Flagg's The Far West, 1836-1837, part 1

England: view the experiment there. It is a matter of parliamentary record, that within the last twenty years, during the philanthropic efforts of Lord Henry Brougham and his whig coadjutors, crime in England has more than tripled. If knowledge, pure, defecated knowledge, be a conservative principle, why do we witness these appalling results?

What, then, shall be done? Shall the book of knowledge be taken from the hands of the people, and again be locked up in the libraries of the few? Shall the dusky pall of ignorance and superstition again be flung around the world, and a long starless midnight of a thousand years once more come down to brood over mankind? By no means. Let the sweet streams of knowledge go forth, copious, free, to enrich and irrigate the garden of mind; but mingle with them the pure waters of that "fount which flows fast by the oracles of God," or the effect now will be, as it ever has been, only to intoxicate and madden the human race. There is nothing in cold, dephlegmated intellect to warm up and foster the energies of the moral system of man. Intellect, mere intellect, can never tame the passions or purify the heart.

Upper Alton, Ill.

XVII

"The fourth day roll'd along, and with the nightCame storm and darkness in their mingling might.Loud sung the wind above; and doubly loudShook o'er his turret-cell the thunder-cloud."The Corsair."TheseThe unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,For which the speech of England has no name —The prairies."Bryant.

Whoever will take upon himself the trouble to run his eye over the "Tourist's Pocket Map of Illinois," will perceive, stretching along the western border of the state, parallel with the river, a broad carriage highway, in a direction nearly north, to a little village called Carlinville; if then he glances to the east, he may trace a narrow pathway striking off at right angles to that section of the state. Well, it is here, upon this pathway, just on the margin of a beautiful prairie, sweeping away towards the town of Hillsborough,139 that I find myself at the close of the day, after a long and fatiguing ride. The afternoon has been one of those dreary, drizzly, disagreeable seasons which relax the nerves and ride like an incubus upon the spirits; and my route has conducted me over a broad-spread, desolate plain; for, lovely as may appear the prairie when its bright flowerets and its tall grass-tops are nodding in the sunlight, it is a melancholy place when the sky is beclouded and the rain is falling. There is a certain indescribable sensation of loneliness, which steals over the mind of the solitary traveller when he finds himself alone in the heart of these boundless plains, which he cannot away with; and the approach to a forest is hailed with pleasure, as serving to quiet, with the vague idea of society, this sense of dreariness and desertion. Especially is this the case when rack and mist are hovering along the border, veiling from the view those picturesque woodland-points and promontories, and those green island-groves which, when the sky is clear, swell out upon every side into the bosom of the plain. Then all is fresh and joyous to the eye as a vision: change the scene, and the grand, gloomy, misty magnificence of old ocean presents itself on every side. The relief to the picture afforded by the discovery of man's habitation can hardly be described.

