A DIRGE FOR O’CONNELL.
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BY ANNE C. LYNCH.
———
Throw open once again
The portals of the tomb,
And give among the glorious dead
Another hero room!
Unclose your shadowy ranks,
Illustrious shades unclose!
The valiant Leader, crowned with years,
Goes down to his repose.
The champion of Peace
On many a well-fought field,
Whose bloodless victories left no stain
On his untarnished shield;
A king, though on his brow
No jeweled crown might shine,
A king, although his patriot blood
Glowed from no royal line;
A sovereign o’er a realm
No boundaries can confine.
Whose throne was in a Nation’s heart,
Who reigned by right divine;
A priest at Freedom’s shrine,
Whose kindling words he spoke,
Till the dumb millions from their sleep
To life and hope awoke;
A soldier of the Cross,
Who bore a stainless brand;
The Preacher of a new crusade
To rescue a lost land.
Rome! to thy care is given
The heart whose throbs are o’er;
Eternal City! to thy charge
Take this one relic more!
And Erin, sad and lorn,
Take thou thy sacred trust,
And let the soil he loved so well
Commingle with his dust!
And, Fame, take thou in charge
The patriot’s renown,
And gather from your amaranth fields
Another fadeless crown.
THE ILLINOIS AND THE PRAIRIES.
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BY JAMES K. PAULDING, AUTHOR OF THE “DUTCHMAN’S FIRESIDE,” ETC.
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That gallant officer and enterprising traveler, Major Long, did the Illinois great injustice when he described it as “an extended pool of stagnant water,” for it was, when I saw it, one of the prettiest streams to be found in this country of fine rivers. The width is such as to give a full view of objects on both sides in passing; the basin was full without overflowing; and though the current was gentle, its waters were neither muddy nor stagnant. It should, however, be observed, that my journey was in the season when the rivers of the great Mississippi valley, though beginning to subside, were still high, and that those who wish to see them to advantage should visit the South and West before the heats of summer. Else will they be assuredly disappointed, and accuse me of indulging in a favorite amusement of travelers.
The Illinois, until you approach the Rapids, seems made on purpose for steam navigation, which is seldom, if ever, molested either by winds or waves. With the exception of points where the prairies approach the borders, the river is every where skirted by those magnificent forests which constitute one of the most striking and beautiful features of this new world; and completely sheltered from the storm, seems to glide along unconscious of the uproar of the elements around. It flows through a region which, even in this land of milk and honey, is renowned far and near for its almost unequaled fertility, and the ease with which it may be brought to produce the rich rewards of labor. There is, perhaps, no part of the world where the husbandman labors less, and reaps more, than throughout a great portion of this fine state, on which nature has bestowed her most exuberant bounties.
But, strange to say, I found the good-hearted people, almost without exception, complaining of “hard times,” not arising, however, from the usual sources of war, famine, or pestilence, but from actual abundance. They had more than they knew what to do with, and it was an apt, though melancholy commentary on the wisdom of man, as well as the providence of human legislation, that while the citizens of Illinois, and, indeed, the entire great western valley, were overburthened with all the necessaries of life, a large portion of the laboring poor of England were starving for want of them, simply because their rulers had virtually prohibited one country from relieving the necessities of the other. But for the high duties on flour, grain and provisions, the wants of the poor of England might and would be greatly relieved by the superabundance of the United States, and thus the blessings of Providence bestowed on one country be disseminated among others. But legislators, renowned for their far-reaching sagacity, have decreed otherwise; and the plenty which might become a universal blessing, is made a burthen to one country, while useless to all the rest of the world.
This noble state, as is well known, derives its name from a tribe of Indians, originally called the Illeni, which the French missionaries and explorers, who were the first white men that visited this region, changed into Illinois. They were neither warlike nor brave, and were held in great contempt by the invincible Iroquois and Outagamis, as appears from the following relation of an old traveler. “An Outagami,” says Father Charleroix, “who was burnt by the Illinois, perceiving a Frenchman among the spectators, begged of him that he would help his enemies to torment him; and on being asked why he made this request, replied, ‘because I should have the comfort of dying by the hands of men. My greatest grief is, that I never killed a man.’ ‘But,’ said an Illinois, ‘have you not killed such and such persons?’ ‘True; as for the Illinois, I have killed enough of them, but they are not men.’”
The character of the Indians, and the view of the savage state as found in North America, given by this writer, is so philosophical and just, that I am tempted to transcribe it for the instruction and amusement of the reader. It appears at least to be impartial, which is more than can be said of more recent writers, one class of whom can find nothing to praise, the other nothing to blame in our Indians.
“With a savage appearance, and manners, and customs, which are entirely barbarous, there is observable among them a social kindness, free from almost all the imperfections which so often disturb the peace of society among us. They appear to be without passion; but they do that in cold blood, and sometimes through principle, which the most violent and unbridled passion produces in those who give no ear to reason. They seem to lead the most wretched life in the world; and they were, perhaps, the only happy people on earth, before the knowledge of the objects which so much work upon and seduce us, had excited in them desires which ignorance kept in supineness, and which have not, as yet, made any great ravages among them. We discover in them a mixture of the fiercest and the most gentle manners; the imperfections of wild beasts, united with virtues and qualities of the mind and heart which do the greatest honor to human nature. One would think at first they had no form of government; that they acknowledge neither laws nor subordination; and that living in an entire independence, they suffer themselves to be solely guided by chance, and the wildest caprice. Nevertheless, they enjoy almost all the advantages that a well regulated authority can secure to the best governed nations. Born free and independent, they look with horror on the very shadow of despotic power; but they seldom depart from certain principles and customs founded on good sense, which are to them instead of laws, and which in some measure supply the place of a lawful authority. They will not bear the least restraint; but reason alone keeps them in a kind of subordination, which, from being voluntary, it not less effectual to obtain the end intended.”[[1]]
The Illinois has the same peculiarity I observed in all the rivers of the Mississippi valley. With the exception of here and there a solitary plantation, or a little embryo town, few traces of man appear on its borders until you arrive at the great prairie, above the head of steam navigation, which extends all the way to the lakes. At long distances we came upon one of those evidences of the busy body, man, in the shape of a little village, a clearing, or an establishment for putting up pork for exportation, where I was told, notwithstanding the “hard times,” they throw the ears, feet, and often heads of the swine into the river, to feed the eels and catfish. Indeed, from what I observed throughout the whole extent of my journey, in this suffering region, there is almost as much wasted there as would serve to feed the starving manufacturers of England.
