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73

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PICTURESQUE AMERICA;

OR,

THE LAND WE LIVE IN. ,^,_»«,^

A DELINEATION BY PEN AND PENCIL

OF

THE MOUNTAINS, RIVERS, LAKES, FORESTS, WATER-FALLS, SHORES,

CANONS, VALLEYS, CITIES, AND OTHER PICTURESQUE

FEATURES OF OUR COUNTRY.

W\\\ |Utt^tvati(j»^ m f tert mi ^00^ bg immeut gtrntrian %xM%

EDITED BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

VOL. I.

NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

S49 & 551 BROADWAY.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872,

By D. APPLETON & CO.,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

PREFACE.

-_3

< ri

IT is the design of the pubHcation entitled " PICTURESQUE America " to present full descriptions and elaborate pictorial delineations of the scenery characteristic of all the different parts of our country. The wealth of material for this purpose is almost boundless.

It will be admitted that our country abounds with scenery new to the artist's pencil, of a varied char- acter, whether beautiful or grand, or formed of those sharper but no less striking combinations of outline which belong to neither of these classes. In the Old World every spot remarkable in these respects has been visited by the artist ; studied and sketched again and again ; observed in sunshine and in the shade of clouds, and regarded from every point of view that may give variety to the delineation. Both those who see in a landscape only what it shows to common eyes, and those whose imagination, like that of Turner, transfigures and glorifies whatever they look at, have made of these places, for the most part, all that could be made of them, until a desire is felt for the elements of natural beauty in new combinations, and for regions not yet rifled of all that they can yield to the pencil. Art sighs to carry her conquests into new realms. On our continent, and within the limits of our Republic, she finds them — primitive forests, in which the huge trunks of a past generation of trees lie mouldering in the shade of their aged descendants ; mountains and valleys, gorges and rivers, and tracts of sea-coast, which the foot of the artist has never trod ; and glens murmuring with water-falls which his ear has never heard. Thousands of charming nooks are waiting to yield their beauty to the pencil of the first comer. On the two great oceans which border our league of States, and in the vast space between them, we find a variety of sce- nery which no other single country can boast of In other parts of the globe are a few mountains which attain a greater altitude than any within our limits, but the mere difference in height adds nothing to the impression made on the spectator. Among our White Mountains, our Catskills, our Alleghanies, our Rocky Mountains, and our Sierra Nevada, we have some of the wildest and most beautiful scenery in the world. On our majestic rivers — among the largest on either continent — and on our lakes — the largest and noblest in the world — the country often wears an aspect in which beauty is blended with majesty; aid on our prairies and savannas the spectator, surprised at the vastness of their features, finds himself, notwithstanding the soft and gentle sweep of their outlines, overpowered with a sense of sublimity.

By means of the overland communications lately opened between the Atlantic coast and that of the Pacific, we have now easy access to scenery of a most remarkable character. For those who would see Nature in her grandest forms of snow-clad mountain, deep valley, rocky pinnacle, precipice, and chasm, there is no longer any occasion to cross the ocean. A rapid journey by railway over the plains that stretch westward from the Mississippi, brings the tourist into a region of the Rocky Mountains rivalling Switzerland in its scenery of rock piled on rock, up to the region of the clouds. But Switzerland has no such groves on its mountain-sides, nor has even Libanus, with its ancient cedars, as those which raise the astonishment of the visitor to that Western region — trees of such prodigious height and enormous dimen- mensions that, to attain their present bulk, we might imagine them to have sprouted from the seed at the time of the Trojan War. Another feature of that region is so remarkable as to have enriched our lan- guage with a new word ; and caiion, as the Spaniards write it, or canyon, as it is often spelled by our people,

iv PREFACE.

signifies one of those chasms between perpendicular walls ot rock — chasms of fearful depth and of length like that of a river, reporting of some mighty convulsion of Nature in ages that have left no record save in these displacements of the crust of our globe. Nor should we overlook in this enumeration the scenery of the desert, as it is seen in all its dreariness, not without offering subjects for the pencil, in those tracts of our Western possessions where rains never fall nor springs gush to moisten the soil.

When we speak of the scenery in our country rivalling that of Switzerland, we do not mean to imply that it has not a distinct and peculiar aspect. In mountain-scenery Nature does not repeat her- self any more than in the human countenance. The traveller among the Pyrenees sees at a glance that he is not among the Alps. There is something in the forms and tints by which he is surrounded, and even in the lights which fall upon them, that impresses him with the idea of an essential difference. So, when he journeys among the steeps, and gorges, and fountains of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, he well perceives that he is neither among the Alps nor the Pyrenees. The precipices wear outlines of their own, the soil has its peculiar vegetation, the clouds and the sky have their distinct physiognomy.

Here, then, is a field for the artist almost without Hmits. It is no wonder that, with such an abun- dance and diversity of subjects for the pencil of the landscape-painter, his art should flourish in our country, and that some of those by whom it is practised should have made themselves illustrious by their works. Amid this great variety, however, and in a territory of such great extent, parts of which are but newly explored and other parts yet unvisited by sketchers, it is certain that no country has within its borders so many beautiful spots altogether unfamiHar to its own people. It is quite safe to assert that a book of American scenery, like " PICTURESQUE AMERICA," will lay before American readers more scenes entirely new to them than a similar book on Europe. Paintings, engravings, and photographs, have made us all, even those who have never seen them, well acquainted with the banks of the Hudson, with Niagara, and with the wonderful valley of the Yosemite ; but there are innumerable places which lie out of the usual path of our artists and tourists ; and many strange, picturesque, and charming scenes, sought out in these secluded spots, will, for the first time, become fjimiliar to the general public through these pages. It is the purpose of the work to illustrate with greater fulness, and with superior excel- lence, so far as art is concerned, the places which attract curiosity by their interesting associations, and, at the same time, to challenge the admiration of the public for many of the glorious scenes which lie in the by-ways of travel.

Nor is the plan of the work confined to the natural beauties of our country. It includes, moreover, the various aspects impressed on it by civilization. It will give views of our cities and towns, character- istic scenes of hum:in activity on our rivers and lakes, and will often associate, with the places delineated, whatever of American life and habits may possess the picturesque element.

The descriptions which form the letter-press of this work are necessarily from different pens, since they were to be obtained from those who had personally some knowledge of the places described. As for the illustrations, they were made in almost every instance by artists sent by the publishers for the purpose. Photographs, however accurate, lack the spirit and personal quahty which the accomplished painter or draughtsman infuses into his work. The engravings here presented may with reason claim for "Picturesque America," in addition to the fidelity of the dehneations, that they possess spirit, animation, and beauty, which give to the work of the artist a value higher than could be derived from mere topographical accuracy.

The letter-press has passed under my revision, but to the zeal and diligence of Mr. Oliver B. Bunce, who has made the getting up of this work a labor of love, the credit of obtaining the descriptions from different quarters is due. To his well-instructed taste also the public will owe what constitutes the prin- cipal value of the work, the selection of subjects, the employment of skilful artists, and the general ar- rangement of the contents.

' ■ William Cullen Bryant.

CONTENTS, VOLUME FIRST.

SUBJECT.

ON THE COAST OF MAINE.

ST. JOHN'S AND OCKLAWAHA RIVERS, FLORIDA.

UP AND DOWN THE COLUMBIA.

LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN AND THE TENNES- SEE.

RICHMOND, SCENIC AND HISTORIC.

NATURAL BRIDGE, VIRGINIA.

DELAWARE WATER-GAP.

MAUCH CHUNK.

ON THE SAVANNAH.

THE FRENCH BROAD.

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

NEVERSINK HIGHLANDS.

ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA.

CHARLESTON AND ITS SUBURBS.

WEYER'S CAVE, VIRGINIA.

SCENES ON THE BRANDYWINE.

CUMBERLAND GAP.

WATKINS GLEN.

SCENES IN EASTERN LONG ISLAND.

THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI.

MACKINAC.

OUR GREAT NATIONAL PARK,

AUTHOR. O. B. BUNCE.

T. B. Thorpe.

L. J. G. RUNKLE. O. B. BUNCE.

J. R. Thompson.

John Esten Cooke.

J. E. Ringwalt.

O. B. Bunce.

W. V. Thompson.

F. G. DE Fontaine.

Susan N. Carter.

O. B. Bunce.

Robert Carter.

O. B. Bunce.

Sallie a. Brock.

O. B. Bunce.

F. G. de Fontaine.

O. B. Bunce.

O. B. Bunce.

T. B. Thorpe. *

Constance F. Woolson.

O. B. Bunce.

ARTIST.	PAGE
Harry Fenn.	I
Harry Fenn.	17
R. Swain Gifford.	31
Harry Fetm.	52
Harry Fenn.	70
Harry Fenn.	82
Granville Perkins.	89
Harry Fenn.	109
Harry Fenn.	"5
Harry Fenn.	132
Harry Fenn.	ISO
Granville Perkins.	173
Harry Fenn.	183
Harry Fenn.	198
Harry Fenn.	212
Granville Perkins.	220
Harry Fenn.	232
Harry Fenn.	238
Harry Fenn.	248
Alfred R. Wand.	262
J. D. Woodward.	279
Harry Fenn.	292

VI

CONTENTS, VOLUME FIRST

SUBJECT.

HARPER'S FERRY.

SCENES IN VIRGINIA.

NEWPORT.

WEST VIRGINIA.

LAKE SUPERIOR.

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA.

NIAGARA.

TRENTON FALLS.

THE YOSEMITE FALLS,

PROVIDENCE AND VICINITY.

SOUTH SHORE OF LAKE ERIE.

ON THE COAST OF CALIFORNIA.

AUTHOR.	ARTIST.	PAGE
J. C. Carpenter.	Granville Perkins.	z-^i
G. W. Bagby.	IV- L. Sheppard.	337
T. M, Clarke.	C. Griswold, and others.	358
D. H. Strother.	W. L. Sheppard.	zn
Constance F. Woolson.	William Hart.	393
R. E. Garczynski.	R. Sivain Gifford.	412
R. E. Garczynski.	Harry Fenn.	432
R. E. Garczynski.	Harry Fenn.	452
James D. Smillie.	James D. Smillie.	465
T. M. Clarke.	W. H. Gibson.	496
Constance F. Woolson.	J. D. Woodward.	Sio
R. E. Garczynski.	R. Swain Gifford.	SSo

» /

LIST OF ENGRAVINGS ON STEEL,

VOLUME FIRST.

SUBJECT

NIAGARA.

CASCADE IN VIRGINIA,

MOUNT DESERT, COAST OF MAINE.

ON THE COAST OF FLORIDA.

MOUNT HOOD, FROM COLUMBIA RIVER.

RICHMOND, FROM THE JAMES.

DELAWARE WATER-GAP.

SMOKY MOUNTAINS, EASTERN TENNESSEE

MOUNT WASHINGTON ROAD.

THE HIGHLANDS OF THE NEVERSINK.

CUMBERLAND GAP."

CITY OF NEW ORLEANS.

UPPER FALLS OF THE YELLOWSTONE.

HARPER'S FERRY, BY MOONLIGHT.

THE CHICKAHOMINY.

BAPTISM BAY, LAKE SUPERIOR.

MOUNT SHASTA.

MIRROR LAKE, YOSEMITE VALLEY.

CITY OF PROVIDENCE.

ARTIST.	]	ENGRAVER	FACE PAGE.
Harry Fenn.	S.	V. Hunt.	Frontispiece.
Harry Fenn.	R.	Hinshelwood.	Title-page.
Harry Fenn.	R.	Hinshelwood.	FACE I
Harry Fenn.	R.	Hins/ielwood.	17
R. Swain Gifford.	R.	Hinshelwood.	49
Harry Fenn.	R.	Hinshelwood.	73
Granville Perkins.	R.	Hinshelwood.	91
Homer Martin.	R.	Hinshelwood.	132
Harry Fenn.	S.	V. Hunt.	151
Granville Perkins.	W.	: Wellstood.	176
Harry Fenn.	s.	V. Hunt.	233
Alfred R. Waud.	D.	G. Thompson.	26s
Thomas Moran.	S.	V. Hunt.	297
Granville Perkins.	R.	Hinshelwood.	328
W. L. Sheppard.	W.	Wellstood.	357
William Hart.	R.	Hinshelwood.	393
James D. Smillie.	E.	P. Brandard.	424
Harry Fenn.	S.	V. Hunt.	46s
A. C. Warren.	R.	Hinshelwood.	496

Vlll

LIST OF ENGRAVINGS ON STEEL.

SUBJECT.

INDIAN ROCK, NARRAGANSETT. CITY OF BUFFALO. CITY OF CLEVELAND. CITY OF DETROIT. THE GOLDEN GATE.

ARTIST.	engraver.	FACE PAGE.
A. S. Hazeltine.	S. V. Hunt.	509
A. C. Warren.	W. Wellstood.	520
A. C. Warren.	R. Hinshelwood.	529
A. C. Warren.	R. Hinshelwood.	545
James D. Smillie.	E. P. Brandard.	560

\

PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

Castle Head, Mount Desert.