It was near nightfall, when, wearied by the fatigue of riding and drenched with mist, I reached the log-cabin of an old pioneer from Virginia, beneath whose lowly roof-tree I am seated at this present writing; and though hardly the most sumptuous edifice of which it has been my lot to be an inmate, yet with no unenviable anticipations am I looking forward to hearty refreshment and to sound slumber upon the couch by my side. There are few objects to be met with in the backwoods of the West more unique and picturesque than the dwelling of the emigrant. After selecting an elevated spot as a site for building, a cabin or a log-house – which is somewhat of an improvement upon the first – is erected in the following manner. A sufficient number of straight trees, of a size convenient for removing, are felled, slightly hewn upon the opposite sides, and the extremities notched or mortised with the axe. They are then piled upon each other so that the extremities lock together; and a single or double edifice is constructed, agreeable to the taste or ability of the builder. Ordinarily the cabin consists of two quadrangular apartments, separated by a broad area between, connected by a common floor, and covered by a common roof, presenting a parallelogram triple the length of its width. The better of these apartments is usually appropriated to the entertainment of the casual guest, and is furnished with several beds and some articles of rude furniture to correspond. The open area constitutes the ordinary sitting and eating apartment of the family in fine weather; and, from its coolness, affords a delightful retreat. The intervals between the logs are stuffed with fragments of wood or stone, and plastered with mud or mortar, and the chimney is constructed much in the same manner. The roof is covered with thin clapboards of oak or ash, and, in lieu of nails, transverse pieces of timber retain them in their places. Thousands of cabins are thus constructed, without a particle of iron or even a common plank. The rough clapboards give to the roof almost the shaggy aspect of thatch at a little distance, but they render it impermeable to even the heaviest and most protracted rain-storms. A rude gallery often extends along one or both sides of the building, adding much to its coolness in summer and to its warmth in winter by the protection afforded from sun and snow. The floor is constructed of short, thick planks, technically termed "puncheons," which are confined by wooden pins; and, though hardly smooth enough for a ballroom, yet well answer every purpose for a dwelling, and effectually resist moisture and cold. The apertures are usually cut with a view to free ventilation, and the chimneys stand at the extremities, outside the walls of the cabin. A few pounds of nails, a few boxes of glass, a few hundred feet of lumber, and a few days' assistance of a house-carpenter, would, of course, contribute not a little to the comfort of the shieling; but neither of these are indispensable. In rear of the premises rise the outbuildings; stables, corn-crib, meat-house, &c., all of them quite as perfect in structure as the dwelling itself, and quite as comfortable for residence. If to all this we add a well, walled up with a section of a hollow cotton-wood, a cellar or cave in the earth for a pantry, a zigzag rail fence enclosing the whole clearing, a dozen acres of Indian corn bristling up beyond, a small garden and orchard, and a host of swine, cattle, poultry, and naked children about the door, and the tout ensemble of a backwoods farmhouse is complete. Minor circumstances vary, of course, with the peculiarities of the country and the origin of the settlers; but the principal features of the picture everywhere prevail. The present mode of cultivation sweeps off vast quantities of timber; but it must soon be superseded. Houses of brick and stone will take the place of log-cabins; hedge-rows will supply that of rail enclosures, while coal for fuel will be a substitute for wood.

At Upper Alton my visit was not a protracted one. In a few hours, having gathered up my fixens and mounted my creetur, I was threading a narrow pathway through the forest. The trees, most of them lofty elms, in many places for miles locked together their giant branches over the road, forming a delightful screen from the sunbeams; but it was found by no means the easiest imaginable task, after once entering upon the direct route, to continue upon it. This is a peculiarity of Western roads. The commencement may be uniform enough, but the traveller soon finds his path diverging all at once in several different directions, like the radii of a circle, with no assignable cause therefor, and not the slightest reason presenting itself why he should select one of them in preference to half a dozen others, equally good or bad. And the sequel often shows him that there in reality existed no more cause of preference than was apparent; for, after a few tortuosities through the forest, for variety's sake, the paths all terminate in the same route. The obstacle of a tree, a stump, a decaying log, or a sand-bank often splits the path as if it were a flowing stream; and then the traveller takes upon him to exercise the reserved right of radiating to any point of the compass he may think proper, provided always that he succeeds in clearing the obstruction.

Passing many log-cabins, such as I have described, with their extensive maize-fields, the rude dwelling of a sturdy old emigrant from the far East sheltered me during the heat of noon; and having luxuriated upon an excellent dinner, prepared and served up in right New-England fashion, I again betook myself to my solitary route. But I little anticipated to have met, in the distant prairies of Illinois, the habitation of one who had passed his life in my own native state, almost in my own native village. Yet I know not why the occurrence should be a cause of surprise. Such emigrations are of constant occurrence. The farmer had been a resident eight years in the West; his farm was under that high cultivation characteristic of the Northern emigrant, and peace and plenty seemed smiling around. Yet was the emigrant satisfied? So far from it, he acknowledged himself a disappointed man, and sighed for his native northern home, with its bleak winds and barren hillsides.

