*
Leaving the lakes of Canada, we came to Pittsburg at the confluence of the Kentucky and Ohio rivers; here the landscape unfolds an extraordinary stateliness. Nevertheless, this magnificent country is called Kentucky after its river, whose name means "river of blood." It owes this name to its beauty: for more than two centuries the nations on the side of the Cherokees and of the Iroquois nations fought for the possession of its hunting-fields.
Will the European generations be more virtuous and more free upon those banks than were the exterminated American generations? Shall slaves not till the soil beneath the lash of their masters, in these deserts of man's primeval independence? Shall prisons and gallows not fill the places of the open hut and the tall tulip-tree where the bird builds its nest? Shall the richness of the soil not cause new wars to burst forth? Shall Kentucky cease to be the "Land of Blood," and shall the monuments of the arts beautify the banks of the Ohio to better purpose than the monuments of nature?
After passing the Wabash, the Cypress, the Cumberland, the Cherokee, or Tennessee, the Yellowbank, one comes to a tongue of land often submerged beneath the mighty waters: here is formed the confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi in latitude 36° 51'. The two rivers oppose an equal resistance to one another and relax the force of their currents; for some miles they sleep side by side without mingling in the same bed, like two great peoples at first of different origins and then combining to form but one race; like two illustrious combatants sharing the same couch after a battle; like a husband and wife born of hostile blood, who at first have but little inclination to mingle their destinies in the nuptial bed.
And I, too, even as the mighty urns of the rivers, have poured forth my life's small current, now on this, now on that side of the mountain; capricious in my straying, but never malignant; preferring the poor glens to the rich plains, stopping at the flowers rather than at the palaces. For that matter, I was so charmed with my rambles that I gave scarce a further thought to the Pole. A party of traders, who had come from among the Creeks, in Florida, gave me leave to accompany them.
We set out for the countries known at that time by the general name of the Floridas, today divided into the States of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee. We followed, more or less closely, paths now connected by the high-road which runs from Natchez to Nashville, through Jackson and Florence, and which enters Virginia by way of Knoxville and Salem: a country very little frequented at that time, although Bartram[509] had explored its lakes and sites. The planters of Georgia and Florida proper went to the various tribes of the Creeks to buy horses and half-wild cattle, which multiplied indefinitely in the savannahs pierced by the wells at whose edges I placed Atala and Chactas. They even extended their journey as far as Ohio.
I sail up the Ohio River.
We ran before a stiff breeze. The Ohio, swollen by a hundred rivers, passed now through the lakes which opened out before us, now through the woods. Islands stood out in the middle of the lakes. We made sail for one of the largest of these: we came alongside at eight in the morning.
I crossed a meadow strewn with ragwort with its yellow flowers, hollyhocks with their pink plumes, and obelarias with purple egrets. An Indian ruin struck my eyes. The contrast between this ruin and the youth of nature, this monument of men in a desert, caused a great emotion. What people dwelt upon this island? Its name, its race, the time of its passing? Did it live at the time when the world in whose midst it lay hidden was as yet unknown to the three other quarters of the globe? The silence of this people was perhaps contemporaneous with the fame of some great nations that have in their turn lapsed into silence[510].
Sandy anfractuosities, ruins or tumuli issued from amid poppies with red flowers hanging at the end of bent, pale-green stalks. The stem and the flower have an aroma which clings to the fingers when one touches the plant. The perfume which outlives the flower is an image of the memory of a life spent in solitude.