 | The new purchase, or, Seven and a half years in the far West |  |
THE VOYAGE.
8. CHAPTER VIII.
—“facilis descensus Averni, sed revocare gradum—”
“Easy is it to float down the Ohio—try to float up once!”
At the time of the voyage, a steamboat was a very rara
vis on the Ohio river; at least such a smoke-belcher and
spit-fire could not be found at any hour of the day and night
ready to walk off with passengers like “the thing of life.”
The usual mode then of going down—(getting up again
was quite another affair)—was in arks, broad-horns, keelboats,
batteaux, canoes and rafts. Col. Wilmar, who knew
the way of doing business in these great waters, decided in
favour of the ark; and into the ark, therefore, we went:
viz. Col. Wilmar and his cousin, Mr. Clarence and Mr.
Brown, and Mr. and Mrs. Carlton, and also the two owners
—eight souls. Noah's stock of live animals went in to be
fed, ours went in to be eaten—and we had also smoked
hams—so that the likeness between us and that remarkable
navigator principally failed after the number of the
sailors was compared.
Our captain and mate being gone after their own stores,
let us in the mean while examine the mechanique of our
ark. And first, its foundation,—for the structure is rather
a house than a boat,—its foundation. This is rectangular
and formed of timbers each fifteen cubits long, tied by
others each eight cubits long; the timbers being from
three to four hands-breadths thick. The side beams
are united by sleepers, on which is a floor pinned
down, and as tight as possible, so that when swollen by
the water, water itself could not get in—except at the
cracks, and then it could not be got out without the aid of
science. Above the first flooring, at an interval of a foot,
was laid on other joist —(jice)—a second floor. Hence
era, our “hold”—(and it held water to admiration)—could,
when necessary, be freed.
Scantling of uncertain and unequal lengths rose almost
perpendicular around the rectangle, being morticed into
the foundation; and so when, from without, planks were
pinned as high as necessary against these uprights, the
ark had nearly all its shape, and all its room.
This room or space was portioned into cabin and
kitchen; the latter intended by the architect to take the
lead in the actual navigation, but which in a struggle for
pre-eminence would often technically slue round, and
yield that honour to the cabin.
Next the kitchen. In one part was a hearth of brick
and sand, and furnished with three iron bars that straddled
their lower extremities to the edges of the hearth, and
united their upper ones over its centre or thereabouts.
And this contrivance was to sustain in their turn our—
hem!—“culinary utensils?”—ay—yes—culinary utensils.
Forwards were the fin-holes, and behind these and projecting
towards the cabin, were boxes as berths for the
captain and mate. The fins—(improperly by some called
horns)—where rude oars, which passing out of the opposite
fin-holes just named, used when moved to flap and
and splash each side the kitchen; and by these the ark
was steered, kept kitchen end foremost, brought to land
and kept out of harm's way—the last requiring pretty
desperate pulling, unless we began half an hour before encountering
an impediment, or escaping a raft. The fins
would, indeed, sometimes play in a heavy sort of frolic
to get us along faster; but usually they were idle, and we
were left to float with the stream from three to four miles
in an hour.
The cabin, like other aristocrats, had the large space,
and was planked two cubits higher than the other places,
sun, direct and perpendicular rain. Against sun and rain
oblique, it was often no barrier. The cabin was also subdivided
into parlour and state room. The latter was for
the ladies' sole use, being sumptuously furnished with a
double box or berth, a toilette made of an upturned flour
barrel, and similar elegancies and conveniences, and a
window looking up-stream; which window was a cubit
square and had a flapper or slapper hung with leathern
hinges and fastened with a pin or wooden bolt. The parlour
contained the male boxes or sleeperies; and was the
place where we all boarded—but here comes the captain
and his mate, and we shall be off in what they call
a jiffey—i. e. in a moment or two. Among other articles,
these persons brought a coffee-mill, a saw, about half a
bushel of sausages, and above all, a five gallon keg, which
the captain himself hugged up under his arm next the
heart. What was in it I do not exactly know—it could
not have been water, not having a watery smell, and beside
we all drank river water—it must then remain a secret.