Most of the towns on the river, below the Rapids, have little worthy of attention, and all their glories are prospective; but there is one it would be unpardonable to pass by without a tribute to its surpassing beauties. I refer to Peoria, whose aspect is as soft and gentle as its name. Father Charleroix, I think, calls it Pimitavery, and it lies on the left bank of the Illinois, where it expands into a lake from one to three miles wide, and ten in length. Ascending the bank, you come upon a fine prairie, forming a crescent, of some twelve or fifteen miles, judging by the eye, whose arch is bounded by a bluff, as it is here usually called, but which represents a natural terrace of wonderful regularity, clothed with luxuriant grass, and crowned with open woods, affording as beautiful sites for country residences as can be imagined in dreams. It was Sunday, and in the afternoon, when the sun was low, I took a walk from the town to the terrace, about a mile distant, which is reached by a private road, leading among wheat and corn fields of the greatest luxuriance.
Nothing could be more soft, calm, and alluring than the weather and the scene. The smooth glassy lake lay directly before me, bordered on the farther side by a vast green meadow receding far away, and fringed in the vague distance by a dark barrier of forest, beyond which was nothing but the skies. Between the lake and the terrace on which I stood, lay the thrifty, gay-looking town; to the left, the crescent gracefully curved till it met the lake, while to the right it made a noble sweep, enclosing a level prairie, whose extent I did not pretend to determine; and which, though it had never been sowed or reaped, looked as smooth as a shaven lawn, as green as the most luxuriant meadow. Neither fence nor inclosure of any kind was seen in that quarter, and the cattle dispersed about in all directions, strayed wherever they pleased. While contemplating the scene, the setting sun gradually retired behind the wooded terrace, and the glowing, golden lustre gave place to those transitions of the summer twilight which are so exquisitely touching and beautiful. There was a silence, a repose and loveliness all around, in the earth, in the heavens above, and on the waters, whose effect, if I could only communicate it to my readers, they would thank me for; and never did the sun set on a more holy Sabbath, or one better calculated to call forth grateful homage to the Creator of such an enchanting world.
This little paradise was until recently possessed by the Peoria Indians, a small tribe, which has since receded; and tradition says there was once a considerable settlement of the French on the spot. I was informed there is an extensive old burial-place, not of Indian origin, somewhere on or near the terrace, and noticed that not a few of the names and physiognomies in this quarter were evidently French. There seems a chasm in the forest history of this region, between the relation of Charleroix, which refers to no later period than 1720, and the final cession of the French North American possessions to the English. A series of obscure and unrecorded incidents which have escaped the historian, led to results which for this reason appear unaccountable; and there is, I think, every reason to believe all those discoveries of iron and copper implements, and other evidences of mechanical skill, from which some ingenious writers have inferred that the Indians once possessed arts they have now lost, may be traced to this period, and to adventurous white men, long since forgotten.
Some eight or ten miles above Peoria, just at the point where this charming lake again becomes metamorphosed into its parent river, and in the midst of a solitude which requires only the presence and labors of man to make it one of the gayest as well as most fruitful districts in the world, are the ruins, or rather remains of the modern city of Rome, founded, not built, in the palmy days of speculation wild. These remains consist of the skeleton of a single house, which puts the passing traveler in mind of the voice of one crying in the wilderness of rich, waving prairie, blooming with flowers of every hue and odor. If there is not a city here now, there certainly will be in time; and the long-sighted speculator, whoever he was, only anticipated a generation or two in the march of population. This beautiful region only wants inhabitants, which, whatever people may say, are necessary to the prosperity of cities; and I think it by no means improbable that some hundreds, or perhaps thousands of years hence—which, after all, is nothing compared to eternity—when all the past, present and future glories of the ancient mistress of the world are buried in the bottomless pit of oblivion, the founder of this legitimate successor, though not suckled by a wolf, may take rank with Romulus and Remus, and be immortalized as the parent of a new and more illustrious Rome.
Sailing up the river, among the green meadows, and willows kissing the surface of the waters, amid a silence broken only by the puffing of the steam-pipe, the next object which attracted my attention was a pretty little village pleasantly situated on the right bank, whose name commemorates the residence of old Father Hennepin, who, tradition says, once established a mission here. These early pioneers of the wilderness deserved and attained a great influence over the jealous, independent, impracticable red-man of the new world, and justly claim the respect of those who might never be incited to follow their example. They were unquestionably actuated by the purest, most elevated piety, in thus encountering and overcoming the dangers and privations of the untracked wilderness, and deserve to be respectfully remembered, if not for the success of their endeavors at least for the courage, zeal and perseverance with which they were prosecuted.