ON THE COAST OF MAINE

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY HARRY FENN.

I ^HE island of Mount Desert, on the coast of Maine, unites a striking group of pictu- -^ resque features. It is surrounded by seas, crowned with mountains, and embosomed with lakes. Its shores are bold and rocky cliffs, upon which the breakers for countless cen- turies have wrought their ceaseless attrition. It affords the only instance along our Atlantic

coast where mountains stand in close neighborhood to the sea ; here in one picture are

1

2 PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

beetling cliffs with the roar of restless breakers, far stretches of bay dotted with green islands, placid mountain -lakes mirroring the mountain -precipices that tower above them, rugged gorges clothed with primitive forests, and sheltered coves where the sea-waves ripple on the shelly beach. Upon the shores are masses of cyclopean rocks heaped one upon another in titanic disorder, and strange caverns of marvellous beauty ; on the mountains are fright- ful precipices, wonderful prospects of far-extending sea, and mazes of land and water, and magnificent forests of fir and spruce. It is a union of all these supreme fascinations of scenery, such as Nature, munificent as she is, rarely affords.

Mount Desert is situated one hundred and ten miles east of Portland, in Frenchman's Bay, which stretches on the eastern and western sides of the island in a wide expanse, but narrows at the upper or northern end, where a bridge establishes permanent connection with the main-land. The greatest length of the island is fourteen miles, and its extreme width eight, the area being a hundred square miles. Nearly midway it is pierced by an inlet of the sea known as Somes's Sound, which is seven miles in length. It includes three townships, Tremont, Mount Desert, and Eden, and possesses several harbors, the best known of which are Southwest, Northeast, and Bar Harbor. The latter is on the eastern shore, opposite the Porcupine Islands, and derives its name from a sandy bar, visible only at low water, which connects Mount Desert with the largest and northernmost of the Porcupine group. The village at this harbor is known by the name of East Eden, and here tourists and summer visitors principally abide. The mountains are upon the southern half of the island, and lie in seven ridges, running nearly north and south. There are thirteen distinct peaks, the highest of which is known as Green Mountain ; and the next, which is separated from Green Mountain by a deep, narrow gorge, is called Newport. The western sides of the range slope gradually upward to the summits, but on the east all of them descend by steep precipices, four of them into lakes and one into Somes's Sound.

The best view of the mountains is from the sea. The steamer from Portland, which lands at Bar Harbor twice a week, approaches the island at noonday, when the landscape, under the direct rays of the sun, possesses the least charm. But no other situation affords so fine a command of the range, although, from this view, the rocks and cliffs of the shore, lying under the shadows of the mountains, appear to have but little magnitude or picturesque value. If it so chance, as it did with the writer, that delays bring the steamer along the coast when the sun is sinking behind the hills, a picture of singular beauty is presented. The mountains then lift in gloomy grandeur against the light of the western sky, and, with the movement of the steamer, break every moment into new combinations of rare beauty. Now they lie massed, one against another, in long, undulating lines, now open into distinct groups; now Green Mountain fronts the sea with all its stern majesty, now Newport rises apparently from the very water's edge in one abrupt cliff a thousand feet in height. It is a dissolving view that for an hour or more presents a superb succession of scenic effects, which the spectator watches with entrancing interest, until he discovers the steamer gliding by green

ON THE COAST OF MAINE.

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islands and amid fleets of gayly-bannered yachts on its approach to the shore. The village of East Eden, while possessing a charming lookout over the bay, is without one feature of beauty. It is built upon a treeless plain, and consists for the most part of a group of small white houses, rapidly extemporized for the accommodation of summer boarders. Every structure, with the exception of a few cottages erected by wealthy gentlemen of Boston, stands with- out trees, garden, or other pleasant sur- roundings. The place is as conspicuously inexact in its cognomen as the island it- self is ; one wonders whether the notion of naming places by their contraries is a legitimate Down-East institution. In re- gard to the name of the island, an attempt is made to escape the inconsistency of the appellation by shifting the accent from the first to the last syllable. The primary mean- ing of the designation, however, requires the accentuation on the first syllable. It was named by the French, who were the dis- coverers of this coast, " Mont Desert," as expressive of the wild and savage aspects of the mountains and cliffs that front the sea.

Two purposes of special interest fill the mind of the visitor as soon as he finds himself satisfactorily domiciled at East Eden. One is, to explore the long series of rocks and cliffs on the shore ; the oth- er, to ascend Green Mountain, and enjoy the superb view from its " thunder-smitten brow." These respects to the scenery of the island having been paid, his subsequent pur- pose is likely to be fishing and boating. He will be anxious to try his hand at the

4

PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

splendid trout with which the lakes are said to abound, and to go far down the bay for catches of cod and haddock, which here are of large dimensions and in great abun- dance. The bays, inlets> and sounds of the coast of Maine afford superb resources for the yachtman. The coast seems to have crumbled off from the main-land in innumer- able islands, large and small, so that there is a vast area of inland-sea navigation, which, with infinite variety of scene, gives ample space for boating. A yachting-party might spend a summer delightfully in threading the mazes of this "hundred-harbored Maine," as Whittier describes it. Abandoning the pleasant vision of such a summer, let us for the present remember that our special object is to visit and depict the scenery of Mount Desert.

The several points along the coast to which the visitor's attention is directed are the cliffs known as " The Ovens," which lie some six or seven miles up the bay ; and " Schooner

■"'IVI^,

View of Mount-Desert Mountains from Saulsbury-Cove Road.

Head," " Great Head," and " Otter-Creek Cliffs," lying on the seaward shores of the island. It will fall more duly in order to proceed first to " The Ovens," which may be reached by boat or by a pleasant drive of seven or eight miles.

With a one-armed veteran for an escort, Mr. Fenn and the writer set forth for a scene where we were promised many charming characteristics for pen and pencil. It was necessary to time our visit to "The Ovens" — the nomenclature of Mount Desert is pain- fully out of harmony with the scenes it verbally libels — so as to reach the beach at low tide. The cliffs can be approached only by boat at high tide, and the picture at this juncture loses some of its pleasing features.

The Mount-Desert roads for the most part are in good condition, and have many at- tractions. The forests are crowded with evergreens, and the firs and the spruce-trees mar- shal in such array on the hill-sides that, with their slender, spear-like tops, they look Hke armies of lancers. The landscape borrows from these evergreens an Alpine tone, which

THE CLIFFS NEAR "THE OVENS."

6 . PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

groups of pedestrians for the mountains, armed with alpenstocks, notably enhance. The fir, spruce, pine, and arbor-vitae, attain splendid proportions ; the slender larch is in places also abundant, and a few sturdy hemlocks now and then vary the picture. The forest- scenes are, many of them, of singular beauty, and in our long drives about the island we discovered many a strongly-marked forest-group.

At one point on our drive to " The Ovens," the road, as it ascends a hill near Sauls- bury Cove, commands a fine, distant view of the mountains, which Mr. Fenn rapidly sketched. Clouds of fog were drifting along their tops, now obscuring and now reveal- ing them, and adding often a vagueness and mystery to their forms which lent them an additional charm.

The cliffs at " The Ovens " contrast happily with the rocks on the sea-front of the island in possessing a delicious quiet and repose. The waters ripple calmly at their feet, and only when winds are high do the waves chafe and fret at the rocks. Here the perpen- dicular pile of rock is crowned by growths of trees that ascend in exact line with the wall, casting their shadows on the beach below. Grass and flowers overhang the edge ; at points in the wall of rock, tufts of grass and nodding harebells grow, forming pleasant pictures in contrast with the many-tinted rocks, in the crevices of which their roots have found nourishment. The whole effect of the scene here is one of delicious charm. The wide and sunny bay, the boats that glide softly and swiftly upon its surface, the peaceful shores, the cliff crowned with its green forest, make up a picture of great sweetness and beauty. " The Ovens " are cavities worn by the tides in the rock. Some are only slight excavations, such as those shown in Mr. Fenn's drawing, but a little northward of the spot are caves of a magnitude sufficient to hold thirty or forty people. The rocks are mainly of pink feldspar, but within the caves the sea has painted them in various tints of rare beauty, such as would delight the eye and tax the skill and patience of a painter to reproduce. The shores here, indeed, supply almost exhaustless material for the sketch-book of the artist.

To this spot, at hours when the tide permits, pleasure-seekers come in great numbers. It is a favorite picnic-ground for the summer residents at East Eden, whose graceful pleasure- boats give animation to the picture. The visitors picnic in the caves, pass through the arch- way of a projecting cliff, which some designate as " Via Mala," wander through the forests that crown the cliffs, pluck the wild-roses and harebells that overhang the precipice, and roam up and down the beach in search of the strange creatures of the sea that on these rocky shores abound. Star-fishes, anemones, sea-urchins, and other strange and beautiful forms of marine life, make grand aquaria of the caves all along the coast, and add a marked relish to the enjoyment of the explorer.

From the quiet beauty of " The Ovens " to the turbulence of the seaward shore there is a notable change. Our next point visited was " Schooner Head," which lies four or five miles southward from East Eden, and looks out on the wide Atlantic. " Schooner Head " is so named from the fancy that a mass of white rock on its sea-face, viewed at a proper distance,

ON THE COAST OF MAINE. ' 7

has the appearance of a small schooner. There is a tradition that, in the War of 181 2, a British frigate sailing by ran in and fired upon it, under the impression that it was an Ameri- can vessel hugging the shore. " Schooner Head " derives its principal interest from the " Spouting Horn," a wide chasm in the cliff, which extends down to the water and opens to the sea through a small archway below high-water mark. At low water the arch may be

Great Head.

reached over the slippery, weed-covered rocks, and the chasm within ascended by means of uncertain footholds in the sides of the rocky wall. A few adventurous tourists have accom- plished this feat, but it is a very dangerous one. If the foot should slip on the smooth, briny rock, and the adventurer glide into the water, escape would be almost impossible. The waves would suck him down into their depths — now toss him upon rocks, whose slippery surface would resist every attempt to grasp, then drag him back into their foaming embrace. When

8 ■ PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

the tide comes in, the breakers dash with great violence through the archway described, and hurl themselves with resounding thunder against the wall beyond, sending their spray far up the sides of the chasm. But, when a storm prevails, then the scene is one of extreme gran- deur. The breakers hurl themselves with such wild fury through the cavernous opening against the walls of rock, that their spray is hurled a hundred feet above the opening at the top of the cliff, as if a vast geyser were extemporized on the shore. The scene is inspiriting and terrible. Visitors to Mount Desert but half understand or appreciate its wonders if they do not visit the cliffs in a storm. On the softest summer day the angry but subdued roar with which the breakers ceaselessly assault the rocks gives a vague intimation of what their fury is when the gale lashes them into tumult. At such times they hurl themselves against the clifTs with a violence that threatens to beat down the rocky barriers and submerge the land ; their spray deluges the abutments to their very tops, and the thunder of their angry crash against the rock may be heard for miles. But at other times the ceaseless war they make upon the shore seems to be one of defeat. The waves come in full, sweeping charge upon the rocks, but hastily fall back, broken and discomfited, giving place to fresh and hopeful levies, who repeat the first assault, and, like their predecessors, are hurled back de- feated. The war is endless, and yet by slow degrees the sea gains upon its grim and silent enemy. It undermines, it makes channels, it gnaws caverns, it eats out chasms, it wears away little by little the surface of the stone, it summons the aid of frost and of heat to dis- lodge and pull down great fragments of the masonry, it grinds into sand, it gashes with scars, and it will never rest until it has dragged down the opposing walls into its depths.

" Great Head," two miles southward of " Schooner Head," is considered the highest head- land on the island. It is a bold, projecting mass, with at its base deep gashes worn by the waves. A view of its grim, massive front is obtained by descending a broken mass of Cyclo- pean rocks a little below the cliff, where at low tide, on the sea-washed bowlders, the cliff tov/- ers above you in a majestic mass.

People in search of the picturesque should understand the importance of selecting suit- able points of view. The beauty or impressiveness of a picture sometimes greatly depends on this. It is often a matter of search to discover the point from which an object has its best expression ; and probably only those of intuitive artistic tastes are enabled to see all the beauties of a landscape, which others lose in ignorance of how to select the most ad- vantageous standing-place. To the cold and indifferent. Nature has no charms ; she reveals herself only to those who surrender their hearts to her influence, and who patiently study her aspects. The beauty of any object lies partly in the capacity of the spectator to see it, and partly in his ability to put himself where the form and color impress the senses most effectively. Not one man in ten discerns half the beauty of a tree or of a pile of rocks, and hence those who fail to discover in a landscape the charm others describe in it, should question their own power of appreciation rather than the accuracy of the delineation. The shores of Mount Desert must be studied with this appreciation and taste, if their beauties

THE ". SPOUTINQ HORN" IN A STORM. 2

lo . PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

are to be understood. No indifferent half glance will suffice. Go to the edge of the cliffs and look down ; go below, where they lift in tall escarpments above you ; sit in the shadows of their massive presence ; study the infinite variety of form, texture, and color, and learn to read all the different phases of sentiment their scarred fronts have to express. When all this is done, be assured you will discover that " sermons in stones " was not a mere fancy of the poet.