Reader! all is ready! Oh! how soft the blossom-scented
balmy air is breathing! See! the sun light dancing
from one sparkling ripple to another! A most delicious
April morning is inviting us with the blandest smiles to
come and float on the beauteous river far, far away to the
boundless prairies and the endless forests of the New
World! Yes! yes! here is a vision real—and in the
midst of fragrance, and flowers, and sunshine, and with
those we love for comrades, and those we love awaiting
us, we are entering the land, the glorious land of sunsets!
Ah! Clarence—I wonder not at that tear—
“Bill! slue round your 'are side there and we're off,”
interrupted the captain, addressing his mate. Bill, of
course, performed that curious manœuvre with great nautical
skill, and off we were: first one end struggling for
dipping and splashing, till the ark reached the confluence
of the Alleghany and Monongehala; and then one grand
circular movement accomplished that forced the lordly
cabin to the rear, away, away we floated, kitchen in the
van down on the current of the noble, beauteous, glorious
Ohio!
Farewell! Pittsburgh, last city of the cast! Long may
the din and the smoke of thy honest enterprise be heard
and seen by the voyager far down the flood! Farewell!
—the earth-born clouds are veiling thee even now!
There! I see thee again!—Oh! the flash of that tall spire
sending back the sunbeam, like gleams of lightning
from a thunder cloud;—it gleams again—we change our
course—and all is dark!—Pittsburgh! Farewell.
“Ladies and gentlemen” said the Colonel, after we were
fairly under weigh, “suppose we proceed to arrange our
domestic establishment, each agreeing to perform his part
either assumed by himself, or imposed on him by vote—
(he, his, him were used in the sense of homo—and were so
understood by the ladies although unacquainted with Latin
and lectures)—and so suppose we have a regular assembly—
“I move Col. Wilmar take the chair,”—said Mr. Brown.
And this being seconded by Mrs. Carlton, the Colonel
took the chair the best way he could; and that was only
metaphorically by moving off a little from the common
members and leaning against a berth. Miss Wilmar was
next elected Secretary, and accommodated with a trunk
for a seat, and using her lap as a table, she prepared to
record in her pocket book the resolutions of the household
house.
Mr. Brown then was nominated as cook; but as he
insisted that he could cook “never a bit of a male but
stored, the important office was after due deliberation bestowed
on the chairman himself. This was, indeed, very
humbly declined by the Colonel, who left the chair (calling
thither for the time Mr. Clarence,) to exhibit in a very
handsome speech his unworthiness; yet it was at last unanimously
decided in his favour, and mainly on the argument
of Mr. Carlton, that the Colonel had doubtless learned
cooking in his campaigns and when hunting. From some
inaccuracy in wording the resolutions, however, the business
after all only amounted to the cook's having to carry
the victuals to and from the kitchen—lift the culinary
articles about—and poke the fire at the order of the ladies.
Next came a resolution that the ladies should prepare
the cookables—i. e. stuff the chickens with filling—beat
eggs for puddings, and the like. Then it was ordered that
Clarence, Brown and Carlton should in turn set the table—
clean plates, &c,—or in a word—be scullions. The dignity
of history forbids me to conceal, that spite of all our
scouring, and wiping and washing, the cleaned articles
retained an unctuous touch, and looked so streaked, that at
meals the ladies deemed a polish extra necessary. But
non possumus onnia, you know, reader--i. e. we cannot all
clean dishes, as the Latins say.
