There Was But A Mile Or So Of
Water On Which She Could Ply, And She Was Forbidden By The Nature
Of Her Properties To Make Any Way Upon Land, The Sheriff's Prey,
Therefore, Was Easy, And The Poor Maid Was Doomed.
In any country in the world but America such would have been the
case; but an American would steam down Phlegethon to save his
property from the sheriff - he would steam down Phlegethon, or get
some one else to do it for him.
Whether or no, in this case, the
captain of the boat was the proprietor, or whether, as I was told,
he was paid for the job, I do not know. But he determined to run
the rapids, and he procured two others to accompany him in the
risk. He got up his steam, and took the Maid up amid the spray
according to his custom. Then, suddenly turning on his course, he,
with one of his companions, fixed himself at the wheel, while the
other remained at his engine. I wish I could look into the mind of
that man, and understand what his thoughts were at that moment -
what were his thoughts and what his beliefs. As to one of the men,
I was told that he was carried down not knowing what he was about
to do but I am inclined to believe that all the three were joined
together in the attempt.
I was told by a man who saw the boat pass under the bridge that she
made one long leap down, as she came thither; that her funnel was
at once knocked flat on the deck by the force of the blow; that the
waters covered her from stem to stern; and that then she rose
again, and skimmed into the whirlpool a mile below. When there she
rode with comparative ease upon the waters, and took the sharp turn
round into the river below without a struggle. The feat was done,
and the Maid was rescued from the sheriff. It is said that she was
sold below at the mouth of the river, and carried from thence over
Lake Ontario, and down the St. Lawrence to Quebec.
CHAPTER VIII.
NORTH AND WEST.
From Niagara we determined to proceed Northwest - as far to the
Northwest as we could go with any reasonable hope of finding
American citizens in a state of political civilization, and perhaps
guided also in some measure by our hopes as to hotel accommodation.
Looking to these two matters, we resolved to get across to the
Mississippi, and to go up that river as far as the town of St. Paul
and the Falls of St. Anthony, which are some twelve miles above the
town; then to descend the river as far as the States of Iowa on the
west and Illinois on the east; and to return eastward through
Chicago and the large cities on the southern shores of Lake Erie,
from whence we would go across to Albany, the capital of New York
state, and down the Hudson to New York, the capital of the Western
World. For such a journey, in which scenery was one great object,
we were rather late, as we did not leave Niagara till the 10th of
October; but though the winters are extremely cold through all this
portion of the American continent - fifteen, twenty, and even
twenty-five degrees below zero being an ordinary state of the
atmosphere in latitudes equal to those of Florence, Nice, and
Turin - nevertheless the autumns are mild, the noonday being always
warm, and the colors of the foliage are then in all their glory. I
was also very anxious to ascertain, if it might be in my power to
do so, with what spirit or true feeling as to the matter the work
of recruiting for the now enormous army of the States was going on
in those remote regions. That men should be on fire in Boston and
New York, in Philadelphia and along the borders of secession, I
could understand. I could understand also that they should be on
fire throughout the cotton, sugar, and rice plantations of the
South. But I could hardly understand that this political fervor
should have communicated itself to the far-off farmers who had
thinly spread themselves over the enormous wheat-growing districts
of the Northwest. St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota, is nine
hundred miles directly north of St. Louis, the most northern point
to which slavery extends in the Western States of the Union; and
the farming lands of Minnesota stretch away again for some hundreds
of miles north and west of St. Paul. Could it be that those scanty
and far-off pioneers of agriculture - those frontier farmers, who
are nearly one-half German and nearly the other half Irish, would
desert their clearings and ruin their chances of progress in the
world for distant wars of which the causes must, as I thought, be
to them unintelligible? I had been told that distance had but lent
enchantment to the view, and that the war was even more popular in
the remote and newly-settled States than in those which have been
longer known as great political bodies. So I resolved that I would
go and see.
It may be as well to explain here that that great political Union
hitherto called the United States of America may be more properly
divided into three than into two distinct interests, In England we
have long heard of North and South as pitted against each other,
and we have always understood that the Southern politicians, or
Democrats, have prevailed over the Northern politicians, or
Republicans, because they were assisted in their views by Northern
men of mark who have held Southern principles - that is, by Northern
men who have been willing to obtain political power by joining
themselves to the Southern party. That, as far as I can
understand, has been the general idea in England, and in a broad
way it has been true, But as years have advanced, and as the States
have extended themselves westward, a third large party has been
formed, which sometimes rejoices to call itself The Great West; and
though, at the present time, the West and the North are joined
together against the South, the interests of the North and West are
not, I think, more closely interwoven than are those of the West
and South; and when the final settlement of this question shall be
made, there will doubtless be great difficulty in satisfying the
different aspirations and feelings of two great free-soil
populations.
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