One of the characteristics of Mount Desert is the abundance of fog. In July and August especially it seriously interferes with the pleasure of the tourist. It often happens that, for several days in succession, mountain, headland, and sea, are wrapped in an impene- trable mist, and all the charms of the landscape obscured. But the fog has frequently a grace and charm of its own. There are days when it lies in impenetrable banks far out at sea, with occasional incursions upon the shore that are full of interest. At one hour the sun is shining, when all at once the mist may be discerned creeping in over the sur- face of the water, ascending in rapid drifts the sides of the mountains, enveloping one by one the islands of the bay, until the whole landscape is blotted from view. In another hour it is broken ; the mountains pierce the shadowy veil, the islands reappear in the bay, and the landscape glows once more in the sunshine. It is a rare pleasure to sit on the rocky headlands, on the seaward side of the island, on a day when the fog and sun con- tend for supremacy, and watch the pictures that the fog makes and unmakes. Sometimes the fog skirts along the base of the islands in the bay, leaving a long, slender line of tree-tops painted against the blue ether, looking like forests hung in the sky. Then a ves- sel may be seen sailing through a fog-bank, now looking like a shadowy ghost floating through the mist, when suddenly its topsails flash in the light, like the white wings of a huge bird. In another moment the fog shifts, and the under edge of the mainsail may be traced in a line of silver, while all the rest of the vessel is in the deepest shadow. Now one sail glitters a brilliant white, and the fog envelops all the rest of the vessel. The pictures thus formed vary like a succession of dissolving views, and often produce the most striking and unique effects. Sometimes there is the marvellous exhibition of a mirage, when fleets appear sailing through the air, and, as described by Whittier —

" Sometimes, in calms of closing day, They watched the spectral mirage play ; Saw low, far islands, looming tall and high, And ships, with upturned keels, sail like a sea the sky."

The fog-pictures at Mount Desert are by no means the least interesting feature of this strange shore.

Near a small stream, known as " Otter Creek," deriving its name from the otter which once abounded there, are a succession of cliffs, which possess characteristics qujte distinct from those already described. They are more remote from the village than " Schooner

ON THE COAST OF MAINE.

II

Head" or "Great Head," but the drive to them derives great interest from the wild and harrow notch between Green and Newport Mountains, through which the road Hes for a mile or two. The sides of the mountains are high, precipitous, and savagely rugged. The lower base of each is covered with a thick and tangled forest-growth ; half-way up, a few gnarled and fantastic growths struggle for place amid the scarred and frowning rocks.

Thunder Cave.

while the upper heights show only the bare, seamed, and riven escarpments. It is a wild picture, inferior, no doubt, to the famous Notch of the White Mountains, but possessing, notwithstanding, very strong and impressive features.

At " Otter-Creek Cliffs " we set out in search of what is known as " Thunder Cave.'' After leaving our vehicle, we had a long but superb forest-walk to reach it. There are numerous fine birches on Mount Desert, and more than once we saw groups of these trees

12

PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

that would have filled any artist with delight, and especially the painter Whittredge, whose birch-forests are so famous. Near Great Head are numerous splendid specimens of this tree, whose bark, of yellow, Indian red, and gray, afforded delicious contrasts of color. On the path to Thunder Cave we noted one forest-picture that comes vividly back to mem- ory. The trees were mostly evergreen, and the surface of the ground covered with out- cropping rocks and tangled roots, all richly covered with mosses. The broken light through the dark branches, the tint of the fallen pine-leaves, the many-colored mosses which painted every rock in infinite variety of hue, the low, green branches of the fir and the spruce, all made up a picture of ripe and singular beauty.

Thunder Cave proved to be a long, low gallery, running inward amid a great mass of wild, tumbled, and distorted rocks. Up through the gallery the waves rushed with eager impetuosity, and dashed against the hollow cavity within with a crash which, as it reverberated among the overhanging rocks, closely resembled thunder. In fair weather the sound is apparent only when near, but we were assured that in great storms it had been heard distinctly for the dis- tance of seven miles. The sound, which might well be mistaken for thun- der, has all the greater resemblance on account of a pe- culiarity which Mr. Fenn detect- ed while making his sketch. Piled up within the cave at the end of the gallery are a great number of large stones, varying from one to probably three feet in length, The obelisk

ON THE COAST OF MAINE. 13

and of corresponding thickness. Every time the waves dash into the cave, they dislodge some of these stones, sometimes dragging them back, sometimes hfting them up and toss- ing them against the sides of the cavity, and, as these bowlders thus roll and grind to- gether, they produce in the hollow of the cavern almost the exact mutterings and rever- berations of thunder. The crash of the breakers against the wall is the clap of thunder ; the rolling stones carry off the sound in its successive reverberations, making the resem- blance complete.

Near Thunder Cave we discovered a natural obelisk. The woodland path at one point reaches the edge of a wide, precipitous break in the cliff. Forcing our way through tangled wood-growth to obtain a view of the cliff, we saw, situated directly under the bank, where the tourist ordinarily would not detect it, a tall, pointed column, with an apparently artificial base of steps, bearing a close semblance to a monument of stone. This singular freak of Nature the reader will find illustrated by Mr. Fenn's pencil.

Returning to our point of departure, we proceeded westward in search of other cliffs, where we made another discovery. The path lay along the top of the cliff, but, coming to a dislodgement of the perpendicular wall, where some convulsion had thrown down the cliff into a wild mass of rocks, we with no little difficulty clambered down the broken and jagged pile, with the purpose of getting from below a view of the cliffs. Fortu- nately, the tide was low ; and this, the tourist should remember, is necessary, when he arranges his visits to the shores of Mount Desert. There is more animation when the tide is coming in, but high water cuts off access to many interesting points. Reaching a wet, barnacle-covered, projecting line of rocks, a picture presented itself that filled both artist and penman with surprise. " Why, this is an old Norman castle ! " was our excla- mation. The cliff, a little distant from our point of view, stood up in perpendicular lines of rock that assumed almost exactly the form of battlements. The upper line closely resembled the parapet of a castle-wall ; there were in the sides deep embrasures ; and the whole front had the aspect of a dark, broken, time-stained wall reared by the hand of man. It stood in grim and gloomy grandeur, fronting the sea in stern defiance of the world beyond. The waves chafed at its feet ; wild sea-birds hovered about its crest ; there was an air of neglect and desolation, as if it were an old ruin, and we found it impossible to dissociate the grim and frowning walls from the historic piles that look darkly down upon so many European landscapes. Finding afterward that the cliff was known by no name, we called it " Castle Head." The path followed by the cus- tomary visitor extends along the cliff above this strange pile, and hence its peculiarities escape the notice of all except those who boldly clamber down the broken wall just before it is reached, and survey it from the water's edge. The illustration of this striking scene is at the beginning of our article.

The interest of Mount Desert, as we have already said, is divided between its sea- cliffs and its mountain-views. It is customary for pedestrian parties to form at East

H

PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

Eden and walk to the mountain-top, and there remain overnight, in order to view the sunrise from this altitude. A cottage, originally built by the United States Coast Survey, stands on the extreme top of the mountain, and affords satisfactory accommodation for the tourists. A rude mountain-road, constructed by the Survey, enables vehicles to ascend to the cottage; but pleasure-parties commonly prefer the ascent on foot. The distance from the village is four miles. The height of the mountain is seventeen hundred and sixty-two feet.

The sunrise is a magnificent picture, but the prevalence of fogs is a continual cause of disappointment to people, who travel far and rise early often only to behold a sea of impenetrable mist. The prospect, however, whenever the fog permits it, is a splendid one at all hours, and possesses a variety and character quite distinct from the views usually obtained from mountain-heights. Here there is not only a superb panorama of

Eagle Lake.

hills and vales, but a grand stretch of sea, and intricate net-works of bay and islands which make up a picture marvellously varied both in form and color.

One of the most delightful features of the scene thus presented are the mountain- lakes that hang like superb mirrors midway in the scene. " Eagle Lake," so named by Church the artist, is visible at intervals during the entire ascent of the mountain, and at every point of view is beautiful. Half-way up, a short detotir from the road will bring the tourist to its pebbly shore, where he may spend an hour or more watching its clear, mountain-encircled waters, or devote his entire day in pursuit of the trout with which it abounds. The largest lake in the island is on the western side of Somes's Sound, and is about four miles in length. There is a group of three lakes on each side of this sound, although to some of them the more prosaic designation of pond is applied.

Somes's Sound, which divides the lower portion of the island into two distinct por- tions, possesses many attractions for those who admire bold headlands. It bears a resem-

ON THE COAST OF MAINE.

15

blance both to the shores of the Hudson and the Delaware Water-Gap. It is usual to ascend the sound in boats from Southwest Harbor ; but explorers from East Eden some- times drive to Somesville, at the head of the sound, a distance of nine miles, and there take boats for a sail down the stream. The sound cuts through the centre of the moun- tain-range at right angles, between Dog Mountain and an elevation on the eastern side,. to which the appellation of " Mount Mansell " has been given, in honor of Sir Robert

Eagle Cliff, Somes's Sound.

Mansell, after whom the island was at one time named by the English. Dog Mountain rises abruptly from the water's edge, and one of its cliffs, which is some eight hundred or a thousand feet in height, is called " Eagle Cliff." At the moment Mr. Fenn was sketch- ing, a splendid bald-headed eagle was sailing in wide circles around the head of the cliff thus giving, to the imagination of the artist, ample justification for the title.

We have now enumerated the principal features of this beautiful island. But there are hundreds of places that almost equally as well deserve the attention of pen and pen-

i6

PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

cil. The shore varies in character and form at nearly every step, affording almost innumerable delightful pictures ; while the lakes, the mountains, the forests, are endless In their long catalogue of rare and beautiful scenes. And in addition to scenes upon the island itself are the picturesque and rocky Porcupine Islands, the rugged shores of Iron- bound Island, on the Eastern side of Frenchman's Bay, and Mount-Desert Rock, fifteen miles down at sea, upon whose narrow base stands a light-house. Artist and writer have been limited to giving, mere indications of a locality that is almost exhaustless in its va- riety of scenery.

Mount Desert was discovered by the French, under Champlain, in the early part of the seventeenth century, who gave it the name by which it is now known. In 1619, the French formed a settlement, which was named " Saint-Sauveur," but in a few years it came to a cruel end. The Virginian settlers were accustomed to fish upon the New- England coast, and the captain of an armed vessel, hearing from the Indians of the settlement, sailed down upon it, and with a single broadside made himself its master. Some of the settlers were killed, and others carried away into captivity. The first per- manent settlement was made by Abraham Somes, who in 1761 built a house at the head of the sound which now bears his name.

View from Via Mala, at The Ovens.

Mouth of the St. John's River — Looking in.

ST. JOHN'S AND OCKLAWAHA RIVERS, FLORIDA.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY HARRY FENN.

TT^LORIDA is a strange land, both in its traditions and its natural features. It was ■^ the first settled of the States, and has the most genial climate of all of them ; and yet the greater part of it is still a wilderness. Its early history was one long romance of battle and massacre, and its later annals are almost equally interesting. The Span- iards, who were the first Christian people to visit it, were much impressed with its mys- tery and its scenery, and, as they discovered it on Easter Sunday, which in their language is called " Pascua Florida," they commemorated the event by giving the new territory its present appellation.

The time was when Florida was an immense sand-bar, stretching into the Gulf of Mexico, and probably as barren as can be conceived. But in the semi-tropical climate under which it exists, in the course of ages the seeds carried to its shores by the sea and the winds and the myriads of birds which find it a resting-place, have clothed it with luxuriant vegetation, interspersed with tracts of apparently barren sands. It is a land of peculiar scenery, which the pencil of the artist has heretofore scarcely touched. Its main features illustrate the absurdity of the common notion that the landscapes of tropical and semi-tropical latitudes are superior in luxuriance of vegetable production to those of the temperate zones. The truth is, that in the hot regions it is only where there is constant moisture that there is a strong and rank growth of plants. Generally, aridity prevails, the hill-sides are bereft of vegetation, and an air of parched-up and suffering Nature charac- terizes all that is seen. It is only when we come North that our landscapes glow with universal vegetable profusion ; that the forests stand out in bold relief on the hill-sides ; that the earth is carpeted with vernal green, and prodigality of vegetation reigns supreme. In the tropical landscape, the abundance of flowers, which are supposed to be peculiar to

PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

warm climates, are exceptional phases. They exist, but it is in the recesses of the swamp, where the burning sun is checked in its effulgency. In these recesses, and favored by springs of water, we have in Florida the wildest ef- fects. We have flowers, and vines, and strange leafings, and gigantic trees, as nowhere else to be seen ; but they are always in hidden places ; the open tropical landscape, we repeat, is arid and desolate.

