lofty columns around whose capitals they clung. On descending the bluffs to the bottom, the traveller crosses a bed of limestone, in which is said to exist a fissure perfectly fathomless. In a few moments, the boiling, turbid floods of the Missouri are beheld rolling majestically along at the feet, and to the stranger's eye, at first sight, always suggesting the idea of _unusual_ agitation; but so have they rolled onward century after century, age after age. The wild and impetuous character of this river, together with the vast quant.i.ties of soil with which its waters are charged, impart to it a natural sublimity far more striking, at first view, than that of the Mississippi. This circ.u.mstance was not un.o.bserved by the Indian tribes, who appropriately named it the "_Smoky Water_:" by others it was styled the "_Mad River_," on account of the impetuosity of its current; and in all dialects it is called the "_Mother of Floods_,"

indicative of the immense volume of its waters. Various causes have been a.s.signed for the turbid character of the Missouri: and though, doubtless, heavily charged by the volumes of sand thrown into its channel by the Yellow Stone--its longest tributary, equal to the Ohio--and by the chalky clay of the White River, yet we are told that it is characterized by the same phenomenon from its very source. At the gates of the Rocky Mountains, where, having torn {251} for itself a channel through the everlasting hills, it comes rus.h.i.+ng out through the vast prairie-plains at their base, it is the same dark, wild torrent as at its turbid embouchure. And, strange to tell, after roaming thousands of miles, and receiving into its bosom streams equal to itself, and hundreds of lesser, though powerful tributaries, it still retains, unaltered, in depth or breadth, that volume which at last it rolls into its mighty rival! Torrent after torrent, river after river, pour in their floods, yet the giant stream rolls majestically onward unchanged! At the village of St. Charles its depth and breadth is the same as at the Mandan villages, nearly two thousand miles nearer its source.[164] The same inexplicable phenomenon characterizes the Mississippi, and, indeed, all the great rivers of the West; for _inexplicable_ the circ.u.mstance yet remains, however plausible the theories alleged in explanation. With regard to the Missouri, it is urged that the porous, sandy soil of its broad alluvions absorbs, on the principle of capillary attraction, much of its volume, conveying it by subterraneous channels to the Mississippi; and of this latter stream it is a.s.serted that large quant.i.ties of its waters are taken up by the innumerable bayous, lakes, and lagoons intersecting the lower region of its course; and thus, unperceived, they find their way to the gulf.

The navigation of the Missouri is thought to be the most hazardous and difficult of any of the Western rivers, owing to its mad, impetuous current, to the innumerable obstructions in its bed, and the incessant variation of its channel.[165] Insurance and pilotage {252} upon this river are higher than on others; the season of navigation is briefer, and steamers never pursue their course after dusk. Its vast length and numerous tributaries render it liable, also, to frequent floods, of which three are expected every year. The chief of these takes place in the month of June, when the heaped-up snows of the Rocky Mountains are melted, and, having flowed thousands of miles through the prairies, reach the Mississippi. The ice and snows of the Alleghanies, and the wild-rice lakes of the far Upper Mississippi, months before have reached their destination, and thus a general inundation, unavoidable had the floods been simultaneous, is prevented by Providence. The alluvions of the Missouri are said to be higher than, and not so broad as, those of the Mississippi; yet their extent is constantly varying by the violence of the current, even more than those of the latter stream. Many years ago the flouris.h.i.+ng town of Franklin was completely torn away from its foundations, and its inhabitants were forced to flee to the adjacent heights; and the bottom opposite St. Charles and at numerous other places has, within the few years past, suffered astonis.h.i.+ng changes.[166] Opposite the town now flow the waters of the river where once stood farms and orchards.

