| | 1 | Author: | Wied
Maximilian
Prinz von
1782-1867 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Travels in the Interior of North America  | | | | Published: | 2004 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | "New Orleans, June 6, 1838.—The southern parts of the United States, particularly Florida, Alabama,
and Louisiana, are as healthy as can be wished; there has been no appearance of the yellow fever, and even at
the Havannah only a few isolated cases have occurred. During the autumn, winter, and spring, the small-pox
has carried off many victims among the Whites, and thousands of the Indians; but it has now wholly disappeared
in the territory of the Union, in consequence of a general vaccination of persons of all ages. On the other hand,
we have, from the trading posts on the western frontier of the Missouri, the most frightful accounts of the ravages
of the small-pox among the Indians. The destroying angel has visited the unfortunate sons of the wilderness
with terrors never before known, and has converted the extensive hunting grounds, as well as the peaceful settlements
of those tribes, into desolate and boundless cemeteries. The number of the victims within a few months
is estimated at 30,000, and the pestilence is still spreading. The warlike spirit which but lately animated the
several Indian tribes, and but a few months ago gave reason to apprehend the breaking-out of a sanguinary war,
is broken. The mighty warriors are now the prey of the greedy wolves of the prairie, and the few survivors, in
mute despair, throw themselves on the pity of the Whites, who, however, can do but little to help them. The
vast preparations for the protection of the western frontier are superfluous: another arm has undertaken the
defence of the white inhabitants of the frontier; and the funereal torch, that lights the red man to his dreary
grave, has become the auspicious star of the advancing settler, and of the roving trader of the white race. Voyages to North America are become everyday occurrences, and little more is to be related
of them than that you met and saluted ships, had fine or stormy weather, and the like; here,
therefore, we shall merely say that our party embarked at Helvoetsluys, on board an American
ship, on the 17th of May, in the evening, and on the 24th saw Land's End, Cornwall, vanish in
the misty distance, and bade farewell to Europe. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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