Among the earliest and most distinguished of these were Father Louis Hennepin and Joseph Marquette, the former of whom visited Canada somewhere about the year 1676. He remained some time at fort Frontenac, where he constructed a portable chapel, and whence he accompanied the celebrated Louis de La Salle, in a voyage of discovery on the Upper Mississippi, which had been discovered by Father Marquette, six years before. They visited the Falls of Niagara, of which he gives the earliest description on record. It is extremely accurate, as I ascertained by comparison on the spot, and shows what little change the incessant action of these mighty waters has produced in the lapse of almost two centuries. After establishing a post at Niagara, La Salle built the first schooner that ever sailed on the great lakes, and passing through Erie, St. Clair and Huron, entered Michigan, where he erected a fort at the mouth of the river St. Joseph. From thence they proceeded to explore the Mississippi, and it was probably on his return, that Father Hennepin erected his chapel on the spot where now stands the town bearing his name. According to his own account he first descended the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, and returning, ascended that river as high as the Falls of St. Anthony, which are indebted to him for their name. He returned to France, published a relation of his discoveries, came back to this country, and I have not chanced to meet with any further account of him. Whether he ever visited France again, or whether he ended his days on the banks of the Illinois, I cannot say. I went on shore and visited the town, which stands on a high gravel bank—a great rarity in this region—and endeavored to ascertain the spot of the good father’s residence. But there are no aged persons, no depositories of traditionary lore to be found here; and our people are too much taken up with anticipations of the future, to pay much attention to the past. I found no one who could give any precise information, though all were familiar with his name. Hennepin is the county-seat of Putnam; and as it does not, I believe, aspire to the dignity of a great city, like most of its neighbors, will probably flourish long and happily, a memorial of the good father whose name it bears.
Father Joseph Marquette, whose name is also intimately associated with the early discoveries in this region, was a kindred spirit. According to Charleroix, who belonged to the same order of missionary knights errant, “he was a native of Laon, in Picardy, where his family still holds a distinguished rank. He was one of the most illustrious missionaries of new France; he traveled over almost all parts of it, and made many discoveries, the last of which was the Mississippi, which he entered with the Sieur Joliet, in 1673. Two years after this discovery, of which he published an account, as he was going from Chicagou, which is at the bottom of Lake Michigan, to Michilimackinac, he entered the river I am now speaking of, the mouth of which was at the extremity of the low land which, as I have said, we leave to the right in entering. He set up an altar here and said mass. After this he went a little distance to return thanks, and prayed the two men who managed his canoe, to leave him alone for half an hour. This time being expired, they went to seek him, and were greatly surprised to find him dead; but they recollected he said he should finish his journey there. As it was too far from thence to Michilimackinac to carry his body thither, they buried him pretty near the side of the river, which from that time has retired, as if out of respect, to the cape, at the foot of which it now runs, and where it has made a new passage. The year following, one of the men who had performed the last duties to this servant of God, returned to the place where he had buried him, took up his remains, and carried them to Michilimackinac. I could not learn, or else I have forgot, what name this river had before, but at present the savages always call it the river of the Black Gown. The French have given it the name of Father Marquette, and never fail to invoke him when they find themselves in any danger on Lake Michigan.”[[2]] The little river still bears the name, and the spot where he was buried is designated on the maps as Marquette’s grave.
About the head of steam-navigation on the Illinois, and especially near the junction of the canal which will connect the lakes with the Mississippi, cities multiply prodigiously, and are called by the most prodigious names. Most assuredly my countrymen are great at christening places; but still I wish they would consult Tristram Shandy, where they will find a most edifying discussion on the subject. The race of antiquaries who grope their way backward through the obscure labyrinth of time by the clue of names, will assuredly be not a little puzzled, as children are wont to be, to find out who was the father of Zebedee’s children. If they should follow the etymology of names, they will probably come to the conclusion that we derived our parentage from all the nations of the earth, ancient and modern, and had more fathers than children.
Nevertheless I have nothing to say against any of the thriving brood of young cities that multiplied so wonderfully in those happy days when swallows built in young men’s whiskers, and the little hatchet became a great hammer before the iron grew cold. Those especially that have either houses or inhabitants, I wish all possible prosperity, and hope they will one day rival the great cities after which they are christened. But those which have nothing but a name and a lithographic map to demonstrate their existence, cannot expect to be recognized by any traveler of ordinary pretensions to veracity. The commencement of the canal to which allusion has just been made, was the signal for speculation in its immediate vicinity, and six cities were forthwith founded on the prairie between La Salle and Ottawa, a distance of some fourteen miles. As they may possibly perish in embryo before their birth, and thus dodge the antiquary who will be looking for them some centuries hence, I feel it a duty to do all I can to assist his inquiries, lest he should lose his wits in searching for them, as did the pedagogue in Le Sage, in looking for the paulo post futurum of a Greek verb.
The first of these, whose name I don’t choose to remember, is very advantageously situated on a barren rock, at the head of the navigation of a stream which can neither be spelt nor pronounced, and which had no water in it when I passed over. But not to wrong the river, or the long-headed, long-sighted founder of the city, I acknowledge I was informed that sometimes during the melting of the snows on the Rocky Mountains, or after a heavy shower of rain, there was an ample sufficiency of water to float a chip—not a ship, gentle reader—of considerable burthen, into the Illinois. It was therefore the opinion of the unknown and illustrious founder, that nothing could prevent this place from becoming in good time a great commercial emporium; and I was told, but will not vouch for the fact, that he had actually organized a whaling company, and seriously talked of opening a direct trade with China. In short, he looked forward with all the faith of a speculator, which exceeds that of a martyr ten times over, to seeing his city, in a few years, smothered by a corporation, blessed with half a dozen broken banks, and loaded with debts and taxes, in humble emulation of its betters.