The region through which, for most of the day, I journeyed was that, of very extensive application in the West, styled "Barrens," by no means implying unproductiveness of soil, but a species of surface of heterogeneous character, uniting prairie with timber or forest, and usually a description of land as fertile, healthy, and well-watered as may be found. The misnomer is said to have derived its origin from the early settlers of that section of Kentucky south of Green River, which, presenting only a scanty, dwarfish growth of timber, was deemed of necessity barren, in the true acceptation of the term.140 This soil there and elsewhere is now considered better adapted to every variety of produce and the vicissitudes of climate than even the deep mould of the prairies and river-bottoms. The rapidity with which a young forest springs forward, when the annual fires have once been stopped in this species of land, is said to be astonishing; and the first appearance of timber upon the prairies gives it the character, to some extent, of barrens. Beneath the trees is spread out a mossy turf, free from thickets, but variegated by the gaudy petals of the heliotrope, and the bright crimson buds of the dwarf-sumach in the hollows. Indeed, some of the most lovely scenery of the West is beheld in the landscapes of these barrens or "oak openings," as they are more appropriately styled. For miles the traveller wanders on, through a magnificence of park scenery on every side, with all the diversity of the slope, and swell, and meadow of human taste and skill. Interminable avenues stretch away farther than the eye can reach, while at intervals through the foliage flashes out the unruffled surface of a pellucid lake. There are many of these circular lakes or "sinkholes," as they are termed in Western dialect, which, as they possess no inlet, seem supplied by subterraneous springs or from the clouds. The outline is that of an inverted cone, as if formed by the action of whirling waters; and, as sinkholes exist in great numbers in the vicinity of the rivers, and possess an outlet at the bottom through a substratum of porous limestone, the idea is abundantly confirmed. In the State of Missouri these peculiar springs are also observed. Some of them in Greene county burst forth from the earth and the fissures of the rocks with sufficient force to whirl a run of heavy buhrstones, and the power of the fountains seems unaffected by the vicissitudes of rain or drought. These same sinkholes, circular ponds, and gushing springs are said to constitute one of the most remarkable and interesting features of the peninsula of Florida. There, as here, the substratum is porous limestone; and it is the subsidence of the layers which gives birth to the springs. The volume of water thrown up by these boiling fountains is said to be astonishingly great; many large ones, also, are known to exist in the beds of lakes and rivers. From the circumstance of the existence of these numerous springs originated, doubtless, the tradition which Spanish chroniclers aver to have existed among the Indians of Porto Rico and Cuba, that somewhere among the Lucayo Islands or in the interior of Florida there existed a fountain whose waters had the property of imparting rejuvenescence and perpetuating perennial youth. Only twenty years after the discoveries of Columbus, and more than three centuries since, did the romantic Juan Ponce de Leon, an associate of the Genoese and subsequent governor of Porto Rico, explore the peninsula of Florida in search of this traditionary fountain; of the success of the enterprise we have no account. Among the other poetic founts of the "Land of Flowers," we are told of one situated but a few miles from Fort Gaines, called "Sappho's Fount,"141 from the idea which prevails that its waters impart the power of producing sweet sounds to the voices of those who partake of them.

It was near evening, when, emerging from the shades of the barrens, which, like everything else, however beautiful, had, by continuous succession, begun to become somewhat monotonous, my path issued rather unexpectedly upon the margin of a wide, undulating prairie. I was struck, as is every traveller at first view of these vast plains, with the grandeur, and novelty, and loveliness of the scene before me. For some moments I remained stationary, looking out upon the boundless landscape before me. The tall grass-tops waving in the billowy beauty in the breeze; the narrow pathway winding off like a serpent over the rolling surface, disappearing and reappearing till lost in the luxuriant herbage; the shadowy, cloud-like aspect of the far-off trees, looming up, here and there, in isolated masses along the horizon, like the pyramidal canvass of ships at sea; the deep-green groves besprinkled among the vegetation, like islets in the waters; the crimson-died prairie-flower flashing in the sun – these features of inanimate nature seemed strangely beautiful to one born and bred amid the bold mountain scenery of the North, and who now gazed upon them "for the first."

"The prairies! I behold them for the first,And my heart swells, while the dilated sightTakes in the encircling vastness."

As I rode leisurely along upon the prairie's edge, I passed many noble farms, with their log-cabins couched in a corner beneath the forest; and, verily, would a farmer of Yankee-land "stare and gasp" to behold the prairie cornfield of the Western emigrant; and yet more would he be amazed to witness the rank, rustling luxuriance of the vegetable itself. Descending a swell of the prairie near one of these farms, a buck with his doe leaped out from a thicket beside my path, and away, away bounded the "happy pair" over the grass-tops, free as the wind. They are often shot upon the prairies, I was informed by an old hunter, at whose cabin, in the middle of the plain, I drew up at twilight, and with whom I passed the night. He was a pioneer from the dark and bloody ground, and many a time had followed the wild buck through those aged forests, where Boone, and Whitley, and Kenton once roved.142 Only fifty years ago, and for the first time were the beautiful fields of Kentucky turned up by the ploughshare of the Virginia emigrant; yet their very descendants of the first generation we behold plunging deeper into the wilderness West. How would the worthy old Governor Spotswood stand astounded, could he now rear his venerable bones from their long resting-place, and look forth upon this lovely land, far away beyond the Blue Ridge of the Alleghany hills, the very passage of which he had deemed not unworthy "the horseshoe of gold" and "the order tramontane." "Sic juvat transcendere montes." Twenty years before Daniel Boone, "backwoodsman of Kentucky," was born, Alexander Spotswood, governor of Virginia, undertook, with great preparation, a passage of the Alleghany ridge. For this expedition were provided a large number of horseshoes, an article not common in some sections of the "Old Dominion;" and from this circumstance, upon their return, though without a glimpse of the Western Valley, was instituted the "Tramontane Order, or Knights of the Golden Horseshoe," with the motto above. The badge of distinction for having made a passage of the Blue Ridge was a golden horseshoe worn upon the breast. Could the young man of that day have protracted the limits of life but a few years beyond his threescore and ten, what astonishment would not have filled him to behold now, as "the broad, the bright, the glorious West," the region then regarded as the unknown and howling wilderness beyond the mountains! Yet even thus it is.143

