It had begun to
rise when I was at Cincinnati, and since then had gone on increasing
hourly, rising inch by inch up into the towns upon its bank.
I
visited two suburbs of Louisville, both of which were submerged, as
to the streets and ground floors of the houses. At Shipping Port,
one of these suburbs, I saw the women and children clustering in the
up-stairs room, while the men were going about in punts and
wherries, collecting drift-wood from the river for their winter's
firing. In some places bedding and furniture had been brought over
to the high ground, and the women were sitting, guarding their
little property. That village, amid the waters, was a sad sight to
see; but I heard no complaints. There was no tearing of hair and no
gnashing of teeth; no bitter tears or moans of sorrow. The men who
were not at work in the boats stood loafing about in clusters,
looking at the still rising river, but each seemed to be personally
indifferent to the matter. When the house of an American is carried
down the river, he builds himself another, as he would get himself a
new coat when his old coat became unserviceable. But he never
laments or moans for such a loss. Surely there is no other people
so passive under personal misfortune!
Going from Louisville up to St. Louis, I crossed the Ohio River and
passed through parts of Indiana and of Illinois, and, striking the
Mississippi opposite St. Louis, crossed that river also, and then
entered the State of Missouri. The Ohio was, as I have said,
flooded, and we went over it at night. The boat had been moored at
some unaccustomed place. There was no light. The road was deep in
mud up to the axle-tree, and was crowded with wagons and carts,
which in the darkness of the night seemed to have stuck there. But
the man drove his four horses through it all, and into the ferry-
boat, over its side. There were three or four such omnibuses, and
as many wagons, as to each of which I predicted in my own mind some
fatal catastrophe. But they were all driven on to the boat in the
dark, the horses mixing in through each other in a chaos which would
have altogether incapacitated any English coachman. And then the
vessel labored across the flood, going sideways, and hardly keeping
her own against the stream. But we did get over, and were all
driven out again, up to the railway station in safety. On reaching
the Mississippi about the middle of the next day, we found it frozen
over, or rather covered from side to side with blocks of ice which
had forced their way down the river, so that the steam-ferry could
not reach its proper landing. I do not think that we in England
would have attempted the feat of carrying over horses and carriages
under stress of such circumstances. But it was done here. Huge
plankings were laid down over the ice, and omnibuses and wagons were
driven on. In getting out again, these vehicles, each with four
horses, had to be twisted about, and driven in and across the
vessel, and turned in spaces to look at which would have broken the
heart of an English coachman. And then with a spring they were
driven up a bank as steep as a ladder! Ah me! under what mistaken
illusions have I not labored all the days of my youth, in supposing
that no man could drive four horses well but an English stage
coachman! I have seen performances in America - and in Italy and
France also, but above all in America - which would have made the
hair of any English professional driver stand on end.
And in this way I entered St. Louis.
CHAPTER V.
MISSOURI.
Missouri is a slave State, lying to the west of the Mississippi and
to the north of Arkansas. It forms a portion of the territory ceded
by France to the United States in 1803. Indeed, it is difficult to
say how large a portion of the continent of North America is
supposed to be included in that territory. It contains the States
of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas, as also the present
Indian Territory; but it also is said to have contained all the land
lying back from them to the Rocky Mountains, Utah, Nebraska, and
Dakota, and forms no doubt the widest dominion ever ceded by one
nationality to another.
Missouri lies exactly north of the old Missouri compromise line -
that is, 36.30 north. When the Missouri compromise was made it was
arranged that Missouri should be a slave State, but that no other
State north of the 36.30 line should ever become slave soil.
Kentucky and Virginia, as also of course Maryland and Delaware, four
of the old slave States, were already north of that line; but the
compromise was intended to prevent the advance of slavery in the
Northwest. The compromise has been since annulled, on the ground, I
believe, that Congress had not constitutionally the power to declare
that any soil should be free, or that any should be slave soil.
That is a question to be decided by the States themselves, as each
individual State may please. So the compromise was repealed. But
slavery has not on that account advanced. The battle has been
fought in Kansas, and, after a long and terrible struggle, Kansas
has come out of the fight as a free State. Kansas is in the same
parallel of latitude as Virginia, and stretches west as far as the
Rocky Mountains,
When the census of the population of Missouri was taken in 1860, the
slaves amounted to ten per cent. of the whole number. In the Gulf
States the slave population is about forty-five per cent. of the
whole.
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