The source of the Missouri and that of the Columbia, we are told, are in such immediate proximity, that a walk of but a few miles will enable the traveller to drink from the fountains of each. Yet how unlike their destiny! One pa.s.ses off through a region of boundless prairie equal in extent to a {253} sixth of our globe; and, after a thousand wanderings, disembogues its troubled waters into the Mexican Gulf; the other, winding away towards the setting sun, rolls on through forests untrodden by human footstep till it sleeps in the Pacific Seas. Their destinies reach their fulfilment at opposite extremes of a continent! How like, how very like are the destinies of these far, lonely rivers to the destinies of human life! Those who, in the beautiful starlight of our boyhood, were our schoolmates and play-fellows, where are they when our sun of ripened maturity has reached its meridian? and what, and where are they and we, when evening's lengthening shadows are gathering over the landscape of life? Our paths diverged but little at first, but mountains, continents, half a world of waters may divide our destinies, and opposite extremes of "the great globe itself" witness their consummation. Yet, like the floods of the far-winding rivers, the streams of our existences will meet again, and mingle in the ocean--that ocean without a sh.o.r.e--_ETERNITY_!

The gates of the Rocky Mountains, through which the waters of the Missouri rush forth into the prairies of the great Valley, are described as one of the sublimest spectacles in nature. Conceive the floods of a powerful mountain-torrent compressed in mid career into a width of less than one hundred and fifty yards, rus.h.i.+ng with the speed of "the wild horse's wilder sire" through a chasm whose vast walls of Nature's own masonry rear themselves on either side from the raging waters to the precipitous {254} height of twelve hundred perpendicular feet; and then consider if imagination can compa.s.s a scene of darker, more terrible sublimity! And then sweep onward with the current, and within one hundred miles you behold a cataract, next to Niagara, from all description grandest in the world. Such are some of the mighty features of the stream upon which I was now standing.

As to the much disputed question which of the great streams of the West is ent.i.tled to the name of the _Main River_, I shall content myself with a brief statement of the arguments alleged in support of the pretensions of either claimant. The volume of the Missouri at the confluence far exceeds that of its rival; the length of its course and the number and magnitude of its tributaries are also greater, and it imparts a character to the united streams. On the other hand, the Mississippi, geographically and geologically considered, is the grand Central River of the continent, maintaining an undeviating course from north to south; the valley which it drains is far more extensive and fertile than that of the Missouri; and from the circ.u.mstance of having first been explored, it has given a name to the great river of the Western Valley which it will probably ever retain, whatever the right. "_Sed non nostrum tantas componere lites._"

_St. Charles, Mo._

XXIII

"Say, ancient edifice, thyself with years Grown gray, how long upon the hill has stood Thy weather-braving tower?"

HURDIS.

"An _honourable_ murder, if you will; For naught he did in hate, but all in honour."

"The whole broad earth is beautiful To minds attuned aright."

ROBT. DALE OWEN.

The view of St. Charles from the opposite bank of the Missouri is a fine one. The turbid stream rolls along the village nearly parallel with the interval upon which it is situated. A long line of neat edifices, chiefly of brick, with a few ruinous old structures of logs and plastering, relics of French or Spanish taste and domination, extend along the sh.o.r.e; beyond these, a range of bluffs rear themselves proudly above the village, crowned with their academic hall and a neat stone church, its spire surmounted by the cross. Between these structures, upon a spot somewhat more elevated, appears the bas.e.m.e.nt section of "a stern round tower of former days," now a ruin; and, though a very peaceable {10} pile of limestone and mortar, well-fitted in distant view to conjure up a host of imaginings: like Shenstone's Ruined Abbey, forsooth,

"Pride of ancient days; Now but of use to grace a rural scene, Or bound our vistas."

The history of the tower, if tower it may be styled, is briefly this.[167] During the era of Spanish rule in this region, before its cession to France half a century since, this structure was erected as a watch-tower or magazine. Subsequently it was dismantled, and partially fell to ruins, when the novel project was started to plant a _windmill_ upon the foundation. This was done; but either the wind was too high or too low, too frequent or too rare, or neither; or there was no corn to grind, or the projector despaired of success, or some other of the fifty untoward circ.u.mstances which suggest themselves came to pa.s.s; the windmill ere long fell to pieces, and left the old ruin to the tender mercies of time and tempest, a monument of chance and change.