A long ride over a dusty road, beneath a sultry sun, made me not unwilling to retire to an early rest. But in a few hours my slumbers were broken in upon by the glare of lightning and the crash of thunder. For nearly five weeks had the prairies been refreshed by not a solitary shower; and the withered crops and the parched soil, baked to the consistency of stone or ground up to powder, betrayed alarming evidence of the consequence. Day had succeeded day. The scorching sun had gone up in the firmament, blazed from his meridian throne, and in lurid sultriness descended to his rest. The subtle fluid had been gathering and concentrating in the skies; and, early on the night of which I speak, an inky cloud had been perceived rolling slowly up from the western horizon, until the whole heavens were enveloped in blackness. Then the tempest burst forth. Peal upon peal the hoarse thunder came booming over the prairies; and the red lightning would glare, and stream, and almost hiss along the midnight sky, like Ossian's storm-spirit riding on the blast. At length there was a hush of elements, and all was still – "still as the spirit's silence;" then came one prolonged, deafening, terrible crash and rattle, as if the concave of the firmament had been rent asunder, and the splintered fragments, hurled abroad, were flying through the boundlessness of space; the next moment, and the torrents came weltering through the darkness. I have witnessed thunder-storms on the deep, and many a one among the cliffs of my native hills; but a midnight thunder-gust upon the broad prairie-plains of the West is more terrible than they. A more sublimely magnificent spectacle have I never beheld than that, when one of these broad-sheeted masses of purple light would blaze along the black bosom of the cloud, quiver for an instant over the prairie miles in extent, flinging around the scene a garment of flame, and then go out in darkness.

"Oh night,And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,Yet lovely in your strength, as is the lightOf a dark eye in woman!""Most glorious night!Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me beA sharer in thy fierce and far delight,A portion of the tempest and of thee!"

And a sharer in the tempest surely was "a certain weary pilgrim, in an upper chamber" of a certain log-cabin of the prairie. Unhappily for his repose or quiet, had he desired either, the worthy host, in laudable zeal for a window when erecting his hut, had thought proper to neglect or to forget one of the indispensables for such a convenience in shape of sundry panes of glass. Wherefore, as is easy to perceive, said aperture commanding the right flank of the pilgrim's dormitory, the warring elements without found abundant entrance for a by-skirmish within. Sad to relate, the pilgrim was routed, "horse, foot, and dragoons;" whereupon, agreeable to Falstaff's discretionary views of valour, seizing upon personal effects, he beat a retreat to more hospitable realms.

Greene County, Ill.

XVIII

"What earthly feeling unabash'd can dwellIn Nature's mighty presence? mid the swellOf everlasting hills, the roar of floods,And frown of rocks and pomp of waving woods?These their own grandeur on the soul impress,And bid each passion feel its nothingness."Hemans.

"La grace est toujours unie à la magnificence, dans les scenes de la nature." – Chateaubriand's "Atala."

It was morning. The storm had passed away, and the early sunlight was streaming gloriously over the fresh landscape. The atmosphere, discharged of its electric burden, was playing cool and free among the grass-tops; the lark was carolling in the clouds above its grassy nest; the deer was rising from his sprinkled lair, and the morning mists were rolling heavily in masses along the skirts of the prairie woodlands, as I mounted my horse at the door of the cabin beneath whose roof I had passed the night. Before me at no great distance, upon the edge of the plain, rose an open park of lofty oaks, with a mossy turf beneath; and the whole scene, lighted up by the sunbeams breaking through the ragged mists, presented a most gorgeous spectacle. The entire wilderness of green; every bough, spray, leaf; every blade of grass, wild weed, and floweret, was hung with trembling drops of liquid light, which, reflecting and refracting the sun-rays, threw back all the hues of the iris. It was indeed a morning of beauty after the tempest; and Nature seemed to have arrayed herself in her bridal robes, glittering in all their own matchless jewellery to greet its coming.

