After The Holidays, When Their Hair Becomes Long, And Their Winter
Coat Is Quite Grown, Their Hide Is Soft And
Tender, and tears easily when
dressed, and it would be folly to kill them, even if there were no law
Against it." He went on to find a parallel to the case of the deer-skins
in the hides of neat-cattle, which, when brought from a hot country, like
South America, are firmer and tougher than when obtained in a colder
climate like ours.
The Wyoming traveller gave a bad account of the health, just at present,
of the beautiful valley in which he lived. "We have never before," said
he, "known what it was to have the fever and ague among us, but now it is
very common, as well as other fevers. The season has neither been
uncommonly wet nor uncommonly dry, but it has been uncommonly hot." I
heard the same account of various other districts in Pennsylvania. Mifflin
county, for example, was sickly this season, as well as other parts of the
state which, hitherto have been almost uniformly healthy. Here, however,
in Stroudsburg and its neighborhood, they boasted that the fever and ague
had never yet made its appearance.
I was glad to hear a good account of the pecuniary circumstances of the
Pennsylvania farmers. They got in debt like every body else during the
prosperous years of 1835 and 1836, and have been ever since working
themselves gradually out of it. "I have never," said an intelligent
gentleman of Stroudsburg, "known the owners of the farms so free from
debt, and so generally easy and prosperous in their condition, as at this
moment." It is to be hoped that having been so successful in paying their
private debts, they will now try what can be done with the debt of the
state.
We left Stroudsburg this morning - one of the finest mornings of this
autumnal season - and soon climbed an eminence which looked down upon
Cherry Hollow. This place reminded me, with the exception of its forests,
of the valleys in the Peak of Derbyshire, the same rounded summits, the
same green, basin-like hollows. But here, on the hill-sides, were tall
groves of oak and chestnut, instead of the brown heath; and the large
stone houses of the German householders were very unlike the Derbyshire
cottages. The valley is four miles in length, and its eastern extremity is
washed by the Delaware. Climbing out of this valley and passing for some
miles through yellow woods and fields of springing corn, not Indian corn,
we found ourselves at length travelling on the side of another long
valley, which terminates at its southern extremity in the Wind Gap.
The Wind Gap is an opening in the same mountain ridge which is cloven by
the Water Gap, but, unlike that, it extends only about half-way down to
the base. Through this opening, bordered on each side by large loose
blocks of stone, the road passes. After you have reached the open country
beyond, you look back and see the ridge stretching away eastward towards
the Water Gap, and in the other direction towards the southwest till it
sinks out of sight, a rocky wall of uniform height, with this opening in
the midst, which looks as if part of the mountain had here fallen into an
abyss below. Beyond the Wind Gap we came to the village of Windham, lying
in the shelter of this mountain barrier, and here, about twelve o'clock,
our driver stopped a moment at an inn to give water to his horses. The
bar-room was full of fresh-colored young men in military uniforms, talking
Pennsylvania German rather rapidly and vociferously. They surrounded a
thick-set man, in a cap and shirt-sleeves, whom they called Tscho, or
Joe, and insisted that he should give them a tune on his fiddle.
"Spiel, Tscho, spiel, spiel," was shouted on every side, and at last Tscho
took the floor with a fiddle and began to play. About a dozen of the young
men stood up on the floor, in couples, facing each other, and hammered out
the tune with their feet, giving a tread or tap on the floor to correspond
with every note of the instrument, and occasionally crossing from side to
side. I have never seen dancing more diligently performed.
When the player had drawn the final squeak from his violin, we got into
our vehicle, and in somewhat more than an hour were entering the little
village of Nazareth, pleasantly situated among fields the autumnal verdure
of which indicated their fertility. Nazareth is a Moravian village, of
four or five hundred inhabitants, looking prodigiously like a little town
of the old world, except that it is more neatly kept. The houses are
square and solid, of stone or brick, built immediately on the street; a
pavement of broad flags runs under their windows, and between the flags
and the carriage-way is a row of trees. In the centre of the village is a
square with an arcade for a market, and a little aside from the main
street, in a hollow covered with bright green grass, is another square, in
the midst of which stands a large white church. Near it is an avenue, with
two immense lime-trees growing at the gate, leading to the field in which
they bury their dead. Looking upon this square is a large building, three
or four stories high, where a school for boys is kept, to which pupils are
sent from various parts of the country, and which enjoys a very good
reputation. We entered the garden of this school, an inclosure thickly
overshadowed with tall forest and exotic trees of various kinds, with
shrubs below, and winding walks and summer-houses and benches. The boys of
the school were amusing themselves under the trees, and the arched walks
were ringing with their shrill voices.
We visited also the burying place, which is situated on a little eminence,
backed with a wood, and commands a view of the village.
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