A whirlwind had evidently descended on this very spot probably within a few days; I say descended, for the whole circumference of the circle devastated did not exceed twenty yards at most. One other tree, yet fixed in the soil, presented an awful example of the might of the tornado. It was a chestnut of the largest size, the trunk near the base being seven or eight feet in circumference; it reclined at what seemed to have been the very focus of the whirlwind; its roots yet clung to earth; but, through the resistance thus offered, the tree had been literally twisted round and round, until it was split into laths, the trunk having the appearance of a great bundle of saplings peeled and twined together by the hand of a Titan, as lads twist withy-wands; the sturdy limbs and spreading branches, although little broken, were wound about and knotted together in a way so curiously complicated as hardly to be made comprehensible without the aid and evidence of sight.
Attracted by this singular forest wreck, I took to moralizing like the melancholy Jaques, though in a strain not quite so well worthy of record; and, losing sight of my company, was for some time thrown out. When I caught the dogs up, it was found Reynard was fairly gone to earth in an inaccessible ravine; so we even left him of necessity to his repose, which had been tolerably well earned by a rattling burst of full six miles on end.
In half an hour after we found again, when we got a second run, which, with a couple of short checks, held us in sport for an hour and a half, with a similar result.
By this time the day was growing smoking hot, whilst the dogs and horses were anything but fresh; so it was agreed to collect our, by this time, scattered forces, and turn the rein once again for the Lodge. To the sound of "merrie horn and loud halloo" we took our way through the pathless forest, picking up now a strayed hound and now a man astray, until, by the time home was reached, all our company was well accounted for; and so ends my last fox-chase in America.
Let me here insert that my hospitable host never followed hound again: he on this day, I remember, regretted to me that a pain in his chest, with a growing difficulty of respiration, prevented his riding as he had once done; within a few weeks after he died, leaving a gap in the hospitality of Baltimore that will be felt by hundreds. Mr. Oliver was one of a class of excellent open-house men, of which class there are specimens to be found in every part of this Union, men whose frank hospitality is of itself sufficient to keep up the reputation of the country amongst strangers: many of these yet live, and I trust will long live, to the lasting honour of the States.
By birth, the subject of this notice was an Irishman; but his affections, his sympathies, his prejudices, were all on the side of his adopted country, which in his eyes had no equal in the world. It was amusing to hear him speak of his visits to Europe: to England only did he cede the right even of comparison; and on the subject of our wines he was quite a sceptic, although he had dined at the best tables, and spoke most warmly of his entertainers. He protested against the wines of England being at all comparable to those of America; nay, I remember he was heretic enough to deny us the supremacy of a rump-steak, and raised his voice against the majesty of Dolly's.
I would not have so much heeded his advancing this heterodox doctrine before Americans, had he not at the same time come well prepared to prove himself qualified to give judgment by producing, hot-and-hot, a steak that even I was compelled to admit might have been entered as A. 1. at Lloyd's.
They possess in the States generally as good beef as need be desired; but, strange to say, with this exception, I have rarely met a tolerable steak, according to our idea of the matter; the secret of which is, the meat is not kept, is full of blood and fibre, and, although excellent of flavour, is not easily disposed of by those who reject the bolting principle, and desire to adhere to the more toilsome plan of mastication.
29th.—Quitted the pleasant banks of the Gunpowder, and, with my old sporting companion, returned to Baltimore. Same day, embarked on board steam-boat for an excursion as far as Petersburg, Virginia, via Norfolk; we had a fine day and night whilst steering through this great bay of the Chesapeake: went to bed late in consequence.
30th.—Coming out of the cabin this morning at an early hour, found we were off the old fort, Point Comfort. Fort Calhoun, a work on which enormous outlay has been made, is not yet completed: the great difficulty appears to be the unstable nature of the bank on which the works are placed: upon the elevation of the terre-plain alone, nearly four thousand cubic yards of sand have been employed; all of which is shipped from the main, and deposited within the fort. It is computed that, by the time this place is fitted to receive a garrison, one hundred thousand tons of stone will have been expended on the works and breakwater which are required as an exterior support to the pressure from within.