The steamers had left off running below Bâton Rouge, so I resolved to leave my gig at New Orleans, procuring in its stead a sort of dearborn or railed cart, in which I packed the whole of my traps, consisting of a medley of blankets and axes, barrows and ploughshares, cotton shirts and cooking utensils. Upon the top of all this I perched myself; and those who had known me only three or four months previously as the gay and fashionable Mr Howard, one of the leaders of the ton, the deviser and proposer of fêtes, balls, and gaieties of all kinds, might well have laughed, could they have seen me half buried amongst pots and pans, bottles and bundles, spades and mattocks, and suchlike useful but homely instruments. There was nobody there to laugh, however, or to cry either. Tears were then scarce articles in New Orleans; for people had got accustomed to death, and their feelings were more or less blunted. But even had the yellow fever not been there, I doubt if any one would have laughed at me; there is too much sound sense amongst us. Our town beauties—ay, the most fashionable and elegant of them—think nothing of installing themselves, with their newly wedded husbands, in the aforesaid dearborns, and moving off to the far west, leaving behind them all the comforts and luxuries among which they have been brought up. Whoever travels in our backwoods, will often come across scenes and interiors such as the boldest romance writer would never dare to invent. Newly married couples, whose childhood and early youth have been spent in the enjoyment of all the superfluities of civilization, will buy a piece of good land far in the depths of forests and prairies, and found a new existence for themselves and their children. One meets with their dwellings in abundance—log-houses, consisting for the most part of one room and a small kitchen: on the walls of the former the horses' saddles and harness, and the husband's working clothes, manufactured often by the delicate hands of his lady; in one corner, a harp or a piano; on the table, perhaps, a few numbers of the North American or Southern reviews, and some Washington or New York papers. A strange mixture of wild and civilized life. It is thus that our Johnsons, our Livingstons, and Ranselaers, and hundreds, ay, thousands of families, our Jeffersons and Washingtons, commenced; and truly it is to be hoped, that the rising generation will not despise the custom of their forefathers, or reject this healthy means of renovating the blood and vigour of the community.
To return to my own proceedings. I got upon my dearborn, in order to leave as soon as possible the pestilential atmosphere of New Orleans; and I had just established myself amongst my goods and chattels, when Cæsar came running up in great exultation, with a new cloak which he had been so lucky as to find lying before the door of a deserted house in the suburb. I took hold of the infected garment with a pair of tongs, and pitched it as far as I was able from the cart, to the great dismay of Cæsar, who could not understand why I should throw away a thing which he assured me was well worth twenty dollars. We set off, and soon got out of the town. Not a living creature was to be seen as far as the eye could reach along the straight road. On the right hand side, the suburb of the Annunciation was enclosed in wooden palisades, upon which enormous bills were posted, containing proclamations by the mayor of the town, and headed with the word "Infected," in letters that could be read half a mile off. These proclamations, however, were unnecessary. New Orleans looked more like a churchyard than a city; and we did not meet five persons during the whole of our drive along the new canal road.
At the first plantation at which we halted, in order to give the horses a feed, gates and doors were all shut in our faces, and the hospitable owner of the house warned us to be off. As this warning was conveyed in the shape of a couple of rifle-barrels protruded through the jalousies, we did not think it advisable to neglect it. The reception was cheerless enough; but we came from New Orleans, and could expect no better one. Cæsar, however, dauntless as his celebrated namesake, jumped over a paling, and plucked an armful of Indian corn ears, which he gave to the horses; an earthen pan served to fetch them water from the Mississippi, and after a short pause we resumed our journey. Five times, I remember, we halted, and were received in the same humane and hospitable manner, until at last we reached the plantation of my friend Bankes. We had come fifty miles under a burning sun, and had passed more than fifty plantations, each with its commodious and elegant villa built upon it; but we had not yet seen a human face. Here, however, I hoped to find shelter and refreshment; but in that hope I was doomed to be disappointed.
"From New Orleans?" enquired the voice of my friend through the jalousies of his verandah.
"To be sure," answered I.
"Then begone, friend, and be d——d to you!" was the affectionate reply of the worthy Mr Bankes, who was, nevertheless, kind enough to cause a huge ham and accessories, together with half a dozen well-filled bottles, to be placed outside the door—a sort of mute intimation that he was happy to see us, so long as we did not cross his threshold. I had a hearty laugh at this half-and-half hospitality, eat and drank, wrapped myself in a blanket, and slept, with the blue vault for a covering, as well or better than the president.
In the morning, before starting, I shouted out a "Thank ye! and be d——d to you!" by way of remerciment; and then we resumed our march.
At last, upon the third evening, we managed to get our heads under a roof at the town of Bâton Rouge, in the house of an old French soldier, who laughed at the yellow fever as he had formerly done at the Cossacks and Mamelukes; and the following morning we started for the Red River, in the steamboat Clayborne. By nightfall we reached my domain.
Santa Virgen! exclaims the Spaniard in his extremity of grief and perplexity: what I exclaimed, I am sure I do not remember; but I know that my hair stood on end, when I beheld, for the first time, the so-called improvements on my new property. The habitable and comfortable house was a species of pigsty, built out of the rough branches of trees, without doors, windows, or roof. There was I to dwell, and that in a season when the thermometer was ranging between ninety-five and a hundred degrees. The very badness of things, however, stimulated us to exertion; we set to work, and in two days had built a couple of very decent huts, the only inconvenience of which was, that when it rained hard, we were obliged to take refuge under a neighbouring cotton-tree. Fortunately, out of the two thousand acres, there really were fifty in a state of cultivation, and that helped us. I planted and kept house as well as I could: in the daytime I ploughed and sowed; and in the evening I mended the harness and the holes in my inexpressibles. With society I was little troubled, seeing that my nearest neighbour lived five-and-twenty miles off. The first summer passed in this manner; the second was a little better; and the third better still—until at last the way of life became endurable. There is nothing in the world impracticable; and Napoleon never spoke a truer word than when he said, "Impossible!—C'est le mot d'un fou!"
And then a hunting-party in the savannahs of Louisiana or Arkansas!