Originally starting out for the avowed purpose of hunting the picturesque, we sailed for the mouth of the St. John's — a river that reaches into the very heart of the peninsula, and from the ill-defined shores of which you can branch off into the very wildest of this, in one sense, des- olate region. The approach of the mouth of the harbor, as is the case with all our Southern rivers, is interrupted by a bar^ over which the surf beats always more or less wildly. Extra facil- ities being afforded us, we safely passed the " rough places," and with impatience sought a look- out from Pelican Bank, situated at the mouth of the harbor. Our sudden intrusion startled myriads of sea-fowl, which went screaming away, yet in such close contact to our persons that we could have caught many of them ir

PICTURESQUE AMERICA. 19

our hands. The scene had a strange look, for, as far as the eye could reach', a long, low reef of burning sand presented itself; the only vegetation visible was a jungle of sun- burnt, wind-blasted palmettos. A little north was Fort St. George Island, the most southern of the cultivated sea-islands. Once fairly launched on the waters of the St. John's, after making a sketch of the harbor looking toward the sea, we impatiently passed all intervening places until we arrived at Pilatka, a central point, from which we could easily reach the Black River, and the more famous Ocklawaha, and other small streams, only navigable for boats of miniature size.

But, before we enter upon the business of our journey, let us, by way of parenthesis, say that this section of country has always been remarkable for its recuperative effects upon invalids, who, living farther north, suffer from the borean blasts of our long and dreary winters. Jacksonville, a popular winter resort, is the most important of these hygienic towns, and boasts a population of over five thousand persons. There are also Hibemia, at the mouth of Black Creek, Magnolia, something over fifty miles from the mouth of the river, and Picolata, ten miles still farther up. If the time comes when these famous places for a winter residence for invalids can furnish abundantly the neces- saries and comforts of life, there is no reason why they should not be annually crowded, for nothing can be better than their balmy air for those upon whom the Northern win- ters bear too heavily. But it is inconsiderate for those who are past recovery with pul- monary complaints to wander to the wilds of Florida in pursuit of health, for, whatever may be the advantages of climate, the lack of the comforts the sick require more than counterbalances the effect of the balmy air. Among the especial resorts for invalids is Green Cove Springs, near Magnolia, famous for curing rheumatism and a hundred complaints, and composed of a series of warm sulphurous pools, in some places twenty- five feet deep. The water is very transparent, and of a pale-bluish tint. It was perhaps some rumor of the virtues of these springs that gave origin to the notion, current among the early Spanish explorers, that there was in Florida a fountain, to bathe in which would insure perpetual youth and health.

At Pilatka, by the aid of influential letters and previously-made arrangements, we secured the good-will of the captain of the steamer we named the " Flying Swan," a craft which, from its simplicity of construction and rude machinery, might have been the first model constructed by Fulton when he was putting into practical shape the use of steam in propelling boats. Its general outline was that of an ill-shaped omnibus, with the pro- pelling-wheel let into its rear, and, on further examination, we found the smoke-pipe, the engine, pilot-house, and all other of the usual gear of steamers, were housed, for the ex- cellent reason of protecting them from being torn away by the overhanging limbs or protruding stumps everywhere to be met with in the narrow and difficult navigation of the swamps.

A sail of twenty miles along the St. J ohn's brought us, a little before sunrise, to the

.€S \-~

BAR LIGHT-HOUSE, MOUTH OF ST JOHN'S RIVER.

ST. JOHN'S AND OCKLAWAHA RIVERS, FLORIDA.

21

mouth of the Ocklawaha River, looking scarcely wide enough to admit a skiff, much less a steamboat As daylight increased, we found that we were passing through a dense cypress-swamp, and that the channel selected had no banks, but was indicated by " blazed " marks on the trunks of the towering trees. There was plenty of water, how- ever, to float our craft, but it was a queer kind of navigation, for the hull of the steamer went bumping against one cypress-butt, then another, suggesting to the tyro in this kind of aquatic adventure that possibly he might be wrecked, and subjected, even if he escaped

Green Cove Springs.

a watery grave, to a miserable death, through the agency of mosquitoes, buzzards, and huge alligators.

As we wound along through the dense vegetation, a picture of novel interest pre- sented itself at every turn. We came occasionally to a spot a little elevated above the dead-water level, covered with a rank growth of lofty palmetto, the very opposite, in every respect, to those stunted, storm-blown specimens which greeted us at the mouth of the St, John's River. Here they shot up tall and slender, bearing aloft innumerable parasites.

22

PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

A Florida Swamp.

often surprising the eye with patches, of a half-mile in length, of the convolvulus, in a solid mass of beautiful blossoms.

Another sharp turn, and the wreck of an old dead cypress is discovered, its

huge limbs covered with innumerable turkey-buzzards, which are waiting patiently for

ST. JOHN'S AND OCKLAWAHA RIVERS, FLORIDA.

23

Waiting for Decomposition.

the decomposition of an alligator that some successful sportsman has shot, and left for the prey of these useful but disgusting birds. The sunshine sparkles in the spray which our awkward yet efficient craft drives from its prow, and then we enter what seems to be a cavern, where the sun never penetrates. The tree-tops interlace

24

PICTURESQUE AMERICA,

and the tangled vines and innumerable parasites have made an impenetrable mass over- head.

The swamps of Florida are as rich in birds as in vegetation. It is no wonder that Audubon here found one of the finest fields from which to enrich his great works of natural history. A minute list of the varieties we sometimes saw in a single day would fill a page. One of the most attractive was the water-turkey, or snake-bird, which was

Ascending the Ocklawaha River at Night.

everywhere to be met with, sitting upon some projecting limb overlooking the water, the body as carefully as possible concealed from view, its head and long neck projecting out, and moving constantly like a black snake in search of its prey. Your curiosity is ex- cited ; you would examine the creature more critically, and you fire, at what seems a short, point-blank shot. The bird falls, apparently helpless, in the water ; you row rap- idly to secure your prize, when, a hundred yards ahead, you suddenly see the snaky head

ST. JOHN'S AND OCKLAWAHA RIVERS, FLORIDA. 25

of the "darter" just protruding above the surface of the water. In an instant its lungs are filled with air, and, disappearing again, it reaches a place of safety.

Another conspicuous bird is the large white crane. It is a very effective object in the deep shadows of the cypress, as it proudly stalks about, eying with fantastic look the finny tribes it hunts for prey. Especially is it of service in seizing upon the young of the innumerable water-snakes which everywhere abound. With commendable taste, it seems to pay especial attention to the disgusting, slimy, juvenile moccasins, which have a taste for sunning themselves on harsh dried leaves of the stunted palmetto.

But the prominent living object to the stranger in these out-of-the-way places is the alligator, whose paradise is in the swamps of Florida. Here he finds a climate that almost the year round suits his delicate constitution ; and, while his kindred in the Loui- siana swamps find it necessary to retire into the mud to escape the cold of winter, the Florida representative of the tribe is happy in the enjoyment of the upper world the year round. It was a comical and a provoking sight to see these creatures, when indisposed to get out of our way, turn up their piggish eyes in speculative mood at the sudden interruption of a rifle-ball against their mailed sides, but all the while seemingly uncon- scious that any harm against their persons was intended. Like Achilles, however, they possess a vulnerable point, which is just in front of the spot where the huge head works upon the spinal column. There is of necessity at this place a joint in the armor, and a successful hunter, after much experience, seldom lets one of the reptiles escape. If any philanthropist has ever objected to the slaughter, the circumstance is not remembered in the swamps and everglades of Florida. On one occasion we fired into a herd of alli- gators, and the noise of two or three shots caused all but one to finally disappear. For some reason it seemed difficult to get the remaining one to move, the creature lying with its head exposed to our gaze, looking as demoniac as possible. A bullet, which struck somewhere in the vicinity of its jaws, touched its feelings, and then, with a grunt not unlike that of a hog, it buried itself in the muddy water. This unwillingness to move was then explained by the appearance of a large number of young alligators, which, in the confusion, came to the surface like so many chips. We had, without being aware of it, attacked the mother while she was protecting her nest.

In the vicinity of the alligator's nest we came upon a primitive post-office, consist- ing of a cigar-box, bearing the magic letters " U. S. M.," nailed upon the face of an old cypress-tree. It was a sort of central point for the swampers, where they left their soiled notes and crooked writing to be conveyed to the places of destination by " whom- ever came along." We, desiring to act the part of a volunteer mail-carrier for the neigh- borhood, peeped into the post-office, but there were no signs of letters ; so our good intentions were of no practical' effect.

Our little craft bumps along from one cypress-stump to another, and fetches up against a cypress-knee, as it is termed — sharp-pointed lances which grow up from the roots

26

PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

The Lookout.

of the trees, seemingly to protect the trunk from too much outside concus- sion ; glancing off, it runs into a roost- ing-place of innumerable cranes, or scat- ters the wild-ducks and huge snakes over the surface of the water. A clear patch of the sky is seen, and the bright light of a summer evening is tossing the feathery crowns of the old cypress-trees into a nimbus of glory, while innumer- able paroquets, alarmed at our intrusion, scream out their fierce indignation, and then, flying away, flash upon~ our admir- ing eyes their green and golden plu- mage. It now begins to grow dark in earnest, and we become curious to know how our attentive pilot will safely navigate this mysterious channel in what is literally Egyptian darkness. While thus speculating, there flashes across the landscape a bright, clear light. From tlie most intense blackness we have a fierce, lurid glare, presenting the most ex- travagantly-picturesque groups of overhanging palmettos, draped with parasites and vines of all descriptions ; prominent among the latter is the scarlet trumpet-creeper, overburdened with wreaths of blossoms, and intertwined again with chaplets of purple and white convolvulus, the most minute details of the objects near be- ing brought out in a sharp red light against the deep tone of the forest's depths. But no imagination can con- ceive the grotesque and weird forms which constantly force themselves on your notice as the light partially illu- minates the limbs of wrecked or half- destroyed trees, which, covered with moss, or wrapped in decayed vegeta- tion as a winding-sheet, seem huge unburied monsters, which, though dead, still throw about their arms in agony, and gaze through unmeaning eyes upon

the intrusions of active, living men. a Post-office on the Ocklawaha.

ST. JOHN'S AND OCKLAWAHA RIVERS, FLORIDA. 27

Another run of a half-mile brings us into the cypress again, the firelight giving new ideas of the picturesque. The tall shafts, more than ever shrouded in the hanging moss, looked as if they had been draped in sad habiliments, while the wind sighed through the limbs ; and when the sonorous sounds of the alligators were heard, groaning and complaining, the sad, dismal picture of desolation was complete.

A sharp contact with a palmetto - knee throws around the head of our nondescript steamer, and we enter what appears to be an endless colonnade of beautifully - propor- tioned shafts, running upward a hundred feet, roofed by pendent ornaments, suggesting the highest possible effect of Gothic architecture. The delusion was increased by the

A Slight Obstruction in the Ocklawaha.

waving streamers of the Spanish moss, which here and there, in great festoons of fifty feet in length, hung down like tattered but gigantic banners, worm-eaten and mouldy, sad ^evidences of the hopes and passions of the distant past. So absorbing were these wonderful effects of a brilliant light upon the vegetable productions of these Florida swamps, that we had forgotten to look for the cause of this artificial glare, but, when we did, we found a faithful negro had suspended from cranes two iron cages, one on each side of the boat, into which he constantly placed unctuous pine-knots, that blazed and crackled, and turned what would otherwise have been unmeaning darkness into the most novel and exciting views of Nature that ever met our experienced eyes.

28

PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

The morning came, and the theatrical display of the swamp by torchlight ended, when we were destined to . be introduced to a new feature of this singular navigation. A huge water-oak, seemingly in the veiy pride of its matured existence, had fallen di- rectly across the channel. Its wood was only a little less hard than iron, and the labor to be performed to get this obstruction out of the way was contemplated with anger by the captain of our craft, and in sadness by the " hands," to whose lot fell the labor of clear- ing the obstruction away. However, the order was given, and no inhabitant of the swamp is inexperienced in the use of the axe. The sturdy blows fell thick and fast, as

Cypress-shingle Yard.

one limb after another broke loose from the parent trunk and floated slowly away. The great butt was then assailed, and, by a judicious choice in the assault, the weight of the huge structure was made to assist in breaking it in twain. While this work was going on, which consumed some hours, we waded — we won't say ashore — but from one preca- rious foothold to another, until, after various unpleasant experiences — the least of which was getting wet to our waist in the black water of the swamp — we reached land, which was a few inches above the surface of the prevailing flood.

We were, however, rewarded for our enterprise by suddenly coming upon two " Flor-

^Z: yO?/N'S AND OCKLAWAHA RIVERS, FLORIDA.

