The rosy light streamed over hills covered with
gigantic trees, and park-like glades watered by the fair Ohio.
There were
bowers of myrtle, and vineyards ready for the vintage, and the rich
aromatic scent wafted from groves of blossoming magnolias told me that we
were in a different clime, and had reached the sunny south. And before us,
placed within a perfect amphitheatre of swelling hills, reposed a huge
city, whose countless spires reflected the beams of the morning sun - the
creation of yesterday - Cincinnati, the "Queen City of the West." I drove
straight to Burnet House, almost the finest edifice in the town, and after
travelling a thousand miles in forty-two hours, without either water or a
hair-brush, it was the greatest possible luxury to be able to remove the
accumulations of soot, dust, and cinders of two days and nights. I spent
three days at Clifton, a romantic village three miles from Cincinnati, at
the hospitable house of Dr. Millvaine, the Bishop of Ohio; but it would be
an ill return for the kindness which I there experienced to give details
of my visit, or gratify curiosity by describing family life in one of the
"homes of the New World."
CHAPTER VII.
The Queen City continued - Its beauties - Its inhabitants human and equine -
An American church - Where chairs and bedsteads come from - Pigs and pork - A
peep into Kentucky - Popular opinions respecting slavery - The curse of
America.
The important towns in the United States bear designations of a more
poetical nature than might be expected from so commercial a people. New
York is the Empire City - Philadelphia the City of Brotherly Love -
Cleveland the Forest City - Chicago the Prairie City - and Cincinnati the
Queen City of the West. These names are no less appropriate than poetical,
and none more so than that applied to Cincinnati. The view from any of the
terraced heights round the town is magnificent. I saw it first bathed in
the mellow light of a declining sun. Hill beyond hill, clothed with the
rich verdure of an almost tropical clime, slopes of vineyards just ready
for the wine-press, [Footnote: Grapes are grown in such profusion in the
Southern and Western States, that I have seen damaged bunches thrown to
the pigs. Americans find it difficult to understand how highly this fruit
is prized in England. An American lady, when dining at Apsley House,
observed that the Duke of Wellington was cutting up a cluster of grapes
into small bunches, and she wondered that this illustrious man should give
himself such unnecessary trouble. When the servant handed round the plate
containing these, she took them all, and could not account for the amused
and even censuring looks of some of the other guests, till she heard that
it was expected that she should have helped herself to one bunch only of
the hothouse treasure.] magnolias with their fragrant blossoms, and that
queen of trees the beautiful ilanthus, the "tree of heaven" as it is
called; and everywhere foliage so luxuriant that it looked as if autumn
and decay could never come.
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