Or, "O when shall I visit the land of my birth? "Tis the pleasantest land on the face of the earth." "O where is my mother that watch'd o'er my childhood ?” "How soon would I have gone back! but we had embarked our all. Pride and the dread of penury chained us to this hated soil. My companion was soon-ah! too soon, released from banishment: the dank vapours of Sciotha's fensa overpowered her frail form, and her spirit rests in heaven. My children, what did they lose? nothing, for they found their mother! Stranger, you think this is a picture painted; and so it is to the life, from a group of dying originals, who, had they staid where heaven did place them, would now have graced the earth. Though mistaken in my plan for life, and disappointed, I had been faithful to my charge; my conscience was at peace with all the world; yet I could not but regret the blind infatuation, the source of all our sufferings. From my earliest years I had been bred to business active industry was now diversion; and though I was a sincere mourner for the dead-in time, I felt a wish to collect about me a home. My estate lay round my "fair family dissolved." In short, I chose a wife who had never seen New-England. She is my wife, and her children are also mine. I am rich, for I abound in every thing this wooden country affords. My children are all this country can make her children. But believe me when I say, old as I am, and rich as I am, all that I possess I would give, and that cheerfully, if my children were such as a NewEngland bringing up would have made them. : "I cannot delineate to you, nor is it necessary, what constitutes the surprising difference between the minds and manners of our young people and yours. But I can detail some things which lead to it. In your country, you think a village school in danger if but a single expert villain comes into it. Here, if a school is formed, (an almost unknown thing,) 'tis literally made up of little villains, whose parents teach them to despise subjection, to make God's holy day a day of feasting and hunting; a time to shine out in fringed barbarian rifle frocks, and yellow tasselled, walnut coloured gowns; to sing wild Irish songs, and hoot the yankees. Oh! it is too much my children are likely, but unpolished; my wife is faithful and affectionate; but, they all are totally denied that social intercourse, which alone can polish and refine." Journey commences.-Note 11. Canto ii. One can hardly help wishing God's speed to the cheerful faces, so full of expectations which appear in the little ones, who commonly accompany a neat little yankee wagon, on their way to the west. "But, oh! their end, their dreadful end." The horrible mountains are yet to be passed. Alleghanies.-Note 12. Canto ii. The Alleghany mountains are spoken of as if they would trouble one a day or two; for such are the comparative hillocks, called mountains a [More probably her log cabin, with chinks partly stuffed with mud, and a sliding-slab for a door.] in New-England. But the Alleghanies are no less than 150 miles across, composed of huge mountains, and deep valleys and ravines between; so that after you are completely exhausted, still "Hills peep o'er hills, and alps on alps arise." Nothing can equal the grandeur of the scenery when viewed from these lofty heights. One peak shows you a snow storm eddying round its summit; another, less elevated, a rain-cloud adorned with its bow; a third glistens with crystals, shot upon the boughs from the last night's spray a fourth enjoys the clear shining of the sun. And all these are multiplied, till the endless gallery of nature is lost in blue, of lighter or deeper die. How does the soul expand! But frail man has a body too, that needs some comfortable things; something besides fog and sun-beams; "something substantial, even though it should be nothing better than a luncheon of bread and an onion," as says governor Panza. But where great things are plenty, little necessaries are scarce; and in their lieu we behold hungry ravens over head, a slippery glade beneath, a broken wagon on the right and a dead horse on the left. Husband frets.-Note 13. Canto ii. Notwithstanding all the losses, and crosses, and fretting, and fuming, and pious resolutions, and seemly speeches, suffered and vented on this wo-betided highway to the land of promise; our new discipled emigrants calmly set down to compose a letter to their friends in NewEngland, somewhat as follows: DEAR FRIENDS, Pittsburgh, Oct. 28th, &c. We arrived safe at this place last week, this is a great city, a'most as big as N. York. we shall go on as soon as the fall rains are over. they say the half has not been told us of the Excellency of the country west of Ohio. But old Marietta and Muskingum are worn out and good for nothing. we shan't stop we think short of Indiana. Indiana we think we shall like. every body knows how Ohio is cried up for goodness, but they say here Indiana is Ohio twice over. we hope you won't fail to follow us next summer at farthest. come in summer, not in fall Yours, &c. rains. P. S. One thing I don't like-they are all agreed to curse the yankies, with their frisking French, broken-jaw'd Dutch, broad Scotch, and blarney Irish; and for all, not one in ten can write his name. Wagon is upset with a crash.