In the books of English tenures, there are some whimsical conditions of ownership and occupancy; but I recollect none similar to the city I am commemorating, which denounces a forfeiture of property on all those convicted of either drinking or bringing spirituous liquors therein. No one will question the morality of this regulation, though its prudence may not be so obvious, as many people might suppose that any future purchasers of lots, some of which I was told had been originally sold for two or three hundred dollars each, would require some powerful stimulant in addition to the excitement of speculation. It is doubtful whether any sober man would give such a price at this time. I had almost forgot to mention that this city has neither houses nor inhabitants.
The next brevet city we passed, is just at the foot of the lower rapids of the Illinois, and directly on the margin of the river. It promises rather better than the other, having one house actually built, and another in anticipation. It is really a delightful spot, on a strip of prairie looking like an immense shaven lawn, backed by a high terrace of grassy knobs and precipitous rocks, whose sides and summits are clothed with foliage, along which the gentle river meanders lazily until it comes to the rapids, which, having passed, it pursues its way rejoicing. It might have destroyed the balance of this portion of the new world, had these two great marts been placed on the same side of the river, and accordingly they are prudently located on the opposite shores, in order to preserve the equilibrium. I was told there was a desperate rivalry between them, and great apprehensions are entertained from their competition when they come to be inhabited.
Just above this last-mentioned metropolis, and on the same side of the river, is the Starvation Rock, so called from a tradition, not very ancient, I believe, which tells that a large party of Illinois having sought refuge from the pursuit of a superior force of hostile Indians, were blockaded, and all, save one, perished by famine. This place was visited by Charleroix, in 1720, who ascended the rock, where he found the remains of old palisades, originally created for defence, and the bodies of two Indians, half consumed by fire. He says nothing, however, of the incident from which the place derives its present name. It is one of the most beautiful rocks I ever saw, exhibiting a succession of ledges, displayed horizontally with wonderful regularity, but of an infinite variety of shades and colors, such as is generally observed in cliffs of limestone. At a little distance, beheld through the soft hazy atmosphere of the prairie, it resembles the ruins of a great castle, towering to the height of perhaps two hundred feet, garnished with trees, shrubs, flowers and clambering vines. The whole of this vast fruitful region, from the delta of the Mississippi to the Niagara Ridge, terminating at Lewistown, is, so far as I observed, based on a limestone formation, and the waters every where impregnated with lime. They are said to be wholesome when one is accustomed to their use; but, unfortunately, I never could get used to them, and finally came to the conclusion, that—to vary the old proverb a little to suit the occasion—though Heaven had created the land, the D—l had furnished the water.
The last city I shall commemorate is called after a famous stronghold in Europe, being seated on a ledge of rocks extending from the Illinois into the prairie, and apparently inaccessible on all sides. It is certainly a capital position in a military point of view, and would be invaluable on a frontier. People might live there in great security if they could find any thing to eat. At present the only enemy they would have to fear is famine. Luckily, however, there are no inhabitants, and one need be under no apprehensions on that score. It is a most picturesque spot, the mossy rocks every where interspersed with flowers and verdure, and the summit crowned with an open wood of lofty trees, under which the grass is as green and luxuriant as a lowland meadow. There are several other cities, lying dormant, between this and the town of Ottawa, and no one can predict their future destinies. When the canal connecting the Mississippi and the lakes comes to be finished, as I hope it soon will be, for it is a great national undertaking, and will form the last link to the most extensive inland navigation in the world, there can be little doubt, I think, that this will become a very busy and populous region. Towns will rise up as a matter of course; and, provided they do not ruin each other by their numbers and their rivalry, will flourish to a considerable extent. Those, therefore, who have the wealth of Crœsus, and the patience of Job, may, if they please, speculate in town-lots in these embryo cities, for the benefit of their posterity.
The gallant adventurer La Salle is worthily commemorated in this quarter, by a town and a county called after his name. Among all the hardy and daring pioneers, of the Mississippi valley and the lakes, he stands foremost, and best merits the remembrance and gratitude of the millions who are now enjoying the fruits of his enterprise and sufferings. He built the first vessel that ever floated on the lakes; he explored the Upper and Lower Mississippi, and perished at last by the hands of his companions, who finally shrunk from the perils and privations which he bore without flinching. Mr. Adams, when Secretary of State, in a correspondence with Don Leviz de Onis, the Spanish minister, on the subject of boundaries, pays a most eloquent, well deserved tribute to the genius, hardihood, courage and enterprise of Louis La Salle, but with this exception he has not met with that attention he so justly merits from my countrymen.
The little town of La Salle lies close to the junction of the canal with the Illinois, and was founded by a colony of the sons of old Erin, who were employed in that undertaking. It is a genuine, unadulterated Irish town; the cabins many of them of turf, and all thatched with straw. The number of pigs is only to be matched by that of children, and both are in a most flourishing condition, to judge from the portly dimensions of one and the rosy cheeks of the other. There is no place in the universe where the jolly, hard-working, warm-hearted Irishman can so gloriously luxuriate in the paradise of potatoes. The reader will please to understand that notwithstanding the number of great cities hereabouts, the entire prairie from Peru to Chicago, with here and there an occasional exception, is in a state of nature, although one of the fairest and richest portions of the earth. They began at the wrong end, or rather, they put the cart before the horse, and laid out towns instead of cultivating land. This is one of the prominent foibles of that sanguine, enterprising, anticipating and gallant race which is daily adventuring into the boundless region of the West. They are not content with land of inexhaustible fertility, but almost every tenth man aspires to be the founder of a city. Instead, therefore, of laying out his farm into fields, he lays it out into a town, which he calls after his own name, with a ville at the end of it; or he dams up the river, builds a mill, and lays the foundation of a series of bilious complaints, that descend to his posterity to the second or third generation. Hence the number of towns is out of all proportion to the number of inhabitants. With very many of them, their generation is a mere spasmodic effort of speculation. They consequently exhibit an appearance of prosperity for a few years; are then suddenly arrested, and either never grow any more, or dwindle away to nothing. A despotic monarch like Peter the Great may create a city where he will, but with all his power he cannot perpetuate its existence beyond his own, unless it possesses natural advantages to attract voluntary settlers. Private persons should beware how they undertake to found cities. They may build houses, but they cannot fill them with people.