29

ida crackers," who had estabhshed a camp in a grove of the finest cypress-trees we ever saw, and were appropriating the valuable timber to the manufacture of shingles, which shingles, we were informed, are almost as indestructible as slate. These men were civil, full of character, and in their way not wanting in intelligence. How they manage to survive the discomforts of their situation is difficult to imagine, but they do exist, the mosquitoes drawing from their bodies every useless drop of blood, the low swamp ma- laria making the accumulation of fat an impossibility, while the dull surroundings of their life, to them most monotonous, cramp the intellect until they are almost as taci- turn as the trees with which they are associated. But their hut was a very model of the picturesque, and the smouldering fire, over which their dinner-pot was cooking, sent up a wreath of blue smoke against the dark openings of the deep forest that gave a

A Sudden Turn in the Ocklawaha.

quiet charm, and a contrast of colors, difficult to sufficiently admire, and impossible to be conceived of in the mere speculations of studio-life.

One of our strangest experiences in these mysterious regions was forced upon us one morning, when, thrusting our head through the hole that gave air to our " sleeping- shelf," we saw a sight which caused us to rub our eyes, and gather up our senses, to be certain we were positively awake. Our rude craft was in a basin, possibly a quarter of a mile in diameter, entirely surrounded by gigantic forest-trees, which repeated themselves with the most minute fidelity in the perfectly translucent water. For sixty feet down- ward we could look, and " at this great depth see duplicated the scene of the upper world, the clearness of the water assisting rather than interfering with the vision. The bottom of this basin was silver sand, studded with eccentric formations of lime-crystals

30

PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

of a pale emerald tint. This we soon learned was the wonderful silver spring of which we had heard so much, which every moment throws out its thousands of gallons of water without making a bubble on the surface. The transparency of the water was marvellous. A little pearly-white shell, dropped from our hand, worked its zigzag way downward, deepening in its descent from a pale green to a rich emerald, until, finding the bottom, it seemed a gem destined forever to glisten in its silver setting. Procuring a " dug-out," we proceeded to inform ourself of the mysteries of the spot. Noticing the faintest pos- sible movement on the surface of the basin at a certain point, we concluded that it must be over the place where the great body of the water entered the spring. So, paddling to the spot, we dropped a stone, wrapped in a piece of white paper, into the water at the place where the movement was visible. The stone went dovv^n for some twenty-five feet, until it reached a slight projection of limestone rock, when it was sud- denly, as if a feather in weight, forced upward in a curving line some fifteen feet, show- ing the tremendous power of the water that rushes out from the rock. The most novel and startling feature was when our craft came from the shade into the sunshine, for then it seemed as if we were, by some miraculous power, suspended seventy feet or more in the mid air, while down on the sanded bottom was a sharp, clear silhouette of man, boat, and paddle. A deep river a hundred feet wide is created by the water of this spring, which in the course of seven miles forms a junction with the Ocklawaha.

Silver Spring.

Mount Ranier, from the Columbia River.

UP AND DOWN THE COLUMBIA.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY R. SWAIN GIFFORD.

1\ T APS are so unexpectedly made over nowadays, what with the Old World pas- -^^ -^ sion of conquest, and the New World instinct of truck and dicker, that even we )^oung people, who are rather proud of not yet having forgotten our multiplication- table and syntax, are not a little put to it to bound American America, or United Ger- many, or dismembered France. There was a happy time when a "pent-up Utica" judi- ciously contracted our powers, and when we were limited toward the pole by undiscov- ered countries which we were taught to call respectively Russian Possessions and Upper and Lower Canada — which was which of the twins last mentioned the infant mind never clearly apprehending. In those days our national Northwestern estate was represented on the atlas by a green and a brown patch of uncertain outlines, severally labelled " Indian Territory " and " Oregon." Lewis and Clark were popularly believed to be the only civ- ilized men who had ocular proof of their existence. In the common mind they stood only as irregular polygons on the map, and not as so many acres of soil, stones, forests, lakes, rivers, habitable places, over which familiar heavens arched, and where rains fell on just and unjust, the former class being represented by wild animals and the latter by wild men. Even the wise -geographers skated nimbly over the thin ice of their igno- rance, lingering only long enough for a single observation, to the effect that this vast, unexplored country was chiefly trackless desert and unexplored forest. And even Con-

Ill

If

M

iuuyiiwi

UP AND DOWN THE COLUMBIA. zz

gressional orators, who spoke for " Buncombe," and went in, on all occasions, for river and harbor improvements, never could get beyond the third line of the sonorous —

" . . . . the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound Save its own dashings."

Alas for the infant-schools ! Out of that dull, green patch has broken a wealth of offshoots, as out of the scrimp and ugly cactus burst its superb blossoms. A list of States and Territories that dizzies the arithmetic of memory insists on place and nomen- clature, and blessed be Providence which ordained that we should not be our own grand- children, to encounter a tale of three hundred and sixty-five political divisions by them doubtless to be comprehended in the description of their dear, their native land ! As the shoots increased the parent -stem dwindled, and now Oregon, pinched and shrivelled, is only a fourth larger than all New England, or rather less than twice New York in ex- tent. And as for the vast Indian Territory, that would seem to exist variably wherever the Noble Savage is upon the war-path, and to comprise so much land as his blanket will cover.

In those better days we children used to have delightful thrills of horror at thought of the Great American Desert and far Pacific coast, peopled, as we believed, with lions, alligators, dragons, polar bears, anacondas, the " anthropophagi, and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders " — creatures all the more terrible by reason of the utter vagueness of their outlines and conditions. And we used to play at being Captain Cook, who, to our apprehension, was the very symbol and archetype of discoverers ; and, as he and his heroic band, used to do much execution among the heaped-up sticks in the wood-shed, which alternately, or rather indiscriminately, represented the Rocky Mountains, hosts of savage foes, or such a menagerie of beasts as has not been seen since the creation. By-and-by one of us repeated the fable of " Rasselas," which is the apologue of Time, left behind him the Happy Valley of a delighted childhood, and went forth to explore the world. I do not remember that any wise Imlac began that long journey in his company, nor that he came to any Cairo where he spent two years in learning the Universal Language, and where every man was happy. On the contrary, I am afraid that Imlac, who stands for the lessons of experience, joined him only after long years and innumerable scrapes had cost him dear ; and that the Cairo where all men are happy is not set down on any chart by which he took his way. At least it was not built between Boston and San Francisco, nor yet between that golden capital and Puget Sound, nor did any spire or minaret thereof glitter against the perfect skies of Oregon, whither the wanderings of the new Rasselas led him. But, to drop metaphor, which, like Malvolio's cross-garterings, " obstructs the blood," it was I who made the journey to Ore- gon, and I find that I cannot tell a comfortable story without saying so in the begin-

5

MULTANOMAH FALLS.

UP AND DOWN THE COLUMBIA. 35

ning, with a heart-felt regret that I am not Wallace, or that most charming traveller, Mr, John Hay, instead of myself.

Perhaps oceans change their habits with time, like climates and individuals. It is easier to believe that in 1520 the Pacific lapsed on purple islands a summer sea, than to discredit the incorruptible Magalhaens, of Portuguese truth and directness, with wit- tingly bewraying the trust of unborn generations. In 1869, however, it had become the most deceitful of waters, with a horrible swell and pitch peculiar to itself, and caves full of head-winds, like Atlantic gales grown up, out on their travels, and equal to any mis- chief. Nor is the Pacific content to have its grim way with you only while you are its lawful prey. For it has set a bar at the mouth of the Columbia, which for nine days defied the best seamanship of Captain Robert Gray, of the good bark Columbia Rediviva, who named the beautiful river in 1 792. And it is only by seizing the unwilling tide in the narrowest nick of time that the pilot compels it to float you beyond the dangerous shoal and into the safety of the stream. Once within the bar, the ship seems to relax every tense nerve and fibre, and to drift on the current like a spent deer which has escaped the hounds. And so, lazily, you come to Astoria.

Astoria, founded by the Northwestern Fur Company, was, I believe, our first white settlement in the Northwest, and it was named in honor of John Jacob Astor, who was the energetic spirit of the company. Astoria is a nice name enough, as names go, and certainly better than Astor's Corner, or Astorville, or New Astor. But to be a mighty trapper, or only to hire the skill of mighty trappers, hardly entitles a man to build him- self a monument of imperishable earth, and wood, and water. The Astor Library com- memorates in its name a noble benefaction. Astoria preserves the recollection of a sharp and lucky instinct of trade. However, for that matter, there are hardly ten men in a generation for whom a town should be named. Unless Astor, or Lansing, or Lawrence, be many-sided, hospitable, capable of large results and endless activities — unless there be broad avenues leading to temples in his soul, and straight ways to libraries, museums, gymnasiums, schools, in his brain — he has no business to impress his image and super- scription on the possible germ of all this completeness. And, if he have this right and title, he will have modesty besides, and never claim it. Alexandria and Rome sound stately, and embalm the pagan virtues of hardiness, courage, force, invincibility. For the men who overran the younger world at least brought blood, brawn, and brains out of their tussle with Nature and man. But our century pretends to a different civilization, and condemns without hope the Anglo-Saxon idiots who, in this age and in this republic, have blasted nineteen post-towns with the name of Rome, and doomed sixteen to stag- ger under the weight of Alexandria, with the occasional suffix of Centre, Foui'- Corners, and Switch. Alexandria Switch ! Perhaps we all privately sympathize with the senti- ment of Horace Walpole, who declared that he should be very fond of his country if it were not for his countrymen ! In the name of grace and fitness, let us keep the sweet

36

PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

Indian appellatives bequeathed our pleasant places by a vanishing race; and, for whatever other nomenclature we need, let us remember only the " high souls, like some far stars, that come in sight once in a century."

Well, we came to Astoria (which should have been Chetco) in the late afternoon of a perfect summer Sunday. The river, twelve miles wide, lay all aglow with color under the low sun, and out to the west the color deepened and deepened till it seemed to be no longer atmosphere, but substance, like some supernal gem. Astoria is such a tiny place to have set up in the world for itself, so far from civilization ! The great river

Rooster Rock.

Stretches like a sea to the north ; the great ocean creeps close on the west ; and on the south and east the forests crowd up to the very thresholds — such forests as only the cun- ning wolf and wild-cat can find their way in. Yet, as the twilight fell, the little church- bell rang with a sound of cheerful confidence in a responsive congregation, and men and women went churchward, and lights glanced in the windows, and a little, soft baby-cry trembled a moment in the air. So I suppose that the world goes on there just as it does in New York or Nova Zembla, with births and deaths and givings in marriage, and envies and heartaches and sweet charities. But to this hour I cannot think of that atom

UP AND DOWN THE COLUMBIA. 37

of civilization, made so pathetically small by the vastness of sea and river and woods, without a little pang of pity for what seems its unutterable loneliness ; and yet I dare say it sits by the fire in supreme satisfaction, finds the keenest zest in the excitement of the semi-weekly stopping of the steamer, and, if it condescended to make comparisons, would consider New York at a disadvantage as to situation. That beautiful and blessed quahty of self-conceit, without whose protection the contusions of every day would keep us morally black and blue from head to foot, not only saves ourselves from the buffet- ings of the unworthy, but saves also our kin, our neighborhood, our township, even our select-man, unless he happen to belong to the opposite political party.

Very late the long twilight faded, and the darkness grew alive with sound. The soft slipping of the tide and the murmur of the great woods were the ever-recurring lovely air, as it were, with which unnumbered variations blended. The myriad creatures which, every summer-night, seem to be just born, and to try vainly to utter their joy in stridu- lous voices, piped the whole chromatic scale with infinite self-satisfaction. Innumerable crickets addressed us in cadence with cheeiy felicitations on our safe arrival among them; a colony of tree-toads interrupted everybody to ask, in the key of F sharp major, after their relatives in the East, and to make totally irrelevant observations, without ever wait- ing for a reply ; and the swelling bass of the bull-frogs seemed to be thanking Heaven that they wer6 not as these impertinents. This inarticulate welcome, this well-known iteration, made the Pacific seem no longer strange, but familiar as the shores of New- York Bay, and it would not greatly have surprised us to open our eyes, next morning, on the barrenness of Sandy Hook or the fair Heights of Brooklyn.

What they really saw, however, when daybreak found us far up the Columbia, was better than city or crowded anchorage. The great river, still lake-like in breadth and quietness, lay rosy in the dawn. The wonderful forests, whose magnificence our tame and civil imagination could not have conceived, came down from farthest distance to the very margin of the stream. Pines and firs two hundred feet high were the. sombre background against which a tropical splendor of color flickered or flamed out, for, even in this early September, beeches and oaks and ash-trees were clothed with autumn pomp ; and on the north, far above the silence of the river and the splendid shores, four snow-crowned, rose-flushed, stately mountains lifted themselves to heaven. For miles and miles and miles. Mount Adams, Mount Jefferson, Mount Rainier, and Mount St. Helen's, make glad the way. Adams and Jefferson have an unvarying grandeur of form, a mas- sive strength and nobility, as it becomes them to inherit with their names. Mount St. Helen's rises in lines so vague and soft as to seem like a cloud-mountain. Rainier, whose vastness you comprehend only when you see it from Puget Sound, looks, even from the river, immeasurable, lying snow^-covered from base to peak.

