University of Virginia Library

LETTER XXIX.

This is our third day en voyage. How delightful
this mode of traveling, surrounded by all the enchantments
of an elegant home, as we are in this floating palace!
The manner in which we pass our time is more
like that of so many guests in a nobleman's villa, could
you imagine one floating down the Belle Riviere, as the
French missionaries, who first launched their light canoes
upon its tide, picturesquely designated the Ohio. But I
have learned the true Indian name for the river, which
is far prettier than that given by the good father Hennepin.
It is Ohi-o-lee-pee-chinn, or, put together, Ohiolepechin.
It sounds sweetly and musically, and it means
exactly what the French name does, “River of Beauty.”

Not far above us is the celebrated Pirate's Cave on
the bank, its dark mouth half-concealed by over-hanging
trees. It is a romantic spot, and with the adjacent
scenery of cliff, woodland, and river, would form a picture,
if justice were done it, striking enough to hold no
mean rank in the galleries of your Art Union, that enormous
Beaux Arts Lottery.

This cavern had in former times a very naughty reputation.
Some romantic fellow, with a score of reckless
followers, held possession of it for many months before

the introduction of steamers on the river, and levied black
mail on all the descending and ascending trading boats.
Many a tale of hard contests between the parties is told
in the vicinity, and some of these legends are sufficiently
stirring and wild, to have captivated even the magical
pen of Cooper.

The shores of the river are varied as we descend from
the Cumberland, by rock and woodland, and many a
lonely nook where one would love to dwell in some sweet
cottage was presented to the eye as we steamed past.
Towards noon we approached the mouth of the Ohio.
The river now widened and expanded its bosom every
league, as if it would give the Father of Waters, as it
neared him, a false idea of its greatness, as small men
always stretch up and stand on tip-toe when they talk
with a tall man.

“You've never sailed down this river afore, Miss, I
guess,” said, respectfully, an elderly man, with long,
gray hair floating over the shaggy collar of his coarse,
blue overcoat, who was standing near me on the upper
deck, as I was gazing upon the shores, and straining my
vision to behold the distant Mississippi.

“This is the first time, sir,” I answered.

“So I thought the way you look at every thing, Miss,”
he answered. “I have been up and down too often to
find any thing new in the 'Hio, or Massissippi either,
for that matter. The first time I was on this river was
in eighteen hundred and three.”

“So long ago!” I repeated. “This was before the
time of steamboats.”

“Lor' bless you, Miss, steamboats wasn't then thought
on. We used to go in them days in keelboats and flats;

and a pesky long voyage it was to Orleens then, and as
for coming up, I've done in six days in a steamboat what
thirty years agone it took me six months to do; that is,
come up from Orleens to Louisville. Steam is a mighty
'vention, marm, but it blows up a mighty sight o' people!”

Here the old pilot, for such he was, took a flat cake
of tobacco from his pocket, wrapped up in a dingy piece
of oil-cloth, “to keep the strength in,” as he said, tore a
flake of it off with his thumb and forefinger with a skillful
but indescribable movement of the hand, thrust it
into his jaws, and deliberately returned the cake to his
huge pocket.

“It must have been safe and pleasant voyaging in
those days,” I remarked.

“Yes, Miss, it was tol'rable. But it was mighty
slow. Then we had our dangers to run. Thar was the
snags, agen which our boat would sometimes run and
get turned over or sunk; there was the bars we'd get
onto, and lay there till the boat rotted; there was the
wild Indians, as sometimes used to shoot us off when we
ran too near the shore, and then down in the low country
there was them Spanish and French desperattys, as
used to dart out of the creeks and bayous, twenty black-lookin'
chaps in a long snakish-looking boat, all armed,
and attack us and rob us if we didn't fight hard to save
our plunder. Then a'ter a three months' voyage down,
we'd be took with the yaller fever in Orleens an' die, or
we'd lose all our money a gamblin', for we boatmen them
days played cards dreadful bad, and lost a mint o' money
in Orleens.”

“You must prefer steamboating, then, to this old way
of trading,” I said.

“Wall, I don't know 'bout that, Miss! I like both
on 'em, but if had my choice I'd rather keelboat it.
Old times, to my notion, is the best times. I don't see
as men or the world is any better for steamboats, and
railroads, and the telegraphy, and such things. One
thing I know, it's a mighty deal wickeder world than
when I was a boy!”