There were also other resolutions, such as, that the
gentlemen rise betimes and make their beds before the
appearance of the ladies; that two by two they should
take the skiff and go to market, i. e. buy at the cabins on
the banks whatever they had for sale that was eatable,
viz. milk, butter, cheese, eggs, chickens, ducks, venison
hams cured, and fresh venison, &c. &c. The stores laid
in at Pittsburgh were smoked meats, sausages, flour, cornmeal,
tea, coffee, sugar, salt, spices, sweatmeats, some
fruits, and many other things unknown to Noah. We had
also our own plates, knives, lead spoons, and a superb
breakfast service. For a “consideration” the captain
allowed us the use of his big pot, skillet, and Dutch oven;
we had our own coffee-pot and other tins.
From our nicnacries we often supplied the captain's
table with a desert; and finally, when about six hundred
miles down the river, these extemporaneous sailors received
the $16 paid for our passage, they became residuary
heirs to all our unbroken crockery and hardware, and to
the remnant of our flour and smoked meats. The goodies
had disappeared two hundred miles higher.
After the adjournment of our assembly, we proceeded to
arrange the cabin as described, spending the whole day in
“fixing;” an Americanism extended to unfixing, removing,
and deranging, as well as to placing and rendering permanent.
But at ten o'clock, P.M., the pitchy darkness rendered
longer floating hazardous, and we accordingly came,
not to anchor, but to a tie, i. e. working the ark to the nearest
bank, we tied her (an ark contains, if it does not breed)
tied her to a tree, and in the very way formerly done by
the pious æneas and his wandering Trojans. Yet we did
not, as those heroes, sleep on the sand or the grass, but retired
to our berths or boxes, setting a watch, however, to
guard against two dangers of diametrically opposite characters.
First, it was necessary to take care that the tie-rope
neither got loose nor broke, when we should float off
into the perils of a dark river—that is, find too much water;
and, secondly, we must watch the subsidence of the river,
lest she (the ark) be left grounded some two or three feet
from her natural element—that is, lest we find too little
water: a bad fix in English-English as in American-English.
It is very delightful when travellers go to sleep confident
in being one hundred miles advanced in their journey
by the time they are called to breakfast; but not so with
True, we awoke, and got up, and ate breakfast and
dinner, and even tea and supper, and played away the intervals
at checkers with white and red corns, and then
tried push-pin and tee-totum—and tried to read, and wished
for fishing-lines and guns—and walked up the bank
and then walked down again, whistling every now and
then most devoutly, not for wind, but against it: but alas!
the wind would not be whistled against,—it continued to
blow all day long dead ahead up stream, as if it had never
heard us; and there we were all day, all the evening, and
part of the night, in the self-same identical spot where we
came to a tie at ten o'clock, P.M., the night before! And
that was deservedly called a pretty considerable of a fix.
This happened often enough, however, on other occasions,
to practice and improve our patience.
One day, when thus wind-bound about two hundred
miles below the first fix, all the common expedients of beguilement
being tried and exhausted, Colonel Wilmar proposed
marbles—of which he had made a large purchase
for his little sons. And at it we went with the zest of
boyhood. Happy day! how the blue-coloured gentry, that
haunt the inactive, took wing at the sound of our merry and
innocent shouts and laughter! No human habitation was
in sight; and forests that told their age by centuries
stretched their giant-arms over our ring; and from their
venerable depths Echo, for the first time since the creation,
called back, in amazement, the words of our game, to her
more incomprehensible than the heathenish terms of the
native Indians! Oh! how she reiterated “man-lay!—
clearings! — 'fen! — knuckle-down! — toy bone!—go to
baste!(?) — fat! — histings!— comins about!—hit black
alley!—knock his nicker!—'tan't fair!—you cheat!—my
first!—cum multis aliis!” These terms are spelled according
to nature—indeed, my soul becomes indignant when
“Hurraw!” that pitiful, sneaking, soulless, civilized,
“Huzza!” Dare any man say that sounds like the thing?
No more than it looks like it. Freemen! let nice, pretty,
mincing, lady-like dandies huzzay by note—do you ever
cry out Hurraw! ex tempore.