The town of La Salle, unlike some of it neighbors, was conceived and brought forth in the natural way, that is, the people preceded the houses. When the honest Irish laborers came to work on the canal, they according to custom built themselves cabins, about the spot where they commenced their labors. As the land was neither cultivated nor enclosed, they employed their leisure hours in digging ditches about a piece of prairie large enough for a potato-patch, and sometimes a small patch of wheat or corn. Here, with little labor, they raised as much as supplied them with bread, or a substitute; and though the canal has for some years been discontinued for lack of means, these people continue to cultivate their little fields, which are wonderfully productive, frequently making new enclosures, and sometimes erecting frame houses. If the land belonged to the United States they were protected by the right of preemption, and if to a private citizen, it was his interest to let them alone, as there was no danger of the soil being exhausted, and he was thus saved the labor of the first ploughing, which is the most expensive of all the process of cultivation here. Thus these honest, laborious people live quite comfortably, waiting the period of recommencing the canal, and some of them perhaps able to purchase the land on which they reside, provided it is not laid out in cities, which is very probable, for you can hardly put down your foot without crushing one of these mushrooms.
Ottawa, like La Salle, is a real bona fide town, with houses and inhabitants. Its age is some twelve or fifteen years, and the number of its people from twelve to fifteen hundred. I found the situation so peculiarly agreeable, and the hotel so comfortable, that I determined to remain awhile, and amuse myself with making little excursions about the neighborhood, than which nothing can be more beautiful. The town stands at the junction of the Fox River with the Illinois. They are both clear, limpid streams, and though coming from far distant lands, meet and mingle together as quietly as if they had been friends from their birth. The scenery is as gentle as the rivers, and as mild and mellow as one of Claude’s pictures, that actually makes a real connoisseur yawn and stretch to look at it. In one direction the eye passes over a long narrow prairie, all one rich expanse of grass and flowers, through which the Illinois sometimes hurries rapidly over a ledge of rocks, at others meanders lazily along. On either side of the river, the prairie is bounded by those remarkable terraces which form one of the more beautiful features of this region. They rise abruptly from the green level sward, to the height, I should imagine, of one hundred and fifty feet, in some places presenting a smooth grassy bank, whose ascent is dotted and their summits crowned with trees; in others, walls of perpendicular rocks disposed in regular strata, of varied tints, diversified with all sorts of verdure peeping from out the crevices. These terraces seem created on purpose for houses, from the porches or windows of which the proprietors of the rich fields and meadows beneath, might overlook their beautiful possessions, and thank a bounteous Providence for having cast their lot, not in Araby, but Illinois the blest.
Looking toward the north, from my window at the hotel, the great rolling prairie, extending from Ottawa to Chicago, presented itself in a succession of gentle risings and waving lines, all green, yet of such various shades, that there was nothing like sameness or dull insipidity. The Fox River approaches in this direction, and may be seen stealing its way with many windings of coy reluctance, toward that union with the Illinois where it is to lose its name and identity forever. Indeed, in all directions the views are almost unequaled for softness and delicacy, and I hope I may be pardoned for this vain attempt to communicate to my readers a portion of the pleasure I derived from their contemplation. Travelers have a right to such indulgence, since nothing can be more disinterested than for a man to undergo the fatigue of visiting distant places, merely for the gratification of making others as wise as himself.
Ottawa is a fine place for sportsmen, most especially those disciples of Job and St. Anthony who deal with the fishes. The traditionary fishing in the Illinois and Fox Rivers is capital, and there is scarcely a man to be met with, who has not at least once in his life been eminently successful. But it is certainly somewhat peculiar to the gentle science of angling, that the best fishing is always the greatest way off. It is never where you happen to be, but always somewhere else. It is never in the present tense, but always in the past or the future. However excellent it be on the spot, it is always better somewhere else: and the farther you go, the farther off, to the end of the chapter. Then, ten to one, it is too late, or too early; the sun shines too bright; the wind blows too hard, or does not blow at all. In short, there is ever some untoward circumstance in the way of success, and I know no school of patience and philosophy superior to the noble apprenticeship to angling.
The fishing is however good, both in the Fox River and the Illinois. There is a large species called trout, rather from its habits than appearance, which frequents the rapids, and is a noble subject for the angler; while the vulgar fisherman, who affects the still water, may now and then luxuriate in a cat-fish weighing ten or fifteen pounds, and ugly enough to frighten a member of a militia court-martial. There is also the gar-fish, of great size, whose pleasure it is to let you toss him up into the air, without ever catching him, and then see him plump down into the water with the bait, perhaps hook and all, in his jaws. On the whole, however, the sport is extremely agreeable, and the little excursions to the various points renowned for angling, present such a succession of charming scenes, that no one can complain he toiled all day long and caught no fish, who has preserved the happy faculty of enjoying the smiling earth and balmy air.
Add to this, the prairies abound in a species of grouse, affording equal sport to the fowler and the epicure. I am no shot, but my excellent host, who well deserves a passing notice, and who does credit to the Empire state, of which he is a native, was both a capital shot and a first rate angler. Indeed he could do almost any thing, and merited the title of an universal genius as much as any man I have met with. He would every morning rig out his little wagon, drawn by a rough uncivilized Indian pony, which, like old Virginia, “never tires,” and followed by a couple of dogs, sally out on the prairie, whence he never returned without a supply of game. The summer climate is here by no means oppressive; the storms never last a whole day; and, in short, I know few places where a man fond of rural scenes, rural sports, and quiet enjoyments, might spend his time more pleasantly than at the comfortable quarters of mine host at Ottawa, whose name is Delano, and whose house is on the margin of Fox River. “May he live a thousand years, and his shadow never be less.”
