The weather continuing bad, and I having but little money, I resolved to accept work if I could find it. Three brothers living here, who seemed good sort of people, were ready to employ me. We were to agree about the wages after a week’s trial. The next day saw me sally forth early in the morning, armed with a heavy hoe, to the unaccustomed work of rooting up bushes. It made the muscles and sinews of my arms ache and swell, so it happened very opportunely for me that the following day was the festival of the Three Kings, and as the honest Germans do no work on that day, I was very much obliged to the Three Kings for their appearance. But though they would not work for themselves, we all went, according to the custom here, to help build a house for a neighbor, who had lately settled, and for which the logs were already cut and collected.
The week passed by without further incident. I worked very hard, and it seemed all the harder as it was the first time that I had to work incessantly. As the brothers offered me no more than eight dollars a month, I thought that I should find better pay in Little Rock, so took the two dollars that I had earned, bade them all a hearty farewell, and went on my way in good spirits.
Next morning I came to the most important lead mines of Missouri, not far from Farmington, a pretty little town. The lead was laid in great heaps on both sides of the road, and as it looked very like silver, it was capable of making a strong impression on any one who possessed a slightly excitable imagination. As my bullets were getting scarce, I took a couple of pounds from one of the heaps, in order to cast a few in the next house that I stopped at. All these mines are private property, and the workmen carry on their excavations when they please, wherever they expect to find ore, and are paid according to the quantity they procure; if they find none, they receive nothing, and many poor fellows have worked for weeks in vain. Their labors are carried on in the simplest manner. A workman, or generally two together, come and offer themselves; a certain space is given, and while one digs, the other clears out the shaft; sometimes they find a vein of pure lead, in which case they are very well paid. The whole place is so full of holes, that it is very dangerous to go about at night. The proprietors have erected smelting furnaces on the ground between the shafts, where the ore is cast into pigs, and then it is forwarded to the Mississippi.
I passed the following night in the house of an American family. The owner had a herd of remarkably fine cattle, as well as a fine breed of horses. Soon after I was seated in the warm chimney corner, I heard the gallop of a horse. It stopped at the house, the door opened, and in stepped a very pretty girl, with her little riding-whip in her hand, and her color heightened by the sharp ride; she was received by all with a warm welcome, and seemed to be the betrothed of one of the young men, near whom she sat, and began to joke.
Passing through Frederickstown, I reached Currant river, the boundary of Missouri, on the 22nd of January; the water was so clear, that although it was about fifteen feet deep where I passed, the smallest objects could be distinctly seen at the bottom.
CHAPTER IV.
ARKANSAS, AND “DOWN RIVER” TO NEW ORLEANS.
Wild turkeys—Spring river—Traces of earlier inhabitants of North America—An eagle—Quack-doctors in Arkansas—My unsuccessful hunting-dog—Little Red river—German and Polish settlers—Hilger and Turoski—Encampment of Indians—Their love for ardent spirits—Little Rock—Engagement as stoker on board the “Fox”—Unhealthiness of the stoker’s avocations—Quarrel with the captain, and conclusion of the engagement—Night in the woods—A panther—Bear hunt—Great Red river—Slave plantations—Cruelty of the overseers towards the negroes—Large herd of deer—Capture of a panther—Dangerous encounter with a bear—Excursion with an Indian tribe—Their mode of life—Canoe travelling—The Mississippi—New Orleans—Its appearance, and unhealthy situation.