LETTER LI.
Steamer Crescent, Gulf of Mexico.
Dear Mr. —:
If the penmanship of this letter be a little wavy,
and old Stephen Hopkins-like, you must attribute it to
the unsteadiness of the ship, which goes prancing and
bounding across the great green waves like a black warhorse,
breathing smoke and fire from his nostrils.
We left New Orleans day before yesterday, with a
large number of passengers, and in a few hours were
past the Balize on the bosom of this inland sea. The
run down the one hundred and twenty miles of river was
very interesting. The shores were lined for many leagues
with the lemon-colored or snow-white villas of the opulent
sugar planters, half hid in groves of oak, elm, and orange
trees, the latter bearing still the scathing marks of the last
frost, which laid their emerald and golden glories in the
dust. It was pleasant, as we steamed along, to see the
families upon their piazzas, watching us with spy-glasses
or waving kerchiefs (the gentlemen red silk and the ladies
cambric) to friends on board, who waved kerchiefs, and
hands, and hats, and scarfs back again; the French people
sending kisses shoreward from the tips of their fingers—a
very graceful feat, and requiring some skill in
archery to send them straight at the ruby lips for which
they are aimed!
I amused myself, as we steamed down, in watching the
fishing canoes of the negroes, and coast luggers, manned
by Spaniards and by French Creoles, which were either
reposing on the water or moving in all directions across
the dark, buff-colored surface. The shores were constantly
beautiful, and with bordering roads as level as a
church aisle for leagues. The “English Turn” is a remarkable
bend, in which the river doubles back upon its
course, and runs northwardly for a few miles, and then
as abruptly shears off southwardly towards the Gulf, as
it ought to do. But great rivers must have their vagaries,
Mr. —, as well as other folks,—and the Father
of Waters, considering his age and experience, may well
be allowed one in his course through the world. But
this one, it is said, sorely puzzled some English boats,
once upon a time, ascending the stream; for when they
found by compass that they were running south again,
they imagined they had only been following an arm of
the gulf, and so turned about, and went back the way
they had come, and thus saved the then French city of
New Orleans from a hostile visit. Hence the name of
the place—at least so said a nautical-looking gentleman
who stood near Isidore, and his bride, and myself, and
kindly volunteered this piece of information; but travelers
sometimes get their ears filled with strange tales,
hence so many veracious Munchausens printed from year
to year by authentic tourists. Dear me! If I should
believe one half I hear in my travels, I might publish out
of the selection a very interesting volume of travels, new
edition, with wood-cuts, beautifully colored, and a portrait
of Mr. Gulliver, jr. facing the title page.
You may depend, Mr. —, upon all I tell you as sober
truth, even the tiger story, that some naughty person has
been so uncivil as to throw doubt upon. Please tell him
never to doubt a lady's word. When we had got about
fifty miles below the city, we had passed the ranges of
sugar estates, and the shores were in the uncultivated
wildness of Nature. They were level to the horizon, and
from the wheel-house, one gazed over a vast savannah
of eternal green—a sea of foliage—amid which, like a
huge, brown, shining serpent, the Mississippi wound and
interwound its tortuous course.
It was novel to see the masts of invisible ships ascending
and descending far across the green level, a league
off, in another portion of the bending river, while at intervals,
from the bosom of the savannah, would rise
columns of black smoke, indicating the passage of a
steamer, the hull of which was invisible below the level
of the tree tops. The sun shone magnificently, and the
air was like that of May in New England. On board,
our party was in fine spirits, and Isabel seemed in her
enjoyment of the trip to forget that she was a “married
lady,” and ought to put away such juvenilities as clapping
her hands at anything striking or pretty she saw
on the shores. Her extreme beauty, and the noble intelligence
in all her face, caused her to be much observed
and greatly admired; while the young gentlemen looked
as if they would like to throw the handsome, happy Isidore
overboard.
How is it that most men always have a lurking dislike
towards a man with a handsome wife? The colonel says
it is so, and he ought to know I suppose. Now, if I see
a lady with a perfect Adonis of a husband—poh! I don't
think of feeling envious of her—not I! I only feel glad
for him—if he looks like a fine-hearted and generous
fellow—that he has got such a handsome wife. But you
men are never half so amiable as we are.