Leaving Ottawa, I embarked on the sea of the prairie, and after proceeding a few miles came to a settlement of Norwegians, consisting of a little straggling village, encompassed by luxuriant fields of wheat and corn, showing forth the rich rewards of industry operating in a fertile soil. The buildings and other appendages indicated not only comfort but competency, and I could not avoid being struck with the singularity of a community from the remote regions of Northern Europe planting itself in this secluded spot in the very bosom of the New World. Yet this is by no means a solitary example. Go where we will in the great region of the West, we perceive new evidence of the proud and happy destiny of our country, in being above all others on the face of the earth, the land toward which the eager and longing eye of hope is cast from every corner of Christendom: the land to which poverty turns for relief from its sufferings, and the oppressed for the enjoyment of the rights bestowed by God and filched away by man; the land which alone yields an adequate reward to labor, and gives to honest enterprise its fair field for exertion; the land where pining wretchedness never descends as an heir-loom from generation to generation, and want is not, like wealth, hereditary; the New World, which a gracious Providence seems to have reserved as a refuge and a home to the swarms of industrious bees driven from the parent hive for want of room, want of employment, and want of bread.
This, after all, is the crowning chaplet that adorns the brow of our great republic, and long may it be before it withers. The triumphs of arms, art and literature fade in comparison with those of humanity, and that country which affords the greatest plenty of the necessaries and comforts of life to the greatest proportion of human beings, may justly challenge a pre-eminence over those which place their claims to that distinction merely on the ground of arts and refinements, whose influence is confined to a few, and contributes but little to the happiness, and less to the virtues even of those who make it the sole foundation of their assumptions of superiority. While our country continues to be the refuge of the honest, industrious poor of Europe, who cares for their boasts of those paltry refinements, those exquisite effeminacies, which in all past ages, and in every nation of the world, have been the sure precursors of decay and dissolution. When the descendants of those who were driven to the United States by the privations and discouragements they encountered at home, shall begin to leave the land of their refuge, and return to the bosom of the country of their forefathers in search of bread which they cannot procure here, then, and not till then, may the renovated Old World justly boast of that superiority which is now little more than a dream of long past times.
I have lately seen in some of the English papers exaggerated pictures of the condition of the United States, founded, probably, in the policy of encouraging emigration to her own possessions, or derived from the reports of some few disappointed emigrants who have returned home. It was proclaimed that the country was crushed with debts it never could repay without impoverishing the people by taxation; that labor could neither find employment nor receive adequate reward; that an universal blight had come over the land, and every where withered its prosperity; that the states were bankrupt and the people beggars. All this is sheer declamation. There never has been any thing like widely extended, much less general distress in the United States, arising from a deprivation or curtailment of the necessaries or comforts of life. There never was a time when any class, or any considerable proportion of a class, approached within a thousand degrees, that poverty and destitution which is the common lot of so large a portion of the laboring people of the Old World. The country has at all times been blessed with a plenty, a superfluity, an exuberance of every product essential to human existence, and those who could not obtain them, were either unwilling to make the necessary exertions, or unable to do so by sickness or some other untoward circumstance. The distress complained of is not positive, but comparative. We may be restricted in our luxuries, but the land, from one wide extreme to the other, is absolutely flowing with milk and honey, and it is little less than flying in the face of the bounties of Heaven to complain of hard times, which can only be traced to a superabundance of every thing, and shrink to the earth under the pressure of a debt, the whole of which could be paid is less time than it was contracted, without incurring one-fourth of the burden sustained by the people of England. But we have been spoiled by prosperity Fortuna nisirium quem foret stultum facit. Fifty years of almost uninterrupted prosperity had turned our heads, and it is to be hoped a few years of wholesome reaction will restore us to reason. The sudden cessation of a favorable gale often saves the vessel from running on the rocks and being dashed to pieces.
The prairies have already been described as well perhaps as they ever will be, because they are a sort of lusus naturæ, and there is nothing with which to compare them. To tell of what ingredients they are composed is easy enough, but to give a just idea of the effects of their combination, requires analogies not to be found in the other productions of nature, nor in the imagery of the mind. Although substantial realities, they present nothing but deceptions, and I believe it is beyond the power of language, almost imagination, to exaggerate the strange and beautiful combination of what is, and what is not, sporting together in perfect harmony on these boundless plains. The eye becomes at length wearied with being thus perpetually the dupe of imaginary forms, and imaginary distances, while the mind involuntary revolts at the deceptions practiced on the senses. Mr. Bryant in poetry, and Mr. Hoffman and Mr. Catlin in prose, have done all that can be done to convey to those who have never seen them an impression of the effect of these happy eccentricities of nature, and the beautiful phantasmagoria they exhibit forth to the senses and the imagination.