Portland, one hundred and ten miles up the river, is the point of debarkation for the San-Francisco steamers, and there is much to be said about that busy and thrifty

CASTLE KOCK.

UP AND DOWN THE COLUMBIA. 39

little clucking hen of a city. But, as Portland is not on the. Columbia at all, but on the Willamette, twelve miles from its mouth, it may not now be told what golden eggs she has laid. The little steamer which plies up and down the river leaves her dock at the uncomfortable hour of three o'clock in the morning or thereabouts ; and that must be very fine scenery, indeed, which reconciles one to being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night, and dumped, hungry, sleepy, and cross, in the chilly cabin of a day-boat, bare of state-rooms or sofas. The view which daylight brought us was a prospect of the boat's paddle-boxes. A gray mist swallowed up every thing beyond. But when it lifted, three hours later, it was worth while to have been chilled to the bone with its cold, and alarmed by its threat of showing us nothing, to see what it really had to show. For, as it slowly crept back to the shores and up the banks, and so away to the north- pole, which it must have come from, river and shores and mountains and sky, and the sun itself, came out upon us with such intensity of light and color that it seemed as if we or they were absolutely new that morning, and had never seen each other before.

Where the mists lifted, the stream flowed clear and smooth between mountain-shores a mile and a half apart, and rising sharp and bold thousands of feet in air. Forests covered their rocky sides, sometimes rising to the very top, sometimes dwindling into groups and thickets as they climbed. And on the very crest, standing alone and suck- ing their lusty life from the inhospitable stone, lone pines shot out of the crevices of rock, looking, so far above us, like the queer and graceless toy-trees in the shilling boxes of wooden soldiers, dear to the heart of boyhood. These mountains are a solid wall along the river for miles on miles. Sometimes there is neither rift, nor gorge, nor scar, in their huge sides. Then a canyon opens, and you see beyond and beyond other mountains coming down to link themselves in an unending chain, and glimpses of far-off levels or gray fields of rock bounding the vision. Sometimes a water-fall dazzles and dances out of the sky, a little, fluttering, quivering cobweb at first ; then a floating ribbon ; then a wind-blown veil of spray ; then a cascade, leaping from rock to rock, forty, sixty, a hun- dred, three hundred feet ; then a swift, resistless, triumphant rush of water, swirling and whirling toward the river of its love.*

Yet, if shores and water-falls were beautiful, the forests were the crowning glory of the place. First in rank, again, stood the pines and firs — if they were pines and firs. They looked to me like some celestial sort of grown-up, feathery ground-evergreen. And who could expect a pine to rise, straight and fair, three hundred feet, a glimpse of red- brown bolls warm through the foliage of the lesser trees, and a glory of spreading, plumy, dark-green boughs, so purely outlined that every little tuft of them looked as if it, and it alone, had been finished specially to show how perfect a thing a tree-branch may be made for the enjoyment of the woodpeckers and the slugs .? Seeing these pines, one

* See Multanomah Falls.

40

PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

understands the Northern myth of the tree Yggdrasill, at whose feet flowed sacred foun tains and whose branches upheld the world.

Then came the cotton-woods, and the cotton-wood is to the Western settler the symbol of intermeddling and knavish incapacity. He considers it the " dead beat " of the vegetable kingdom, usurping ground that belongs to honester growths, making great pretensions to an early and useful maturity, and no better than a pipe-stem in value

The Cascades.

when the axe claims it. Yet there crowded these plausible cotton-woods, standing so idly gracious and welcoming all along the shores in such gorgeousness of golden splen- dor, and in such royal ease and grace of attitude, that one forgets their good-for-nothing- ness and their general bad name among the virtuous and useful trees, and takes them to his heart at once. A tree whose polished, brilliant leaf looked like our maple, and whose scarlet, pendent swinging boughs looked like darting orioles, we were forbidden to

CAPE HORN.

42 PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

consider a familiar friend, a very learned pundit assuring us that there were no maples on the river. That Vv^as the only vegetation with which we were bold enough to set up the plea of acquaintance, every thing else being quite too splendid to countenance any claim of kinship with the paler and punier growths of our ascetic climate.

Sometimes, so far above our heads that they looked like pigmies at play, we saw the lumbermen getting out logs which came tearing down the rugged sluice-ways to the river, IMore seldom, even, did a single logger's hut appear, like a hang-bird's nest, far up among the rocks, making the place look wilder than the wilderness, because this little struggle toward civilization and domesticity was so overborne by the savagery of Nature. These half-cleared places had a certain rcpulsiveness, too. Nature carefully hides unsightly spots with shrubs and bushes, and, when her dead trees fall, she tenderly adorns the wreck they make with vines and mosses. But, when man comes in with rude and indiscriminate rapine, she is profaned, and will long leave the place to his clumsy keeping, throwing neither vine nor moss, nor veiling shadow even, across the scars of his occupation. So that those half-clearings looked rough and coarse as the lives of the inhabitants.

Sometimes the liver flowed straight and untroubled. Sometimes the mountains swept round into its path, and the stream bent and parted on rocky mounds or islands, and ran shallow, disturbed, and dangerous. Straightway it quieted into chains of narrow lakes without visible outlet, whereon we sailed close up to lofty, impassable shores, like the walls of Sinbad's valley, but, turning suddenly on our track, found unexpected deliver- ance. Then, looking back, the way was lost by which we had come. Here, in the solitary mountains, we were alone. No world behind — no world before. The sense of solitude was too vast to be painful. But we felt as escaping prisoners feel when we threaded our way through a narrow rift of stone into the wonderful stream that grew more won- derful as we sailed. For, just there, walls of basalt in vast ledges, rising sheer and straight from the shore, overtopped the farther mountains. Rifted bowlders, like Castle Rock, stood alone, their base washed by the river, their heads upholding the sky. Majestic ram- parts, like Cape Horn, rose, a vast, columnar wall, sometimes seven hundred feet in height. Columns, and obelisks, and shafts, lifted themselves with a mightier strength and a more majestic grace than architecture has been able to achieve. And through these stately gate-ways we came to the Cascades.

The Cascades are the fierce and whirling rapids wherein the river falls forty feet, twenty feet of it being taken almost at a leap. But for five miles the river is a seeth- ing whirlpool, and a queer little railroad on the Washington side affords the portage. The track runs so near the water's edge that one has a view of these rapids for the whole way, from the Middle Block-house, relic of not unremote Indian wars, to the drowned forest above the upper landing. The whole river-bed is gigantic rocks, some- times hidden by the water, sometimes tearing through the water to make sharp and naked islands, between which the current rushes down, white with foam and with a roar

UP AND DOV/N THE COLUMBIA.

43

like the sea. Round the rocks and between the rocks and over the rocks, and almost burrowing under the rocks in its force, in those five miles the river takes on every pos- sible form of cascade. Yet where we take steamer again, a moment before the river makes its first plunge, it is as quiet as the Connecticut, and washes along over sub- merged stumps like any slow bayou.

Being born under a lucky star, Imlac and I were invited to ride on the engine, nay,

Middle Block-house, Cascades.

on the very cow-catcher. It is impossible to imagine a madder excitement. With the whole tremendous motive-power behind you forgotten, you seem to be flying, without even the drawback of having to flap your wings. The wild river to the right of you, the wild mountains close on your left hand ; your flight through rifts and chasms of stone which seem ever crowding forward with an evil-minded will to shut you in ; just a glimpse of blue sky far above, such as miners see from the bottom of the black shaft; a fierce

44

PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

rush and roar of wind that strikes down your very eyelids — this is riding on the cow- catcher in the canyon of the Columbia. Half blinded as we were, we saw, as we passed it, the great sides of Rooster Rock and a little log-house beneath. This was the scene of Lieutenant Philip H. Sheridan's first battle. Here, in 1856, a small party of white men was for two days besieged by a strong force of Indians ; and here the irrepressible lieutenant, tired of his wise and masterly inactivity, determined to attack in his turn, and totally routed the enemy in a very whirlwind of a charge.

Now you are in the heart of the mountains. Soon the rock walls approach each other, and the stream flows narrower and fiercer. The wind roars through the gorges,

Peak of Red Rock

and in the spring, when the banks are full, beats up such waves that a boat cannot live in them, though these straits are two hundred miles from the sea. The walls are basaltic, columnar, rising in distinct, rudely-modelled pillars from four hundred feet to twelve hundred. Now and then, a bold rampart measures two thousand five hundred feet or even more. The receding or advancing cliffs break the river into a chain of tiny lakes. Wherever the mountains fall back on the south, Mount Hood fills the horizon snow-covered, shining, vast. Mount Hood is fourteen thousand feet in height, and it is mortifying to admit that Mont Blanc is almost sixteen thousand. But, with this fore- ground of river and forest, with all this blaze of color set against the cold splendor of the icy peak, and with the blue intensity of the warm skv above. Mount Hood is more

UP AND DOWN THE COLUMBIA.

45

magnificent than words can tell or brush can paint. And, if any " vagrom " man, having seen the two, pretends to think Mont Blanc the finer, let us, as Americans, laugh him

to scorn.

Where the mountains recede before Mount Hood, the forest again encroaches, but it leaves bare a desolate peak called Coffin Rock, which was a place of Indian sepulture. Cairns of gray stones cover it, and rude monuments of rock. One is not near enough to see the vileness of the human taint upon it — for your true Indian in his death is little better than in his life, and bequeaths himself, a foul legacy, to the pure elements — and its gray melancholy is pathetic.

The Dalles is the second town of Oregon. The Idaho miners make it their base

Coffin Rock.

of supplies. The gold comes down there for shipment, and this babe in the woods even dreams of a mint. But its interest to the traveller is neither in grocery nor in ore, but in its wonderful outlook on river and mountain. For ten miles up the stream the dalles, or flag-stones, choke the way, and there you must take to the cars again. Here the strange, weather-beaten, weary-looking, old red rock reappeared, after a long absence, looking, amid the harder and bolder cliffs, like a poor relation, pathetic, but very seedy. The queer, battered, time-worn peak on the opposite page is of it.

The cliflfs disappear above Dalles City, and lo, the sand-region ! The endless wonder

of the Pacific-coast journeys is the suddenness of their changes, as if supernatural scene-

. shifters were kept constantly busy in whipping off the old scenes, and setting new and

46

PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

unexpected ones for the next act. From forests of tropic splendor to mountains of northern bareness and grandeur, from still pond to roaring cataract, from verdure and cultivation into Sahara, you pass without the least hint from Nature of what she means to do five minutes hence. Possibly Science gets the better of her, and finds out her whimsical intentions ; but to the unlearned she seems to have gotten a little tipsy on that wonderful air — which would intoxicate the soberest — and not to be quite sure of her own mind. Her desert on the Columbia is a lively suggestion of her greater works of the same order in Egypt or elsewhere. It looks a limitless plain of hot white sand.

Passacre of the Dalles.

The wind is a hurricane, and seems to blow from every point at once, so that the heavens rain a sandy shower. The shifting, sifting sand covers the track. Men in sand- white garments, with sand-white beards and hair, blindly delve along the rails to clear them, and limp aside with sand-stifif joints that seem to creak, as we go by. The sky is a pale-blue vault, faded out by this torrid plain. The sun is veiled, intense, and colorless. The earth is like a place of graves, as if millions of men, whole peoples, whole races, had been buried there and forgotten. But, if Nature had ever set any race there, it must have been of the lowest — in mind vacant, in body vile, in worship regarding stones and

UP AND DOWN THE COLUMBIA. 47

wild animals, its only symbols of steadfastness and power. And when on the flat- shore rocks we saw the bark lodges of the Trascopin Indians, vile children and viler men and vilest women swarming within and without, we felt that they were accounted for — stupidity, dishonesty, beastliness, and all — and had no disposition to cast a stone at them.

The fifteen miles of portage show superb river scenery wherever the sand will let you see it. It is a succession of rapids, falls, and sucking currents, where the dalles, or dales— xo\x^ troughs or flag-stones, which have given their name to the place — make crooked and narrow channels for the stream. Every form which water may put on, every tint with which it can be beautiful, every caprice of motion with which it can move, finds illustration in this Columbia. Below the great fall, the whole volume of the stream — whose branches stretch north through British Columbia, east through Idaho and Mon- tana, south and west into Nevada, and, reaching down, gather in the icy rivulets of the Rocky Mountains — pours through a gate-way not fifty yards in width, whose sides are perpendicular precipices, hewn as with implements. Smooth and green and glassy, it slides under brown shadows but to be torn again into a hundred ribbons by rocks below, as it has just been torn by rocks above. At the falls it is a mile wide, and plunges over a rocky wall twenty feet high and stretching from shore to shore.