Here we passed a few houses forming a hamlet, and
landing, on the right bank. Upon asking my communicative
friend what place it was, he answered:

“That, marm, is Trinity, six miles from the mouth.
Do you see that tall sycamore, the tree with the bark
white as your handkerchief eenamost, that stands just
under that bank?”

“Yes; it is a very large and noble monarch of the
forest,” I answered, as I gazed upon one of the most
magnificent trees I have ever seen, beneath the shade
of which a regiment might have reposed.

“I don't know about monarchs, Miss! This is a free
country, and we don't 'llow even our trees to have kings.
There is a grave beneath that tree!” he added, impressively.
“You can't see it, nor I nuther, for it's all
smoothed and over-growed long ago; but right under it
lies buried a young woman, which I never see that tree
without thinking of her, and wonderin' who she was.
She was not more nor twenty, but she had seen sorrow
and trouble enough for a lifetime. We took her on
board forty years ago it will be next month, at Louisville.
She was dressed as a young lad, but none of us
guessed she was a woman. She spoke broken English,
said she wanted to work her way to Orleens. So we
put her to cookin'. She was so gentle and kind-spoken

we all liked him, I mean her. But one morning when
the day broke, just as we were floating down about here,
we found her lying dead on the front part of the boat,
with a dagger buried in her heart. It was a small dagger,
with a silver hilt, sich as I had seen in Orleens
among them pesky Spaniards. We didn't know who did
it. But we buried her there. I dug the grave myself.
There was foul play somewhere. One of our people
said he had heard something swimming about the boat
in the dark, but supposed it was a deer crossing the
river, as they often did in them days, and there was
prints of a man's wet feet upon the boards of the deck,
and I always believed some enemy had followed her
down the river, and swum off and murdered her. But
it's always been a mystery to me; but no doubt it'll all
turn up, marm, at judgment-day!”

Here the boat rounded to for the purpose of taking on
board some passengers, and the pilot left me; but I stood
and gazed long and silently and sadly upon the green
grave of the beautiful stranger, whose secret, as the pilot
had said, was locked up with God. It was a quiet,
shaded spot. A wild grape vine had festooned itself
above the grassy bed of the wanderer, and a few wild
flowers grew upon it. Ah! indeed, how many secrets
will the judgment day reveal!

How profoundly the unknown slept! The hoarse roar
of the escaping steam, the shouts of the voices of the
crew, the oaths of the mate, the dashing of the huge
wheels into the water, the hurry, bustle, and confusion—
how they all contrasted with the unbroken stillness of that
green spot, which death had made sacred! As our boat
resumed her way, I lingered with my eyes upon the

grave, above which, perched upon the grape vine, a robin
had alighted and was singing. Sweet sufferer of a former
day! Though forty years have passed, thou art not forgotten!
Thy memory, cherished in the rough bosom of
the old pilot, shall live in many hearts to whom my feeble
pen shall relate thy brief, sad history. Many a loving
heart and sympathizing bosom shall feel and beat in
kindly sympathy for thee, as thou reposest in thy lonely
grave beside the murmuring tide of the River of Beauty.

At this moment, while I was still gazing on the snowy-armed
sycamore, a fashionable young gentleman, who
had been made acquainted with us, approached me, and
said, with a glance of contempt towards the old pilot:

“What rude fellar was that, Miss Conyngham, that
presumed to address you without an introduction, as I
presume you had not the honor of his acquaintance?
You must pardon the ignorance of these Western men!
They are quite beyond all forms of good society! Didn't
he annoy you excessively?”

“On the contrary, I was much interested in his conversation,”
I answered, with some point in my tones.
“He has ideas.”

“Ah! ideas?” repeated the exquisite, who had sense
enough to comprehend what I wished him to apprehend,
“you are inclined to be severe, Miss Conyngham.
But, Miss Isabel says you are a wit.”

“Indeed! You should be obliged to her for giving you
the information, for you know wits are very dangerous
people to some folks.”