Constituted as we all naturally are, there exist, bound up within the secresies of the bosom, certain emotions and sentiments, designed by our Creator to leap forth in joyousness in view of the magnificence of his works; certain springs of exquisite delicacy deep hidden in the chambers of the breast, but which, touched or breathed upon never so lightly, strike the keys of feeling and fill the heart with harmony. And I envy not the feelings of that man who, amid all "the glories of this visible world," can stand a passionless beholder; who feels not his pulses thrill with quickened vibration, and his heart to heave in fuller gush as he views the beneficence of his Maker in the magnificence of his works; who from all can turn calmly away, and in the chill, withering accents of Atheism, pronounce it the offspring of blind fatality, the resultant of meaningless chance!

When we look abroad upon the panorama of creation, so palpable is the impress of an omnipotent hand, and so deeply upon all its features is planted the demonstration of design, that it would almost seem, in the absence of reason and revelation, we need but contemplate the scenery of nature to be satisfied of the existence of an all-wise, all-powerful Being, whose workmanship it is. The firmament, with its marshalled and glittering hosts; the earth, spread out in boundlessness at our feet, now draperied in the verdant freshness of springtime, anon in the magnificent glories of summer sultriness, again teeming with the mellow beauty of autumnal harvesting, and then slumbering in the chill, cheerless desolation of winter, all proclaim a Deity eternal in existence, boundless in might. The mountain that rears its bald forehead to the clouds; the booming cataract; the unfathomed, mysterious sounding ocean; the magnificent sweep of the Western prairie; the eternal flow of the Western river, proclaim, in tones extensive as the universe – tones not to be misunderstood, that their Creator lives.

It is a circumstance in the character of the human mind, which not the most careless or casual observer of its operations can fail to have remarked, that the contemplation of all grand and immeasurable objects has a tendency to enlarge and elevate the understanding, lend a loftier tone to the feelings, and, agreeable to the moral constitution of man, carry up his thoughts and his emotions directly to their Author, "from Nature up to Nature's God." The savage son of the wilderness, as he roams through his grand and gloomy forests, which for centuries have veiled the soil at their base from the sunlight, perceives a solemn awe stealing over him as he listens to the surges of the winds rolling among the heavy branches; and in Nature's simplicity, untaught but by her untutored promptings, he believes that "the Great Spirit is whispering in the tree tops." He stands by the side of Niagara. With subdued emotions he gazes upon the majestic world of floods as they hurry on. They reach the barrier! they leap its precipice! they are lost in thunder and in foam! And, as the raging waters disappear in the black abyss; as the bow of the covenant, "like hope upon a deathbed," flings its irised arch in horrible beauty athwart the hell of elements, the bewildered child of nature feels his soul swell within his bosom; the thought rises solemnly upon him, "the Great Spirit is here;" and with timid solicitude he peers through the forest shades around him for some palpable demonstration of His presence. And such is the effect of all the grand scenes of nature upon the mind of the savage: they lead it up to the "Great Spirit." Upon this principle is the fact alone to be accounted for, that no race of beings has yet been discovered destitute of all idea of a Supreme Intelligence to whom is due homage and obedience. It is His voice they hear in the deep hour of midnight, when the red lightning quivers along the bosom of the cloud, and the thunder-peal rattles through the firmament. It is He they recognise in the bright orb of day, as he blazes from the eastern horizon; or, "like a monarch on a funeral pile," sinks to his rest. He is beheld in the pale queen of night, as in silvery radiance she walks the firmament, and in the beautiful star of evening as it sinks behind his native hills. In the soft breathing of the "summer wind" and in the terrible sublimity of the autumn tempest; in the gentle dew of heaven and the summer torrent; in the sparkling rivulet and the wide, wild river; in the delicate prairie-flower and the gnarled monarch of the hills; in the glittering minnow and the massive narwhal; in the fairy humbird and the sweeping eagle; in each and in all of the creations of universal nature, the mind of the savage sees, feels, realizes the presence of a Deity.