Here are the famous Salmon Falls, up which the salmon go to the quiet reaches of the river to spawn, shooting the rapids with incredible agility. If you can keep your footing on the slippery ledges of rock, you watch them, fascinated. Up they come through the fierce and sucking rapids, gleaming white against the black stones that here and there tear the water ; first come a fev/ together ; then a multitude swirls along ; then the whole river from side to side is light with their innumerable host. And they mind that precipice and torrent no more than if it were a summer pool within its reedy mar- gent. They swim swift and stately to the very foot, where you lose them in the seeth- ing, white whirlpool. Something flashes in the air, elastic, strong, light. Something glides up the stream above the fall. The daring, determined, wonderful thing has made that leap, defied rock and torrent, and found its safe shelter in the quiet pool beyond. Or, there is the flash, and then a struggle, and the poor bruised creature, wounded to death against the sharp-edged stones, drops back upon the current, and floats down a bloody track, dying after a little while. So they come, and come, and come — such myri- ads of them — and leap, and win, or lose, for all the hours of the day and for half the days of the year.

All over the rocks at the foot of the fall flutter the very scanty and disreputable rags in which the noble savage invests minute and accidental portions of his body. We nowhere saw the forest-god whom Cooper believed in, nor yet the statuesque and noble hunter whom Ward has found. It is not possible to imagine human creatures more unromantic, more indecent, more loathsome, more inhuman, than the visible Indian who

48

PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

appears along every line of travel from the Kansas border to the northwestern boundary. That typical warrior who should be capable of declaring —

" Blaze with your serried columns ! I will not bend the knee ; The shackles ne'er again shall bind The arm which now is free ! " —

lives in the mountain-fastnesses, if he live at all, and does not corrupt his good manners with the evil communications of pale-faces. The red man of the plains, of the rivers, of the railroad and stage-coach neighborhoods, belongs to the universal genus loafer. He

Salmon Falls.

is a mighty hunter only of other men's corn and eggs. Savage virtues, if there be any, have departed from him, and civilized vices clothe him as with a garment. These Tras- copins along the Columbia live chiefly on the salmon, and, when they have dried, twice over, all that even their gluttony can desire, they still go to the falls, day after day, and for mere wantonness of cruelty spear the beautiful fish and throw them out on the stones to die there horribly, and rot and infect the air. The ledges were slimy with decaying salmon, and abounded with a horrid parasitic life. Sight and smell drove us quickly away ; but the noble savage evidently enjoyed it all. You do not care for their thieving, per- haps ; for, besides that you own neither cornfields nor hen-roost vv^ithin three thousand miles, you reflect that our v/orthy ancestors set them a large example in that way, to

UP AND DOWN THE COLUMBIA.

49

begin with. Moreover, thieving rises into a notable industry, when the alternative of idle hands is this sickening barbarity. But you do care for all their ignorance and dirt, and foulness and disease ; and you are pricked for weeks afterward with a sense of personal responsibility in the matter, that clings like the shirt of Nessus.

And, with whatever contemptuous pity you regard these step-children of Nature, it is impossible not to believe that the sum of the united Trascopins and Arapahoes, and Shoshones, and Pahutes, and Crows, and of all other ill-conditioned tribes there be, does not equal in value to humanity the single unit of young Loring's life. Therefore, it would seem that there must be a proper Indian pohcy somewhere between the indiscrimi- nate wiping out which the frontiersman insists on and the peppermint-candy wiles of Mr. Colyer. The Howard who shall devise it will bring peace to the tender consciences of all travellers who have seen the Indian at home, and have carried the consciousness of him as a nightmare ever since.

I feel that I should ask pardon of the polite reader for this most unhandsome epi- sode, and of the sentimentalist for the callousness of these observations. But the Indian is just what I have drawn him, and it seems as if we might sooner settle the perplexing problem of what to do with him if our chameleon policy, whether of peace or war, con- templated the actual creature, and not a figment of the brain of the philanthropist on the one hand, and of the border-settler on the other. For my own part, I believe that not only are not all the aborigines of the West worth one high-hearted young Loring, but that Darwin himself, on seeing them, would be constrained to accord them slow and multiplied centuries to " mount through the various spires of form " before they should reach the negative and harmless excellence of the poor fish they slaughter.

And, if this phase is the very worst of savage life, and an unfair exhibition of their tendencies, why, I have seen the very best phase as well, and I found it very disappoint- ing. I spent some time once at a Catholic mission among the Potawatamies, and I carefully botanized among the transplanted wild shoots. The school was a triumph of drill. The young barbarians, in formal jackets and trousers, inexpressibly uglier than their native rags or their yet more native dull-red skins, were frowned down by big black- boards, and confronted by verbs and definitions and the multiplication-table, and in every way dreadfully put upon by star-eyed Science. They were letter-perfect. I do not re- member that they blundered in an answer. They even divided fractions, and their be- havior struck me into amazement and admiration, as Hamlet's affected the queen ; for it is a thing / can't do. But they were only as so many puppets pulled by a string. The lessons meant absolutely nothing to them ; they had not an idea. Why you should divide a fraction, they had no more notion than the wooden rosaries th'ey all wore, whereas / see a possible propriety in the impossible achievement, which shows a superior mental endowment. All the individuality was ground out of the poor little puppets. After the geography-lesson was written on them, it was rubbed out, as it were, and a

50

PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

grammar-lesson was set down in its place ; and then the sponge of the next text-book erased every trace of noun and verb, and the surface was blank for the catechism or hymn, or whatever came next. When school was dismissed, the little martyrs did not fly to play, as lusty white boys fly. They moped away by themselves, holding no commerce with each other, too broken-spirited even to stare at the visitors or to show any eager- ness as to the appropriation of pennies very liberally bestowed. Some of them lay on their backs and looked at the sky, and the rest mooned about so vacantly that it was impossible for any thing else to be so slow and indifferent except a snail. When they grow up, it looked as if they would either go back to the wild life or settle down on

Indians on the Columbia.

the debatable border with the most scampish of the white squatters, and poison their dull blood with the coarse but necessary excitement of bad whiskey. No, it is useless ; education does not agree with the Indian blood, and, when you try to make this red- handed Ishmael put on oti^r zuays, he merely loses his own, and is more lazy and not less vicious.

Above the Dalles the forests disappear ; nay, every leaf vanishes, and for miles on miles the banks are covered with thick brown grass, wherein not even a mullein-stalk springs. The scenery is tame, and the most eager tourist seldom ventures above Wright's Harbor, two hundred and fifty miles from the sea. Steamers ply, however, for four hundred miles, and then, after a portage along impassable rapids, an odd little boat

UP AND DOWN THE COLUMBIA. 51

runs up the Snake River, in Idaho. When the great railroad shall connect the head-waters of the Missouri with the head-waters of the Columbia, the six hundred miles of track will open an incalculable wealth to trade, and the most magnificent wilderness of the world to travel. But at present, what with ubiquitous savages, and perils of cold and hunger, and lost trails, it is as well to pause at Celilo, not far above the falls. There, having inspected " the largest warehouse in the United States, being over eleven hundred feet in length, and built to receive the Idaho freights," as the sta- tion-master informs you in a solemn recitative, and there being nothing else in or of Celilo that unanointed eyes can behold, you are speedily ready for your train. And so back you go, leaving the falls and salmon and savage, leaving desert and whirl- pool and whirlwind, at your back, and not reluctantly returning to the common-sense and conventions of decent and sober Dalles. All the Dallesese, I remember, were " assisting " at a Sabbath-school festival when we arrived, and, going to bed on the boat, we seemed consequently to have inhaled a whiff of New-England air, and to sleep the better for it.

To come down the river in the early morning, with the clear eastern light be- hind you, is almost finer than to sail eastward, with the glow of the sunset over moun- tain and stream. Certainly Mount Hood lay more stately calm and fair, quite apart, rising lonely from a far, upward-going plain, white, glittering, perfect. Mount Adams and Mount Jefferson, also, seemed to win a charm from the presence of the pure morn- ing ; and we had not in the least understood Mount Rainier until this second coming before it. Under the blue heavens it rose in soft and tender liftings, till its triple crown overtopped Mount Hood itself From Puget Sound, the view of it is grander, but not so lovely ; and, as we watched it, it seemed even more v/orthy to be remembered than sweet St. Helen's.

There are actually many hundreds of persons, no better than ourselves, who are allowed to live all their years in the presence of these five mountains ; but we did not see the human likeness of the Great Stone Face anywhere, and we observed that worries, and sorrows, and sickness, and even death, came to them as to us. So, when it seemed best, we were content to leave the enchanted river behind us, and to come back to the familiar East, where, if work and care and pain awaited us, duty as surely waited for us, too. And, as we reluctantly sailed away from the friendliness we had found, and from the majestic forests and the gracious mountains, we seemed to hear in the ripple of the waves these words of a most sweet philosopher : " Let us remember within what walls we lie, and understand that this level hfe, too, has its summit, and why from the mountain=top the deepest valley has its tinge of blue ; that there is elevation in every hour, as no part of the earth is so low that the heavens may not be seen from it, and we have only to stand on the summit of our hour to command an uninterrupted horizon."

LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN AND THE TENNESSEE.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY HARRY FENN.

^'m^-iC:^

-^ The Tennessee.

T T rained the first day we were -*- at Chattanooga. It rained the second day. The waters came down in ceaseless floods, and Lookout Moun- tain, with its head buried in the mist, seemed, as seen fi-om our hotel - window, lumpish and uninteresting enough. " After all," thought I, watching the spiritless mass through the thick lances of rain, " Leigh Hunt was right. A great mountain is a great humbug. Look at this ! A huge, formless hump, a colorless, dead protuber- ance, that obstructs rather than supplies a

./y^/au'^'

LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN AND THE TENNESSEE. 53

prospect ! What is there about it, or of it, or in it, that men should come long dis- tances to see it, and risk their necks by climbing it ? " These ejaculations were ut- tered half aloud, and the mountain-loving artist, overhearing them, quickly uttered his in- stinctive remonstrance. " Wait," he wisely suggested to his companion's impatience, " until the rain ceases. Sunshine will change your mood and your conclusions."

There was nothing, indeed, to do but wait, although Chattanooga is dreary enough in a rain-storm. The town was denuded during the war of all its trees, a large part of it was burned, and once it was buried up to its second-story windows under the Ten- nessee. These things have not served to beautify it. The streets are unpaved, and ap- parently unworked; in wet weather they are of unspeakable mud, in dry weather of in- describable dust, and at all times they present a surface of ridges and chasms that make travelling upon them a penance which one's bones long feelingly remember. The princi- pal business-avenue consists of little better than rudely-constructed barracks ; so, what with the bare and rude streets and the roughly-constructed buildings, the place seems more like an extemporized mining-town of the far West than an old settlement of the East. But there is exhibited all the activity of a new colony ; better buildings are rapidly going up ; a fine new hotel has been opened ; there are signs everywhere of prosperity and growth ; and hence, if the Tennessee can only be persuaded to respect its legitimate boundaries, we shall find the town in good time a prosperous and agreeable place. It is a very active town. There are several railroads, and many trains come and go ; it is an extensive cattle-depot, and droves of horses and bovines ceaselessly fill the streets. The citizens are rather proud of their big new hotel, and they look upon Lookout Mountain with feelings of friendly interest ; but I do not know that any thing delights them so much as reminiscences of the big flood that occurred about five years ago. They will show you the high-water marks with unsuppressed enthusiasm, and dwell upon the ap- pearance of steamboats in their main street with an exhibition of pride that is very touching.

When the sun came out on the third day we set forth with all expedition for the mountain. During the regular season, which we had anticipated by a few weeks, coaches run at fixed intervals to the mountain-top, where two hotels give entertainment to all comers.

As we were to remain on the mountain several days, our carriage was packed with all our effects, and we sallied forth with eagerness to scenes which the war brought into such prominent notice. After a drive of about two miles, we began the long, sloping ascent of the mountain-road, and half an hour later found us midway up the " formless hump," very much disposed, indeed, to beg the mountain's pardon for our depreciating criticism at the hotel-window ; for now forms of the most varied and striking character revealed themselves in the cliffs and ravines of the mountain, and already superb pros- pects of the far valley and the winding Tennessee showed through glimpses of the trees

LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.— VIE\AA FROM THE "POINT."

LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN AND THE TENNESSEE. 55

Above us hung beetling clififs, which Mr. Fenn's pencil vividly delineates in one of the larger illustrations, while below us were precipitous reaches, here and there picturesquely marked by gigantic bowlders. I do not know but the best charm of mountain-views is in these half glimpses that you catch in the ascent. If they do not possess the sublimity of the scene from the supreme altitude, they gain many beauties in the nicer articulation of the different objects below. The picturesque, moreover, is a little coy, and reveals it- self more pleasingly in the half glances through broken vistas than at the open stare. Our journey up the sides of Lookout was continually arrested by the charming pictures of this character that the winding road brought to view.