“Yes, I'm afraid of witty people,” he answered, fingering
his glossy whiskers, and then smoothing the glossy
silk of his hat. “Do you know, Miss Conyngham, that

there is a new style of hat coming into fashion? The
brim is to be an inch wider than this—which is the latest
style, and it is to turn up slightly, just the least bit in
the world, all round, even in front! And the band is to
be full two inches wide. You see what an effect this
will produce! This band is but an inch and a quarter.
And then the hat is to bell out full at the top! It strikes
me that it will be a superb affair. But more than all, it
is made of such material as to contract or expand to the
head of the wearer, fitting each bump perfectly, so as to
give no uneasiness; but, so far as that is concerned, I
never experienced any uneasiness from this: my head is
nicely balanced. Dr. — Dr. — what's his name?
—once passed his fingers over my head, and pronounced
it a model of equilibrium. If I have one bump, Miss,
more prominent than another, I conceive that it is—is
combativeness. Yes, I have a great belligerent propensity.
But it is kept in check by an equal amount of
prudence; otherwise, I have no doubt, I should have
fought not one less than forty duels in my life! I see,
Miss, you are admiring my watch seal,” (which the exquisite
was twirling and trying to make me notice). “It
is of California gold, solid! So is the chain. Had it
made to order!—This massive ring, too, is—”

Here the old pilot returned, and said abruptly, without
taking any notice of the person talking to me,

“You see, Miss, that little clump of trees on that
knoll to the left?” and he pointed with his large, brown
hand.

The fop looked daggers at him! But there was a calm
self-possession—a certain native dignity about the rough-coated
old pilot, that commanded his respect and overawed

his combativeness, or I don't know what horrid
scene might have ensued, unless the bump of “prudence”
should come in to counteract the predisposition to combativeness.
Prudence did its duty! The exquisite,
after trying to annihilate the old river Neptune with a
look which was lost on him, turned away with an equal
contempt in his equally-balanced mind both for me and
the pilot.

“Ill-bred! Vulgar tastes!” I heard him mutter, as
he moved off,—terms of his indignation, which were
doubtless intended to be divided equally between my
friend in the shaggy pilot coat and myself.

The clump of trees were peculiar and marked by their
isolated position, standing in advance of the rest of the
shore, quite down into the water.

“I see them, sir!” I answered.

“There is a different story I could tell you about
them;” he said, as if alluding mentally to what he had
narrated about the sycamore tree.

“I should like to hear it!” I replied.

“It ain't a long one. Few words and to the point,”
he answered, as he pulled off a fresh flake of tobacco
from the diminished mass which he carried wrapped up in
the oilskin. “I saw three men shot by the shortest of
them trees; under that ere limb that hangs partly over
the water.”

“Shot!” I repeated, with horror.

“Nothing less, Miss; it was during the war with the
English. Some troops were going to New Orleans to
help Jackson, and three of 'em deserted and were caught,
tried, and shot there, all in one hour, by Col. Mead, the

officer who commanded the fleet of boats. They were
buried under that red bank thar! One of 'em was a
mere lad! He prayed for his widowed mother, that the
Great God above would give her strength to bear the
news, and then, while the tears shone on his cheeks, he
bared his white breast to the guns, and the next moment,
six bullets were tearing up the tender flesh and crashing
into his body. He fell dead! But one of the others
leaped his height into the air with a fearful oath, and
then ran for the river to jump in: but he fell dead on
the grass. Ah, Miss, still and quiet as that pretty little
clump of trees looks now, with the birds a singing in it,
it has witnessed scenes you'd hardly have guessed if you
hadn't been told. Jist so it is, marm, with human natur.
You see a man walking quiet-like, and with a steady lip
and eye among his fellows; but if he should tell you what
he had gone through in his day, you would see that,
though there are pleasant groves like in his heart, and
the birds sing in them, scenes have passed there that
would make us sad if they were told us.

“But, Miss, here we are close at the mouth of the
Ohio, and in a few minutes will be in the Mississippi.
If you'd like to get a better look of the grand sight of
the meetin' of the two greatest rivers in America, you'd
better go forward, and up into the pilot house, for it is
the highest part of the boat, and you can see wider and
farther.”

I thanked my new friend, and sending for Isabel and
the colonel, I was escorted by the hardy old river man,
with a politeness that exquisites might imitate, to the
elevated throne, standing upon which the helmsman governs

the movements and directs the course of our mighty
steamer.

In my next, I shall endeavor to give you my impressions
of “The Meeting of the Waters.”