But at length we waked something more substantial than
that bodiless noun—Echo; for lo! on a sudden came answers,
very near and very distinct, if not very melodious,
and from the top of the identical bank beneath which we
were playing. We looked up, and there stood two hunters,
long silent spectators of the strange game, but who having
imbibed the fun of the thing, were now laughing and roaring
away as merry as our party!
After the wind had blown out, we weighed anchor, that
is, untied ark, and floated away till after midnight, when
some clouds so increased the darkness as to prevent our
seeing snags, sawyers and planters, and also the ripples
indicative of shallows, and we tied again. Perhaps it
may be proper here to say a word relative to the above
named impediments in the Western waters.
A planter is the trunk of a tree, perpendicular or inclined,
with one end fixed or planted immoveable in the bottom
of the river, and the other above or below the surface,
according to the state of the water. A snag is a miniature
or youthful planter, or sometimes it is made by an upright
branch of a large tree itself imbedded horizontally in the
bottom. A sawyer is either a long trunk, or more commonly
an entire tree, so fixed that its top plays up and down
with the current and the wind, and is therefore periodically
perilous to the navigator. Ripples are often indices of an
ascending sawyer, and also of shoals, as one approaches
islands wholly or partially submerged. Large and heavy
rafts frequently go against and over most of the smaller
obstacles with impunity, but arks like ours would have been
jeopardy.
I shall not inflict our whole log-book on the reader and
his friends:—how often we tied and untied—went ashore
after butter and eggs and the cum multis—nor how it was
once my lot to be with Mr. Brown in the skiff when he
could not, owing to his extreme longitude, trim boat, and
how the vixen of a boat threatened to upset, and I had to
pull both oars till, weary and long after dark, we overtook
our ark, where fears began to be entertained about us. No,
no,—why should we trespass on patience with the account
of our cookery; our batter cakes, eggs and ham, biscuit
and loaf, johnny cakes, steaks, filled chickens, plum puddings,
and the curious dish of what-nots? And yet it was
really marvellous that our endless varieties could all be
turned out of four utensils: viz. a tea-kettle and a dutch
oven, and a big pot, and a little skillet. Mrs. Goodfellow
did well enough with all her fixtures—but it was reserved
for our ladies to cook, what most cooks and confectioners
knew nothing about—the multum in parvo. Let me, then,
in place of the whole log, introduce a new friend.
In the third day of the descent we began to overhaul an
ark, a size (?) less than ours; but this ark, instead of getting
out of the way, was evidently striving to get into it;
and so, arrived within speaking distance, we were hailed
from the strange float with a proposition to link arks.
Longing for something new, and apprised that combined
arks floated better than single ones, our assent was instantly
given, and then our arks were soon amicably united and
floating side by side. And what would you imagine the
neighbour ark contained? A solitary male Yankee! Ay,
and such a merry, facetious, fearless, handy, 'cute specimen
of the genus as, I guess, was never encountered.
This wonderful biped had left the land of deacons, hard
cider, and other steady habits, in imitation of Jack in the
now, after trying his luck in twenty different places, and
in as many different and even opposite ways, behold!
here was Do-tell-I-want-to-know, lord of a whole ark, a
solitary Noah, floating to a new world at the far end of a
flood, if not beyond one! He had cast off at Pittsburgh some
hours before ourselves, and had sung, whistled, rowed and
eaten his way alone, till we overtook him, when he had hailed
us in a very jocose and half-singing style, and then
brought up his ark with a laugh and a tune. “He was
tired,” he said, “of his company, and had ought to get into
better society,—and seeing we were in a tarnation tearing
hurry, he had ought to tow us down to what-d'-ye-call-the
place?—and as he didn't intend taking advantage of our
weakness, he wouldn't ask any thing for his help—except
his boarding and a dollar a day.”
What-say, however, was very far from vulgarity, and towards
ladies, very respectful; still, he was a choice specimen
of the universal nation, and Mr. Brown looked on him
with astonishment for his peculiarities, but with respect for
his independence and enterprise. Our hero's name was,
oddly enough, Smith. And as he was always called among
us by his surname, I forget whether he told that his Christian
name was Thankful or Preserved—his cognomen,
however, was destined to be a proper noun, for our Yankee
was, par excellence, the Smith.