-Note 14. Canto ii. This is not a solitary case. Hundreds might be instanced, where a wagon wreck on the Alleghanies has caused the loss of all the choice things, reserved from the sacrifice of household furniture at the commencement of the journey. The writer stopped a time at Jenkinson's Hotel, Steubensville, Ohio, (a fine place, indeed, and the best inn to be found over the mountains.) Says the landlord, "Not long since, one of your countrymen passed here. He was from Hartford. His name was Bull. He told me, when he had fairly passed Connecticut line, he kneeled down and thanked the Lord, for that he had brought him out of that rebellious state. And when he crossed here, he did not look as if he need to thank the Lord for any thing. It cost him about 2000 dollars in broken wagons and other accidents, to perform his journey." The bed is thrown over the remaining horse.-Note 15. Canto ii. Every one who has crossed the Alleghanies on the great route to Pittsburgh, can never forget the wo-begotten countenances of mothers, situated literally as is here described. Their misfortunes begin with their journey; the expenses soon eat up the reserved change, and nothing remains to do, but to part with some of their loading at every stop; and this is done to the greatest disadvantage; when all is gone but the bed, that is commonly laid over the horse, and the woman rides on it; while the little ones, like gypsies' heirs, sometimes lead and sometimes follow. People on the road described.—Note 16. Canto iii. Add to all the vexations which are seen to attend this journey, that of hearing the questions which you put to the people on the road answered in some broken-jaw'd language, which you cannot understand: or, what is still more provoking, a total indifference,-as "shall I find the road a-head any better!" "So-oh, so-so, tolerable bad." Compare this with the well-known courtesy of Old Massachusetts.There is, however, a kind of hospitality to be found among the backwoodsmen, who reside off the great routes, which I have not seen elsewhere. The following is an instance. I was travelling through a western bottom, in an unfrequented path.--In my course lay a river, and I knew not the fording place. I was besitating, at the moment a young man of the country accosted me familiarly-" Stranger, for God O'mighty's sake give me a chew of tobacco."- -"Friend, I use none can you direct me to the ford ?"—" Stranger, I'll show you :" and he commenced running by my horse's side-talked incessantly of "below," i. e. states east of the Alleghany. He was Nature's own child, though a white man. His rifle frock was blue and white chambray, close buckled with a webbing belt, and fringed with a bright oppossum colour. His rifle and powder-horn bespoke no mean rank of their owner. His mockasins were new, and seemed almost to give springs to the feet and ankles. We were soon at the fording place, although he had run full two miles to serve me. As I crossed he watched me, and pointed to the right or left, as deeps and shallows required. When safe over, he waved his hand, and said--" Stranger, I wish you well," and suddenly disappeared:a yet I could hear him, with a bold, unspent voice, sing- "Bright chanticleer proclaims the dawn, And spangles deck the thorn." And did you reward him handsomely? thinks the reader. I gave him nothing but a cheerful attention to what he said to me, which was principally in short questions, as, " Stranger, you come from below?" "Yes." "That's a great country-you have bridges there?" "Yes." "You have roads, where ladies drive wheel-carriages all safe: you have schools too; every one from below reads well, and can write ; a [This single action overbalances in worth all the manners, taken with the meannesses, of the writer's refined and polished towns.] but a man may be a greater rogue for it. Did you ever see the Con stitution, Independence, or any of those great ships ?" "Yes." “Oh, that's a great country, where every nation's vessels can come to. They say, in New-England you are never out o' sight of a steeple, and from one hill you may see a dozen or more. My mother was a Christian, and she told me of the Old States. My father cared for nothing but his bottle and his hounds. Did you ever hear a bugle horn ?” “I did, from Queenston heights." "Oh, then you have seen the British red coats! Oh, yours is a great country, with all the world around you!" Wife bewails her sad fate.