"But how can any one think of settling in such a melancholy, desolate place?" said Werner, breaking silence, at last, after a long pause, just as the Diana was heaving up the waves from her paddles towards the western shore, till they almost washed the threshold of a hut standing near—"the surrounding swamps must poison the air."
"Certainly," opined Helldorf, "it is a melancholy life they lead who dwell here; but they chiefly view it as means to an end, and therefore put up with it for a year or two, or even for half-a-dozen years."
"And for what end?" asked Werner.
"To earn enough money to enable them to settle in a healthier district, and to buy some little property with what they earn here."
"But why don't the people go to such a spot at once, when land can be had everywhere so readily, as you say; why do they risk having a sickly body when the 'far West' lies open to them, only waiting for the plough?"
"And there are reasons for that too," said Schwarz. "You, no doubt, remember that I have related to you, with how little a man may begin life in the woods; but that little be must have, else he has to contend with too many and too painful obstacles. I can, were I to go now, with an axe and a rifle into the woods, found a home for myself; I can chop trees for my log-house; manage to subsist awhile on dried venison;[25] raise my dwelling with the assistance of my neighbours, and make a couple of acres fit for tillage; that is, I fell the smaller trees which are standing upon it and girdle the rest."
"Girdle?"
"Yes; they call it girdling, when they chop out the bark in a ring, for a hand's breadth or so, round a tree, and which is chiefly practised with very thick trees;[26] then grub up the worst roots; and now I have got my land, what Americans call, fit for ploughing. But where is the plough? There is no money to buy it, and I must borrow it, as well as a horse to draw it. Neighbours will certainly do that, and willingly, too. They assist the settler with all their power, and not unfrequently make the greatest sacrifices for him. But that has not got me out of my difficulties, for now I want seed to sow my field; I want a hoe to earth up the growing stalks of Indian corn; I have to plough again from time to time; I require cooking utensils,—chisels,—augers,—nails. I haven't even a hand-mill to grind the borrowed Indian corn, but must trouble my neighbour for that, too. To-day I want a chain,—to-morrow an iron wedge,—the next day this,—the day after, that, and it does not cease; there is no end of borrowing; so that the neighbours, let them be the most good-natured souls in the world, yet at last must lose patience, and shun the person who merely comes upon their farm to borrow, first one thing and then another, in order that they may not be compelled to give him a refusal.
"All that can be met by a small but reasonably applied capital. When one is in a position to procure the most necessary things, there is no fear afterwards; the circumstances of the farmer improve, although slowly perhaps, yet surely, from year to year, and he may constantly look forward, for himself and his family, to a future free from care. But, to expend the little capital in a really reasonable manner, that is the stumbling-block over which most emigrants, or rather immigrants, fall. They frequently come over to America with not inconsiderable property, but then generally suppose—especially if they have much money—that they can buy the whole world, and allow themselves to be drawn into heedless speculations, of which, as they are ignorant of the country and the language, they understand nothing, and into which they are, for the most part, enticed by designing knaves, who are on the look out for such prey. They afterwards, when it is too late, find out how the swindler, who now laughs at them for their stupidity, was merely intent on appropriating to himself their good money, whilst he was making seductive representations of quickly-to-be-acquired riches; and the more difficult for them does it subsequently become, when they are thrown back upon their personal resources, to begin what, to a certain extent, is a new course of life, and a very unaccustomed and hard course, too.
"Those who come over with small sums have the advantage, at least in this, that from the time of their leaving home, forward, they have not been in a position to form such great pretensions, and therefore, when they have lost that little, they are more easily reconciled to the idea of beginning afresh."