If ever miser were pardoned for coveting his neighbors land, it might be such land as the prairies of Illinois, where man labors almost without the sweat of his brow, and the crops are so abundant that all I heard the good people complain of was having more than they knew what to do with. This is indeed a lamentable state of things, and it were I think much to be wished that some of our philosophical lecturers would discuss the relative advantages of having too much and too little of a good thing. The case of an individual being overburthened with superfluity, is easily disposed of, as he has only to turn it over to his neighbors who may be in want; but when entire communities, states and confederations of states, labor under this inconvenience, where nobody wants, and all have plenty to bestow; in other words, where all wish to sell and nobody cares to buy, it must be confessed there occurs a crisis of such deplorable difficulty, that I can conceive no effectual remedy except two or three years of famine like those which succeeded the seven years of plenty in Egypt. This would consume the mischievous surplus, and rid them of an evil which as it never before occurred, has never been provided against by the wisdom of legislation, which most people believe can perform impossibilities. But be this as it may, I passed over a vast region where the table of every man groaned under superfluities, and every brood of swine wasted more corn than would supply bread to a family of English manufacturers. Yet I found all, without exception, in the last stage of hopeless despondency, until one day I entered the log-cabin of an old negro woman, a slave, who was enjoying her pipe at ease, and upon asking the usual commonplace question of “how times went with her,” was answered with the most cheerful alacrity—“O bravely, massa. Hens ’gin to lay finely.” We hear of nations suffering from famine, but my unfortunate countrymen complain of nothing but plenty. Whence comes this strange paradox? Is it because men have sought to invent artificial means of prosperity which act in direct opposition to the great general laws of Providence, and are thus punished for their presumptuous folly by a new, unheard of infliction?
After riding a distance of some seventy or eighty miles on the prairie, over the best natural roads in the world, I halted at the house of a Dutch farmer from the banks of the Hudson, where I heard that old patriarchal language spoken for the first time in many years. There are several descendants of the ancient Hollanders settled in this quarter, to which they are tempted by the broad rich flats, and the easiness of their cultivation. I have observed that those who partake largely in this blood, though almost uniformly steady and industrious in their habits, don’t much like hard, fatiguing work. They prefer labor where there is no violent exertion or straining, no heavy burthens to lift or carry, and no call for extraordinary efforts to achieve what may be accomplished in the ordinary way without them. Hence they are great amateurs in good land, easy to cultivate and yielding liberal returns. In this I think they are perfectly right. Without doubt, it is the destiny of civilized man to labor, that is in moderation. But to labor without the rewards of labor; to be for ever toiling, and panting, and sweating over a piece of rough, stony land, on which the malediction of eternal barrenness has been denounced ever since the creation of the world; to be ever sowing wheat and reaping nothing but tares, is in my opinion, utterly unphilosophical, and unworthy of all men who can go farther and fare better.
A particular occasion had drawn together at this spot a large cavalcade of both sexes, gayly caparisoned and well-mounted, many of the females being equipped in riding-habits, hats with feathers, and all more or less picturesque in their appearance. They chose to accompany the carriage to a little town about six or seven miles distant, over a beautiful expanse of prairie, or as it might be aptly termed, “faerie land,” exhibiting a succession of grassy lawns and beds of flowers of hundreds of acres, marshaled under different colors, some were red, some blue, and others entirely yellow. It is difficult to imagine a more gay and beautiful spectacle than that presented on this occasion. The sky was sufficiently obscured to temper the glare of sunshine, which is sometimes here painful to the eye, and the playful cavalcade, consisting of perhaps an hundred, indulged in a thousand careless, graceful evolutions on the level greensward, that seemed without beginning or end, and offered no obstruction in any direction. Sometimes a pair of riders of both sexes would dash out from the throng, and scamper away until they appeared like shadows against the distant horizon; and at others, the whole mass would separate in different directions, skimming over the plain like Arabs on their winged steeds, their different colored dresses and picturesque costumes rendering the scene indescribably gay and animating. The females all without exception sat and managed their horses with that perfect skill and grace arising from constant habit, and upon the whole, I never witnessed any exhibition that could compare with this ride on the prairie of Illinois in romantic interest and novelty.
Thus, toward evening, I reached the pleasant town which was to be my resting-place for the night. By some strange perversion of ignorance, or freak of vanity, it is nicknamed Juliet, instead of Joliet, from the old pioneer of that name, who established his quarters here in olden time on a mount, which, fortunately, has escaped being travestied into Juliet, and still preserves his name. This mount is one of the most remarkable, as well as beautiful objects in nature. It rises directly from the prairie to the height, I should judge, of more than an hundred feet; is clothed with a rich velvet coat of grass on all sides, as well as at the summit; is entirely distinct from any other eminence; comprises an area of six or eight acres, and is as regular and perfect in construction, form, and outline, as any work of art I ever saw. It has been generally taken by travelers for a creation of those mysterious mound-builders, whose name and history have passed into oblivion, and who have left no memorials of their existence but such as render it only more inexplicable. It is, however, as I ascertained, a production of the cunning hand of Nature, who sometimes, it would seem, amuses herself by showing how much she can excel her illegitimate sister, Art, even in her most successful attempts at imitation. The canal connecting the Illinois with the lakes, runs directly at the foot of this mount, which with something like Gothic barbarity has been deeply excavated on one side, in order to form the outward bank. This process has disclosed a succession of different strata of earth, clay, and gravel, all regularly defined, and evidently not the work of man, but of the world of craters, which beyond doubt covered all the surrounding country, long posterior to the subsiding of the great deluge.
The Sieur Joliet, who tradition says, once resided on the top of this mount, which is flat and comprises several acres of rich meadow, was one of the adventurous heroes who first found their way from Canada to the Valley of the West. Little is known of him, except that he preceded or accompanied La Salle in some of his discoveries on the Mississippi, for which, says Charleroix, “he received a grant of the island of Anticosti, which extends about forty degrees north-west and south-east, and lies at the mouth of the River St. Lawrence. But they made him no great present; it is absolutely good for nothing. It is poorly wooded, its soil is barren, and it has not a single harbor where a ship can lie in safety.” I regret to differ with the good father, whose description shows it to be eminently calculated for the site of a great emporium, and am surprised that it has hitherto escaped the notice of our illustrious founders of cities in places where it is all rocks and no water. But be this as it may, the Sieur Joliet is particularly unfortunate in having been rewarded for his services by an island worth nothing, and defrauded by ignorance or vanity of the honor of giving his name to a beautiful and thriving town.