The evening of my arrival at St. Charles I strolled off at about sunset, and, ascending the bluffs, approached the old ruin. The walls of rough limestone are ma.s.sively deep, and the alt.i.tude cannot now be less than twenty feet. The view from the spot is n.o.ble, and peculiarly impressive at the sunset hour. Directly at your feet lies the village, from the midst of which come up the rural sounds of evening; the gladsome laugh of children at their sports; the whistle of the home-plodding labourer; the quiet hum of gossips around the open doors; {11} while upon the river's brink a huge steam-mill sends forth its ceaseless "boom, boom" upon the still air. Beneath the village ripples the Missouri, with a fine sweep both above and below the town not unlike the letter S; while beyond the stream extends its heavily-timbered bottom: one cl.u.s.ter of trees directly opposite are t.i.tanic in dimensions. Upon the summit of the bluff, in the shadow of the ruin by your side, lies a sunken grave. It is the grave of a _duellist_. Over it trail the long, melancholy branches of a weeping willow. A neat paling once protected the spot from the wanderer's footstep, but it is gone now; only a rotten relic remains. All is still. The sun has long since gone down. One after another the evening sounds have died away in the village at the feet, and one after another the lights have twinkled forth from the cas.e.m.e.nts. A fresh breeze is coming up from the water; the rus.h.i.+ng wing of the night-hawk strikes fitfully upon the ear; and yonder sails the beautiful "boat of light," the pale sweet crescent. On that crescent is gazing many a distant friend! What a spot--what an hour to meditate upon the varying destinies of life! I seated myself upon the foot of the grave, which still retained some little elevation from the surrounding soil, and the night-wind sighed through the trailing boughs as if a requiem to him who slumbered beneath. _Requiescat in pace_, in no meaningless ceremony, might be p.r.o.nounced over him, for his end was a troubled one. Unfortunate man! you have gone to your account; and that tabernacle in which once burned a beautiful flame has long since been mingling with the dust: {12} but I had rather be even as thou art, cold in an unhonoured grave, than to live on and wear away a miserable remnant of existence, that "guilty thing" with crimsoned hand and brow besprinkled with blood. To drag out a weary length of days and nights; to feel life a bitterness, and all its verdure scathed; to walk about among the ranks of men a being

"Mark'd, And sign'd, and quoted for a deed of shame;"

to feel a stain upon the palm which not all the waters of ocean could wash away; a smell of blood which not all the perfumes of Arabia could sweeten; ah! give me death rather than this! That the custom of duelling, under the present arrangements of society and code of honour, in some sections of our country, is necessary, is more than problematical; that its practice will continue to exist is certain; but, when death ensues, "'tis the surviver dies."

The stranger has never, perhaps, stood upon the bluffs of St. Charles without casting a glance of anxious interest upon that lone, deserted grave; and there are a.s.sociated with its existence circ.u.mstances of melancholy import. Twenty years ago, he who lies there was a young, accomplished barrister of superior abilities, distinguished rank, and rapidly rising to eminence in the city of St. Louis. Unhappily, for words uttered in the warmth of political controversy, offence was taken; satisfaction demanded; a meeting upon that dark and b.l.o.o.d.y ground opposite the city ensued; and poor B---- fell, in the suns.h.i.+ne of his spring, lamented by all {13} who had known him. Agreeable to his request in issue of his death, his remains were conveyed to this spot and interred. Years have since rolled away, and the melancholy event is now among forgotten things; but the old ruin, beneath whose shadow he slumbers, will long remain his monument; and the distant traveller, when he visits St. Charles, will pause and ponder over his lonely grave.[168]

"But let no one reproach his memory.

His life has paid the forfeit of his folly, Let that suffice."

Ah! the valuable blood which has steeped the sands of that steril island in the Mississippi opposite St. Louis! Nearly thirty years ago a fatal encounter took place between Dr. F. and Dr. G., in which the latter fell: that between young B. and a Mr. C. I have alluded to, and several other similar combats transpired on the spot at about the same time. The b.l.o.o.d.y affair between Lieutenants Biddle and Pettis, and that between Lucas and Benton, are of more recent date, and, with several others, are familiar in the memory of all. The spot has been fitly named "Murder" or "Blood Island."[169] Lying in the middle of the stream, it is without the jurisdiction of either of the adjoining states; and deep is the curse which has descended upon its sh.o.r.es!