-Note 17. Canto iii. A man, with a common share of magnanimity or enterprise, may render almost any situation tolerable. But 'tis not so with woman. She must have a home :-the little expectancies of every day must be realized; her landscape must speak human residence and cultivation: her house must be inviting; her rooms furnished: she must possess the facility of social intercourse, the smooth road, and spring-carriage. If she be married, her husband must not be a boor, but a civilized man, who keeps up with the times-who-needs not a hunt, a horse-race, or a whiskey shop, to enable him to endure life; but who, in the hours of business, is industrious in a respectable calling, which enables and disposes him to spend his leisure and resting hours in the bosom of his rising family, amid the pledges of affection, the promises of a future race, who shall honour the memory of those who watched and nursed their helpless infancy. Banish a woman from all this, and after mountains of suffering and fatigue, place her in a log cabin, the chinks daubed with mud, the light of heaven coming in only where the smoke goes out; their all paid on the road for trouble; her husband out of employ; her babe rolled in a rug, laid in a bit of hollow log which rocks on a slab floor; herself shaking with an ague, and shrinking before an at tack of fever; her other children, which once were dressed in white, and rocked on a rich carpet in a still cradle, now smoked and dingy, running in and out where a slab is shoved aside for a door; now beg ging for a piece of hoe-cake, or for parched corn-can she be happy? Sideling Hill.-Note 18. Canto iii. This monstrous mountain, Sideling Hill, lies nearly at right angle with the other ridges of the Alleghanies, so that the path, running on the north side near its back-bone, carries the wagon so near a topsy-turvy position, the driver feels for whole days as if his wagon, wife, children, horses and all were plunging, broadside foremost, down into the great north-west abyss, there to remain a prey to ravens and turkey-buz zards. Laurel Hill.--Note 19. Canto iii. a Of all the mountains "Laurel Hill" is the worst. The paths over it pass necessarily in a zigzag direction, and the several tacks of road become so many cave-troughs for the torrents of rain and melting snows, which channel out excavations broad and deep enough to swallow up house. But as there are no houses to tumble in, the bottom is only pi led with undermined stones and rocks, which to pass over safely would puzzle a mountain goat.-'Tis ten miles over this hill. Arrive at last.-Note 20. Canto iii. Perhaps our readers (if readers we have any,) will guess our travellers have got new horses, or they could not bounce along at this rate, towards the fag end of creation, and the winding up of a heap of toils and discomfitures. But they will guess wrong; for the wife is still pinioned on the bed which still hangs over the back of the relict of a pair of yankee horses-and the husband is half his way deliberating, whether to jump into a slough or a thorn-bush. Yet we say they got to Ohio, and refrain to linger out a diary of disasters; but one word more of sloughs and thorn-bushes. The roads through the bottoms in the western country are literally mud without bottom; and the borders most bushily palisaded with thorns: so that the foot traveller, such as our unhorsed, unhoused, husband, in his impatience to extricate his feet, up to his knees or more in mire, drives his head into a thorn-bush; and thus becomes fast anchored, not by his head alone, as was Absalom, but by his feet too, or, as the sailors say, “moored, sir, by a bow fast and a stern fast, which makes all fast." The woodsmen sometimes attempt to mend the roads in the swales, as they say, by cutting and laying logs side by side for a long distance. This is vastly better. It is like riding over an everlasting wood-pile; and besides, a rain or a thaw puts this all afloat. And to crown all, after the flood ceases, the boasted log-way is part in the place where a road should be, and the rest are heads and points and every which way, as the Pennsylvanians say. To a place of much wood.-Note 21. Canto iii. Nothing can exceed the irksomeness of for ever inhaling the smell of rotten wood, of being day and night immersed in the dank vapours of a woody bottom: oozing continually a fever and ague sweat: and how much is this enhanced to those whose memories are constantly presenting images "Of hills, and dales, *** and lawns, and spires, 66 CONCLUSION. Finally, the question is simply this: shall I stay, and enjoy the fruits of two hundred years' labour of my ancestors; or go, and toil and sweat for those who shall come two hundred years after me! Not indeed for those of my posterity; for if they inherit the true spirit of emigration in their several generations, they will get to be subjects of king Maquina, or some other North-west-coast potentate, long before two hundred years have elapsed, or run by like so many bedeviled swine into the western ocean. And now, gentle reader, one more story, and we will take leave of each other: I to my patrimony, in the land of steady habits; and you, if you please, to the fabled regions of the west.-On my return to the eastern states, I stopped for the night at an inn in Fairfield co. Conn. My chervalles, and other riding habiliments, quite worn, led the circle round a cheerful Christmas fire of walnut wood, to inquire if I had been over the mountains. I said yes-and a conversation followed.Gent. "You have travelled in Ohio?" Yes sir." Is the water VOL. I. 27 |