Some fifteen years ago the place occupied by the town of Joliet was the seat of Black Hawk’s power. It now contains twelve or fifteen hundred white people, and is a busy, growing place, with reasonable anticipations of becoming considerably larger in good time. The frank, hospitable, spirited, and intelligent people of this noble region of the West, must not, however, calculate too confidently on all their towns becoming great cities because they grow with astonishing rapidity at the first starting. Great cities, like great men, do not spring up in all places and every where. A large portion of these towns, like children, will probably increase in size the first few years, more than in all their lives afterward. Many will stop short in their growth, and many will gradually be swallowed up by some neighboring rival, whose natural advantages, or some fortunate concurrence of circumstances, will enable it to secure the ascendancy, and render all the others tributary to its prosperity. When this ascendency is permanently acquired, nothing but inferior towns can flourish in its immediate vicinity, and like all great bodies, they will become the centre of attraction.
The canal connecting the Mississippi with the Lakes runs through the town, and is here finished in a most admirable and substantial manner. It is identified with the River Des Planes, which has been circumscribed by a wall to prevent its overflowing. There are here two locks, and a basin, equal to any I have ever seen, and indeed, all the permanent stonework of this canal appears to have been done in the most substantial and perfect style. A canal completing a line of inland water communication to the extent of from three to four thousand miles, by a cut of scarcely more than a hundred, through a region which is almost an apparent level, and presents perhaps fewer natural obstructions than any other of the same extent to be found elsewhere, is not only a noble, but a feasible undertaking. Its advantages are too obvious to require enumeration; it is in fact, essentially a national work, and stands a monument of rational foresight, among a thousand visionary schemes of sanguine folly, or selfish fraud. It is already more than two-thirds completed, and I conceive that New York is almost as deeply interested in the final issue as Illinois.
Leaving this fair and flourishing town, which still affords me many agreeable recollections of natural beauty and kind hospitality, I visited in my way to Chicago, the village of Lockport, which has grown up in anticipation of the completion of the canal. The descent of the River Des Planes is here sufficient to afford ample water-power for mills and manufactories, and this, in a country so level that the water half the time does not know which way to run, is quite enough to excite the sanguine adventurers to this promised land to a degree of delirium, and set them “kalkilating,” as Sam Slick has it, a hundred degrees beyond the ratio of geometrical progression. There is little reason to doubt that Lockport will become a considerable manufacturing town in process of time, after the canal is finished; but the far-sighted seekers into futurity would perhaps do well to bear in mind, that there must be people before there are cities; that these latter are the children, not the parents of the country, and that it is not good policy to wait so long for the grass to grow that two or three generations of steeds starve in the meantime. It is well to look a little to the present as well as the future, and not be for ever gazing at the shadowy mountain in the distance, least we fall into the ditch directly under our noses.
A few hours ride in a delightful morning, partly over rich cultivated prairie lands, brought me to Chicago, at the southern extremity of Lake Michigan. It is a fine town, and notwithstanding the blight of speculation which has swept the land from Dan to Beersheba, continues steadily on the increase. This is the best possible proof of innate constitutional vigor, and affords sufficient augury of its future growth and prosperity. To all these sanguine young cities and citizens, might I assume the universal privilege of giving advice, I would recommend the maxim of the wise Emperor Augustus, though I confess it is somewhat anti-republican to cite such an authority—festina lente—hasten slowly—be not in too great a hurry to grow big and to get rich, and do not crow before daylight, like ambitious young roosters, who aspire to be beforehand with the sun.
After remaining three or four days at Chicago, and making several agreeable acquaintances, among which was an enterprising old gentleman of four score, who had come there, as he said, “to seek his fortune,” I bade farewell to the State of Illinois, bearing on my mind the impression that there was not in any country of the known world, a region of the same extent combining within itself a greater portion of the elements of substantial and enduring prosperity. At the same time, I could not help lamenting that blessed as it is in its soil, its climate, its geographical position, and its industrious population, it had been precipitated from the summit of hope to the lowest abyss of debt and depression, by turning its back on the advantages which nature had gratuitously bestowed, to snatch at others that Providence had withheld. Though the immediate source of these pressing difficulties of the state, is without doubt improvident legislation, yet let not the good people of Illinois lay all the blame on their law-makers and rulers. They were chosen by their own free voices, and in many cases, for the express purpose of carrying out those very projects which in their vast accumulation have created these embarrassments. It was the feverish anxiety, the headlong haste, the insatiable passion for growing rich in a hurry, independently of the exertions of labor and the savings of economy, that brought them and other states where they are now standing shivering on the verge of bankruptcy.
In the United States the people are the sovereign, and all power either for good or evil emanates from them. If they allow their own passions, or the seductions of others, to lead them astray, it is but a weak evasion to cast the blame on those who were only enabled to perpetrate the offence by the power which they themselves delegated. Let them then set about retrieving the consequences of their adherence to mischievous maxims and habits, by returning to those which if firmly adopted and steadily pursued, will be speedily followed by returning prosperity. Let the contest be, not who is to blame for the evil, but who shall be foremost in proposing an effectual remedy and contributing all in his power to bring it about. In short, let them only save as much in the next, as they wasted in the last twenty years, instead of resorting for relief to the very measure which produced the disease, and place their affairs in the hands of clear-sighted honest men, instead of great financiers, whose only expedient for paying one debt is contracting another, and my life on it, they will redeem themselves in less time than it took to enthral them. But we who live in glass houses should never throw stones. Illinois has enough of the sisterhood to keep her in countenance.
| [1] | Charleroix, vol. ii. p. 102, 103. |
| [2] | Charleroix, vol. ii. p. 73. |