Through the land of the strapping, thick-ribbed pioneers of Kentucky the strollers bent their course––a country where towns and hamlets were rapidly springing up in the smiling valleys or on the fertile hillsides; where new families dropping in, and old ones obeying the injunction to be “fruitful and multiply” had so swelled the population that the region, but a short time before sparsely settled, now teemed with a sturdy people. To Barnes’ satisfaction, many of the roads were all that could have been wished for, the turnpike system of the center of the state reflecting unbounded credit upon its builders.
If a people may be judged by its highways, Kentucky, thus early, with its macadamized roads deserved a prominent place in the sisterhood of states. Moreover, while mindful always of her own internal advancement, she persistently maintained an ever-watchful eye and closest scrutiny on the parental government and the acts of congress. “Give a Kentuckian a plug of tobacco and a political antagonist and he 214 will spend a comfortable day where’er he may be,” has been happily said. It was this hardy, horse-raising, tobacco-growing community which had given the peerless Clay to the administrative councils of the country; it was this rugged cattle-breeding, whisky-distilling people which had offered the fearless Zach Taylor to spread the country’s renown on the martial field.
What sunny memories were woven in that pilgrimage for the strollers! Remembrance of the corn-husking festivities, and the lads who, having found the red ears, kissed the lasses of their choice; of the dancing that followed––double-shuffle, Kentucky heel-tap, pigeon wing or Arkansas hoe-down! And mingling with the remembrance of such pleasing diversions were the yet more satisfying recollections of large audiences, generous-minded people and substantial rewards, well-won; rewards which enabled them shortly afterward to pay by post the landlord from whom they had fled.
Down the Father of Waters a month or so after their flight into the blue grass country steamed the packet bearing the company of players, leaving behind them the Chariot of the Muses.
At the time of their voyage down the Mississippi “the science of piloting was not a thing of the dead and pathetic past,” and wonderful accounts were written of the autocrats of the wheel and the characteristics of the ever-changing, ever-capricious river. “Accidents!” says an early steamboat captain. “Oh, sometimes we run foul of a snag or sawyer, occasionally 215 collapse a boiler and blow up sky-high. We get used to these little matters and don’t mind them.”
None of these trifling incidents was experienced by the players, however, who thereby lost, according to the Munchausens of the period, half of the pleasure and excitement of the trip. In fact, nothing more stirring than taking on wood from a flatboat alongside, or throwing a plank ashore for a passenger, varied the monotony of the hour, and, approaching their destination, the last day on the “floating palace” dawned serenely, uneventfully.
The gray of early morn became suffused with red, like the flush of life on a pallid cheek. Arrows of light shot out above the trees; an expectant hush pervaded the forest. Inside the cabin a sleepy negro began the formidable task of sweeping. This duty completed, he shook a bell, which feature of his daily occupation the darky entered into with diabolical energy, and soon the ear-rending discord brought the passengers on deck. But hot cornbread, steaks and steaming coffee speedily restored that equanimity of temper disturbed by the morning’s clangorous summons.
Breakfast over, some of the gentlemen repaired to the boiler deck for the enjoyment of cigars, the ladies surrounded the piano in the cabin, while a gambler busied himself in getting into the good graces of a young fellow who was seeing the world. Less lonely became the shores, as the boat, panting as if from long exertion, steamed on. Carrolton and Lafayette were 216 left behind. Now along the banks stretched the showy houses and slave plantations of the sugar planters; and soon, from the deck of the boat, the dome of the St. Charles and the cathedral towers loomed against the sky.
Beyond a mile or so of muddy water and a formidable fleet of old hulks, disreputable barges and “small fry broad-horns,” lay Algiers, graceless itself as the uninviting foreground; looking out contemplatively from its squalor at the inspiring view of Nouvelle Orleans, with the freighters, granaries and steamboats, three stories high, floating past; comparing its own inertia––if a city can be presumed capable of such edifying consciousness!––with the aspect of the busy levee, where cotton bales, sugar hogsheads, molasses casks, tobacco, hemp and other staple articles of the South, formed, as it were, a bulwark, or fortification of peace, for the habitations behind it. Such was the external appearance––suggestive of commerce––of that little center whose social and bohemian life was yet more interesting than its mercantile features.
At that period the city boasted of its Addison of letters––since forgotten; its Feu-de-joie, the peerless dancer, whose beauty had fired the Duke Gambade to that extravagant conduct which made the recipient of those marked attentions the talk of the town; its Roscius of the drama; its irresistible ingenue, the lovely, little Fantoccini; and its theatrical carpet-knight, M. Grimacier, whose intrigue with the stately and, heretofore, saintly Madame Etalage had, it was said 217 later, much to do with the unhappy taking-off of that ostentatious and haughty lady. It had Mlle. Affettuoso, songstress, with, it is true, an occasional break in her trill; and, last, but not least, that general friend of mankind, more puissant, powerful and necessary than all the nightingales, butterflies, or men of letters––who, nevertheless, are well enough in their places!––Tortier, the only Tortier, who carried the art de cuisine to ravishing perfection, whose ragouts were sonnets in sauce and whose fricassees nothing less than idyls!