The French gentleman from New Orleans, is on board,
a passenger, and I think he is one of the most agreeable,
modest young men I ever saw. He has somehow read
some of my letters, and has taken quite a fancy to talk
with me. I don't mean to say that he talks love—oh! we
are both too sensible for anything of that kind. We
talk of literary men and women, of the literature of Germany
and Spain, with which he is perfectly familiar; we
talk of nature, of the universe, and its infinite grandeur
and beauty; of the spirit world and of God, the centre
and source of all. Though raised in the Roman faith,
he is, I have discovered, more of a philosopher than a
Christian, and seems to have a religion of his own, which
is based upon his love of the beautiful and good in the
world. He says that if we adore nature, we adore God
who made it. In a word, his piety is intellectual, not
moral; meditative, nothing more; and we have keen arguments
upon the faith of the New Testament. He said
to me to-day,
“I understand God, but I do not understand Jesus.
I do not see the need of Him: He is an incomprehensive
enigma to me.”
Ah, me! I fear I was a poor theologian to argue with
an educated mind like his; but I did my best to show
him the true nature and design of Christ's advent; and
he listened with great attention, and has promised to
read some books I am to lend him.
Before night we came in sight of the Balize, or “Beacon,”
at the outlet of the river, and launched amid the
glories of an autumnal evening, upon the azure bosom
of the Mexican Sea; the gleaming lantern of the Pharos,
at the mouth of the pass, sending after us a long penciled
line of glittering light.
And such a night upon the sea! Oh! how marvellous
the universe above, illimitable and unfathomable in its
splendid stellar mysteries! The delicious breezes blew
off land, and gently ruffled the bosom of the Gulf. There
was a strange light over all the sea, and filling the heavens
and the air. There was no moon, and it must have
come from the myriads of bright stars reflected back
from the sea, multiplied in numbers by the reflection.
Earth absorbs the star-rays, but the sea seems to receive
them mirror-like, to re-light the sky with. It was as
light as dawn, and yet it was near midnight, as I gazed
from the deck upon the starry infinity. In the south,
Sirius hung like a great electric globe, dazzling the eye
like a lesser sun; Orion walked down the west, swordarmed
and belted, flashing like a warrior; and, above
him, Aldebaran beamed with those mystic rays which
have foretold the fate of empires to astrologers; higher
still hung the Pleiades, like a cluster of grapes, and
scintillating with a splendor truly celestial. I never before
saw the stars shine so brightly.
In the north-east, I beheld Arcturus rivaling Sirius
in the south, in stellar magnificence; and around the
solitary Polar Star (in this latitude, low in the north)
paced the Great Bear with majestic strides. Ah! there
is nothing in this world so beautiful as a starry night on
the sea. Heaven above—heaven around—heaven reflected
beneath. There is such a transparency in the
atmosphere, that the skies seem within the reach of the
arm. A tranquillity unspeakable reigns in the upper
air, and the heart is attracted gently upward, and the
thoughts irresistibly dwell on heaven and God, and the
great eternity, of which the skies are a visible emblem.
Speaking of the Pleiades, was there ever a seventh?
and if not, what becomes of Mrs. Heman's sweet address
to the “lost Pleiad?”
I have always loved the stars—loved them more than
the moon. When I was in Tennessee, I was walking
with a little fellow, of four years, on the piazza, who had
just recovered from the measles. He looked up, perhaps
for the first time suffered to be up so late, to see
the stars, and said to me naively, and as if he had made
a discovery,
“Dear Miss Katy, the sties dot the measles!” “No,
buddie,” cried his sister, two years older, “they are only
all freckled!”
Both words are descriptive—and the last decidedly
poetical. It was the same little girl who, looking out
of the window one foggy morning and seeing nothing,
said—
“It looks as if there were no world!”
What can be finer than this? If the sayings of children
were printed, they would make a book surpassing all
others for naturalness, poetry, truth, and originality of
ideas.
It is past midnight on the sea!