Notwithstanding his demand for boarding, we could not
induce him to eat with us, anxious as we were to pay, if
not for towing services, yet for fun. True, he could apply
“soft sawder” very judiciously, and indeed, even sometimes
out-general Mr. Brown: who, to tell the truth, could
“do the nate thing with the blarney” himself. I shall
make no attempt to record their quirks, and quizzes, and
repartees, and puns—good things of the sort, like soda-water,
had better be taken at the fountain. What became
But never do I hear of a Smith pre-eminent in handicraft,
from simple clock-making all the way up to patent nutmeg
making; or in the give-and-take line, from limited auction.
eering to enlarged, and liberal, and locomotive peddling of
notions; or in modern literature, from magazine writing
clean up to magnetisms and lyceums that Noah Smith of
the little ark comes not in remembrance. Verily, if not
really metamorphosed, as I sometimes guess, into Sam
Slick or Jonathan his brother, he certainly is, if living--a
very Slick Feller.
The twin arks, as our sailors became bolder and more
skilful or rash, were allowed at last, the wind permitting,
to float all night. One night Smith, then our Palinurus,
suddenly beat to quarters, by drumming his heels against
the partition and ringing his skillet with the only weapon
he carried,—an oyster knife worn usually in his bosom
like a dirk, and with its handle exposed. At the same time,
as accompaniment, he whistled “Yankee doodle” in superb
style, and then exchanged his whistling to the singing
of this extemporaneous lyric:—
And rouse ye, all ye sleepers;
See! down upon us comes a thing
To make us use our peepers.
Yankee doodle, &c.
But 'tis as big as thunder;
Ah! if it hits our loving arks,
We'll soon be split asunder.
Yankee doodle,” &c.
Roused we were, yet, misled by the manner of our pilot,
not as fast as the case really demanded: for just then the
ladies looking from their little window up the river, cried
out in great alarm, “Col. Wilmar!—Mr. Carlton!—make
loose!—it is almost on us!” Of course the fins were soon
manned, and flapped and splashed with very commendable
activity, and just in time to escape the end of an immense
raft now sweeping past and within a very few inches of
Smith's side; while four or five men on the raft were labouring
away at their sweeping oars, showing that our
escape was due to their exertions, and not our own.
Smith, however, who had, it seems, made his calculation,
as soon as he perceived the raft likely to pass very near,
now leaped upon it with a rope in his hand; and with the
permission of the men, and indeed with their assistance too,
held on till he gained the far end of the great float, when,
our arks made fast behind it, we began to go a-head in
earnest.
Safe now from all attacks in the rear—for nothing could
outfloat us—and bidding defiance to planter, snag, and
sawyer, we boxed ourselves up for the remainder of the
night and enjoyed a profound sleep, awaking in due season
to the full reality of our improved condition. And here,
writing in the very noon of gas and steam, I do deliberately
say, after all my experience of cars and boats, that for a
private party of the proper sort nothing is so delightful, so
exhilarating, so truly bewitching to travel in, as twin-arks
towed along by an almost endless raft. To say nothing
of our state room for ladies, parlour for company, kitchen
for cookery, and Smith's whole ark extra for dining and
sitting—there was our grand promenade deck on the raft,
—a deck, full three hundred feet long and fifty broad!
What cared we for bursting boilers?—what for snag
and sawyer? And if any serious injury happened to one
of the trio, or even two, the third unharmed afforded retreat
and shelter. In comfort, convenience, and freedom, two
arks and a long raft carry away the palm.
Indeed, our flotilla was truly poetic and romantic. And
been such a season; it was an old-fashioned April, and of
the most delicious sort. Spring her very self was enticed
by it from her southern retreats, and came to meet and conduct
us to her beauteous domains. How bright and warm
and soft the sunlight of that season! encouraging flower
and leaf to unfold their modest glories to the genial rays!
