University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

And be assured, reader, it is not “all smoke” you now
see—there is some fire here too. This black place reminds
us of the iron-age—of Jupiter too, and Vulcan and Mount
ætna. Virgil would here have found Cyclops and pounders
of red-hot thunderbolts sonorous enough to set at work in
his musical hexameters. And some here make tubes of
iron, with alternate and spiral “lands and furrows,” better
by far to shoot than Milton's grand and unpatent blunderbusses;
into which his heroic devils put unscientifically
more powder than probably all burned—but that was before
the Lyceum age.

Whenever that soot-cloud is driven before a wind, long
streets are revealed lined with well-built and commodious
dwellings, with here and there a stately mansion, and even
the dusky palace belonging to some lord of coal-pits and
ore-beds.

Hark! how enterprise and industry are raging away!—
while steam and water-power shake the hills to their very
foundation!—and every spot is in a ferment with innumerable
workmen as busy, and as dingy too, as the pragmatical
insects in Virgil's poetic ant-hill! Every breeze is redolent
with nameless odours of factories and work-shops; and the
ear is stunned by the ceaseless uproar from clatter and clang
of cog and wheel—the harsh grating of countless rasps and
files—the ringing of a thousand anvils—the spiteful clickings

of enormous shears biting rods of iron into nails—the
sissing of hot-tongs in water—and the deep earthquaking
bass of forge-hammers teaching rude masses how to assume
the first forms of organic and civilized metal!

Mr. Brown said he was not yet fully awake, but that he
was in a dream amid scenes of Birmingham and Sheffield;
and that instead of astonishing the natives, the natives had
surprised and astonished him.

Why do some speak disparagingly of Pittsburgh complexion?
Is it ordinarily seen? The citizens move enveloped
in cloud—like æneas entering Carthage—and
hence are known rather by their voice than their face.
Their voice is immutable, but their face changes hourly:
hence if the people here are loud talkers, it arises from
the fact just alluded to, and because loud talking is necessary
to cry down the din of a myriad mingled noises.

In very civilized districts, ladies owe their sweet looks
to what is put on their faces; in this Cyclopean city, sweet
looks are owing to what is taken off their faces. Instead,
therefore, of advising bachelors before popping the question,
to catch the inamorata “in the suds,” we advise to
catch her in the soot. If beautiful, then let Cœlebs bless
himself, for he has a gem which water, unlike its baleful
effect on some faces, will only wash brighter and brighter.

As to hearts and manners, if our Mr. Smith be a correct
specimen, go reader, live in Pittsburgh. He was a Christian
gentleman: and in those two words is condensed all
praise. When, as was necessary, our party proceeded on
the voyage without this friend, so great was the vacancy,
we seemed alone—alas! he is no more!