Did a bank of clouds rest on the horizon? That was no
portent of storm: it was only that a single cloud might be
detached to sprinkle river and hill with “the sunshiny
shower that won't last an hour!” Oh, the joy! then, to
watch the contest between the rainbow tinted drops and
misty sunshine,—the contest for victory! And how the
fish leaped out to catch a pure crystal drop before it fell
and mingled with the flood of turbid waters! And the birds!
—they plunged into the shower of liquid light, bathing their
plumage of gold and scarlet and purple, till it seemed burnished
still brighter in such a bath!
But the sunsets, and the twilight! The witchery then
entranced the very soul! All of poetry, and of shadowy
forms, and of sinless elysium,—all of magic in musings
and dreams—all was embodied there! The etherial floated
on the river's bosom, while its now unruffled waters floated
our rude vessels. It dwelt in the dark mirror, where
shadows of cliff and forest pointed to a depth down, down
away, far beyond the sounding-line. It was melting in the
blazing river, whence farewell rays were reflected as the
sun hid behind some tall and precipitous headland. Ay!
we heard the unearthly in the whispers of eddying waters
sporting around us; and in the sweet and thrilling evening
songs of happy birds! We saw it, till the soul was phrenzied,
as gliding past one island, another in front arose to
intercept, and we were seemingly shut within a fairy lake,
never to find an egress! And here when the breath of
day was done, and the songs of the birds hushed, and Wilmar
oh! the pure, sweet, plaintive, joyous, wild, ravishing cries
of the echoes.
If one would hear the “magic flute,” it must be as then
and there. The Muses haunted then the forest-clad banks
and cliffs; and startled and pleased with the melody of a
strange instrument, they caught its strains—and called to
one another, imitating its tones, till they died away in
the distance. Years after I passed up and down that same
river in steamboats—but in vain did I look for the visions
and listen for the strains of the by-gone evenings. Alas!
April had such showers no more! The noise and fierce
and fiery spirit of the steamers had driven away the gentle
birds and heavenly echoes—and with an oppressed and
melancholy heart I heard, returning from the banks, only
the angry roar of deserted and sullen and indignant forests!
The seventh day was at its close, when we deemed ourselves
so near Limestone, (the modern Maysville,) that it
was determined to send the colonel and the author in the
skiff to that place, in order to have arrangements made before
the arrival of the grand flotilla;—for there the raft
was to be broken up and scattered, and so was our party.
Accordingly, before day-break on the eighth morning, we
set off with the skiff, agreeing to row and steer alternately,
each a mile, as near as could be guessed at: and this
agreeable alternation was called—spelling one another. At
the end of nine spells, we discovered on a bank, just about
“sunup,” a full grown male Buckeye, a little in advance
of his cabin, watching our progress—we hailed:
“Hallow!—how far to Limestone?”
“Ten miles.”
Ten miles!—we had thought it now about a mile—but
the recitation in rowing was not yet ended; and so we went
to spelling it ten times more. We were, of course, perfect
by the time we did reach Limestone; at all events, I was
have never touched an oar! In about an hour after the
colonel and Mr. Carlton arrived at port, the raft, its caboose
in the centre, and our arks in its rear, hove in sight;
and we hurried to the landing with separate conveyances
hired for our separate journeys.
Reader! which way will you go? With the gallant
colonel and the lovely Miss Wilmar, and the faithful Mr.
Clarence to Lexington? or will you stay with Mr. Brown
and Mr. Smith at Limestone? or will you not accompany
Mr. and Mrs. Carlton to the New Purchase? Perhaps you
prefer to shake hands with all:—we, however, of the party
found that no easy task. Many were our pretexts for
lingering—till at last all pretences exhausted—with emotion,
ay, with tears that would come, hands were grasped
—good wishes exchanged—and we uttered with tremulous
voices—Farewell!
| The new purchase, or, Seven and a half years in the far West | |