The first sensation of the prospect from the top is simply of immensity. The eye sweeps the vast spaces that are bounded only by the haze of distance. On three sides no obstacles intervene between your altitude and the utmost reaches of the vision. To your right, stretch successive ranges of hills and mountains that seem to rise one above another until they dispute form and character with the clouds. Your vision extends, you are told, to the great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, which lie nearly a hundred miles distant. The whole vast space between is packed with huge undulations of hills, which seem to come rolling in upon your mountain-shore, like giant waves. It is, indeed, a very sea of space, and your stand of rocks and cliffs juts up in strange isolation amid the gray waste of blending hills. Directly before you the undulations are repeated, fading away in the far distance where the Cumberland Flills of Kentucky hide their tops in the mists of the horizon. Your eye covers the entire width of Tennessee ; it reaches, so it is said, even to Virginia, and embraces within its scope territory of seven States. These are Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Virginia, Kentucky, North and South Carolina. If the view does in truth extend to Virginia, then it reaches to a point fully one hundred and fifty miles distant. To your left, the picture gains a delicious charm in the windings of the Tennessee, which makes a sharp curve directly at the base of the mountain, and then sweeps away, soon disappearing among its hills, but at intervals reappearing, glancing white and silvery in the distance, like great mirrors let into the landscape.

Lookout Mountain presents an abrupt precipice to the plain it overlooks. Its cliffs are, for half-way jdown the mountain, splendid palisades, or escarpments, the character of which can be altogether better conceived by the study of Mr. Fenn's drawings than by the most skilful description. The mountain-top is almost a plateau, and one may wander at his ease for hours along the rugged, broken, seamed, tree-crowned cliffs, surveying the superb panorama stretched out before him in all its different aspects. The favorite post of view is called the " Point," a plateau on a projecting angle of the cliff, being almost directly above the Tennessee, and commanding to the right and left a breadth of view which no other situation enjoys. Beneath the cliff, the rock-strewed slope that stretches to the valley was once heavily wooded, but during the war the Confederates denuded it of its trees, in order that the approaches to their encampment might be watched. It was

56 PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

under cover of a dense mist that Hooker's men on the day of the famous battle skirted this open space and reached the cover of the rocks beyond, up which they were to chmb. The " battle above the clouds " is picturesque and poetical in the vivid descriptions of our historians, but the survey of the ground from the grand escarpments of the mountain thrills one with admiration. It is not surprising that Bragg believed himself secure in his rocky eyrie, and the wonder must always remain that these towering palisades did not prove an impregnable barrier to the approach of his enemy.

On the summit of Lookout Mountain the northwest corner of Georgia and the northeast extremity of Alabama meet on the southern boundary of Tennessee. The mountain lifts abruptly from the valley to a height of fifteen hundred feet. It is the summit overhanging the plain of Chattanooga that is usually connected in the popular imagination with the title of Lookout, but the mountain really extends for fifty miles in a southwesterly direction into Alabama. The surface of the mountain is well wooded, it has numerous springs, and is susceptible of cultivation. In time, no doubt, extensive farms will occupy the space now filled by the wilderness. There is a small settlement on the crest of the mountain, consisting of two summer hotels, several cottages and cabins, and a college. It is a grand place for study, and the young people of this sky-aspiring academy have certainly superb stimulants in the exhilarating air and glorious scenes of their mountain alma mater.

Only one of the public-houses was open at the time of our early visit to the moun- tain, but already the daily throng of visitors was large. People only came, however, for an hour or two ; the regular summer crowds, who during the hot season sojourn among these lofty rocks, had given as yet no signs of their coming, and the principal hotel was closed and silent. The Summit House, however, proved a pleasant little box. We were the only guests, and hence had choice of rooms, and first place in our land- lord's affections. The sunshine that seduced us from Chattanooga only kept our company until we reached the mountain-top, when clouds began to obscure the scene, and winds to chill the air. Although nearly three days on the mountain, Mr. Fenn got his sketches with difficulty. There were glimpses of sunshine, and the clouds would lift and give us superb vanishing pictures of the valley and distant hills, touched in spots with sunlight ; but the cold winds and the ever-recurring showers made sketching out-of-doors cold and dismal work. At the hotel we kept warm by means of blazing piles of logs, which a little negro lass of about twelve years kept continually piling upon the waiting andirons. To this diminutive daughter of Ethiopia we owe a world of thanks. The little creature was full of work, zeal, and affection ; her big eyes had a melancholy contemplation, and her manner exhibited a motherly solicitude that was exceedingly amusing. We chris- tened her after the immortal Marchioness of Dickens. She seemed maid and master of all work. She waited on table, polished the boots, made the fires, helped cook the meals, as her regular duties, and then seemed never tired of watching over our comforts. At

CHATTANOOGA AND THE TENNESSEE FROM LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.

58 PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

the first show of the sun in the morning, she entered our rooms and built up fires for us, and the last thing at night was to heap the andirons with wood. The wind pierced through the thin timber frame of the house as if it had been pasteboard, and rendered fires at all hours necessary. The black Marchioness's especial ambition was to polish our boots. She promised each day they should be more brilliantly executed the next. " Won't have no more boots to black," was her mournful comment when we came to depart. " Why not .? " was our reply ; " there will be plenty of boots to black— in fact, too many, we should say." " No," was the inconsolable rejoinder, " people only come here to dinner. Nobody stays here all night. There will be no more boots to black," and with this la- ment upon her lips we left her. The spirits of Day & Martin will doubtless discover this polishing zeal, and shower benedictions upon her.

The majority of visitors go to Lookout only for an hour or two, and hence miss some very striking characteristics of the mountain. There are a lake and a cascade of uncommon beauty about six miles distant from the " Point," and a singular grouping of rocks, known by the name of " Rock City." The City of Rocks would be a somewhat more correct appellation. This is a very odd phenomenon. Vast rocks of the most varied and fantastic shape are arranged into avenues almost as regular as the streets of a city. Names, indeed, have been given to some of the main thoroughfares, through which one may travel between great masses of the oddest architecture conceivable. Sometimes these structures are nearly square, and front the avenue with all the imposing dignity of a Fifth - Avenue mansion. But others exhibit a perfect license in capri- cious variety of form. Some are scooped out at the lower portion, and overhang their base in ponderous balconies of rock. Others stand balanced on small pivots of rock, and apparently defy the law of gravitation. I know of nothing more quaint and strange than the aspects of this mock city — silent, shadowy, deserted, and suggestive, some way, of a strange life once within its borders. One expects to hear a foot-fall, to see the pon- derous rocks open and give forth life, and awaken the sleep that hushes the dumb city in a repose so profound.

Lookout Mountain is remarkable generally for its quaint and fantastic rocks. Near the " Point " are two eccentric specimens that are pointed out to every visitor. The " Devil's Pulpit " — did one ever visit a mountain that had not borrowed Satanic phraseol- ogy for characterizing some of its features 1 — the " Devil's Pulpit," almost at the extreme end of the " Point," consists of a number of large slabs of rocks, piled in strange form one upon the other, and apparently in immediate danger of toppling over. The readei will readily discover this queer pile if he consults Mr. Fenn's drawing showing the view from the " Point." Another odd mass is called " Saddle Rock," from a fancied resem- blance to a saddle. It consists of a great pile of limestone, that has crumbled and broken away in small particles, like scales, until in texture one may discover a likeness to an oyster-shell, and in form something of the contour of a saddle-tree. With queer rock-

LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN AND THE TENNESSEE.

59

forms, Lookout Mountain is certainly abundantly supplied. It is supposed that these rocks, jutting so far above the level of the Palisades, are remains of a higher escarpment, which, during uncounted centuries, has gradually worn away.

The lake and cascade to which I have referred are known as " Lulu Lake " and " Lulu Falls," Lulu being a corruption of the Indian name of Tullulah. The cascade is

Rock City, Lookout Mountain.

one of uncommon beauty. It is nearly as high as Niagara, and far more picturesque in its setting. This lake and cascade can only be reached on foot or horseback ; no vehicle can traverse the very rough road which leads to them. But their singular beauty, and the strange, quaint features of the City of Rocks, would reward unusual exertions on the part of the visitor. Lookout Mountain, indeed, is very imperfectly seen by those who

6o

PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

make a hurried jaunt to its Palisades, glance at the prospect so superbly spread out before them, and then hurry back again. There is no mountain and no landscape that does not require its acquaintance to be cultivated somewhat, just as we must meet our friends in many intercourses before we can come to fully understand them. A mountain no more carries its beauty within the ready ken of everybody than a wise man " wears his heart on his sleeve for daws to peck at." The supreme beauty, the varied features, the changing aspects, the subtle sentiments of the " rock-ribbed hills," enter the soul by many doors, and only after a complete surrender on our part to their influences. One can comfort- ably house himself on the great plateau of Lookout, and there give many days to wan- dering along its Palisades, or in search of the thousand picturesque charms that pertain to its wooded and rocky retreats.

Our views on the Tennessee are only for a dozen miles of its eight hundred, but

Rock-Forms on Lookout Mountain.

at a point where it outdoes the Hudson in the loftiness of its banks, and gives us its best picturesque features.

The Tennessee comes sweeping down upon Lookout Mountain as if it confidently expected to break through this rocky barrier and reach the Gulf by an easy course through the pleasant lowlands of Alabama. The flood reaches the base of Lookout's tall abutments, and, finding them impenetrable, sweeps abruptly to the right, breaking through the barrier of hifls that lie in its course, and, as if with a new purpose at heart, abandons its hope of the Gulf, to eventually reach it, however, after a double marriage with the Ohio and the Mississippi.

The Tennessee is formed by the union of the Clinch and the Holston Rivers, at Kingston, and, together with its principal affluent, attains a length of eleven hundred miles. Steamers navigate different portions, but a succession of shallows and rapids in Alabama, known as " Muscle Shoals," bar vessels from its lower waters to the upper ; and

LaOKOUT MOUNTAIN AND THE TENNESSEE.

6i

below Chattanooga exist serious obstacles to navigation, known as the " Suck " and the " Pot"

The " Pot " lies some twenty miles below Chattanooga ; it is a maelstrom which, at certain depths of water, is wild and beautiful. The swift current is impinged sharply upon a high bluff, and turns to escape, at an angle so acute, that a perfect whirl of wa-

ters ensues. Vast trees have been seen caught in its fierce turmoil and swept out of sight ; and, in the time of freshets, houses, carried off by the flood, have plunged into the gulf, to reappear none knew where or how. The " Suck " is thirteen miles from Chattanooga. This phenomenon is caused by a fierce little mountain-current, called " Suck Creek," which, in times of high water, brings from its rocky fastnesses such masses of ddbris that the river-bed is strewed with bowlders, and a bar formed, which corn-

62 PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

presses the channel into a narrow, swift, and dangerous current. Thirty years ago the Government erected a wall some forty feet distant from the left bank, and, through the narrow passage thus formed, boats ascending the river are warped up by means of a wind- lass on the shore. Under the intelligent direction of Lieutenant Adams, of the United States Army, Government is now endeavoring to remove the obstructions and widen the channel, which at this point is narrowed from the average of six hundred feet to two hun- dred and fifty ; and hence the novel and picturesque sight of a steamer struggling up against an adverse current by means of a windlass on the bank, with the songs and shouts of the laboring deck-hands, will soon be, even if it is not now, a thing of the past.

To visit this famous " Suck," and get a sketch or two of the shore, was the pur- pose of our journey along the Tennessee. The three days of wintry airs on Look- out Mountain had made out-of-door sketching chilling work, but now a soft and balmy April day invited us upon the jaunt ; so Mr. Fenn packed his sketching-traps ; a vehicle stout in spring, and equal to the vicissitudes of a rough and rocky road, was procured, and we sallied forth.

There was once a fine bridge across the Tennessee, at Chattanooga, but it fell a victim to a great flood a few years ago. The Chattanoogians have been so busy since erecting new warehouses, new railroad-depots, and new hotels, that they have forgotten the piers of masonry in the river-bed, which in grim solitude seem to utter a protest against their neglect. Not that we, searchers for the picturesque, would have had it otherwise — for a bridge would have deprived Mr. Fenn's sketch-book of one of the quaintest ferries in the country. The illustration, which the reader will readily find, probably needs a little explanation, which let me endeavor to give. It is a rope-ferry, having for motive-power the river-current, which it masters for its purpose by a very simple application of a law in physics. A long rope from the ferry-boat, supported at regular intervals on poles resting on small flat-boats, is attached, several hundred feet up-stream, to an island in mid-water. The boat thus secured is pushed from the shore, when it begins to catch the force of the current, a greater surface of pressure being se- cured by a board, like the centre-board of a sail-boat, which is dropped down deep into the water on the upper side. The current sweeping against the boat would carry it down- stream, but the attached rope retains the vessel in place, and we have, as a result of the sum of the forces, the boat swiftly propelled on the arc of a circle across the stream. Thus, by a very simple contrivance, a motor is secured which requires neither fuel nor canvas, which is uniformly available, and which is obtained entirely without cost. A very odd effect in the scene is the fleet of small flat-boats, upholding the long and heavy rope, which start in company with the large vessel in the order and with the pre- cision of a column of cavalry. Moving in obedience to no visible sign or force, they impress one as being the intelligent directors of the movement, and are watched when first seen, with lively interest.

LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN AND THE TENNESSEE. 63

The method adopted at this ferry is occasionally found in the South, but, ordinarily, ferry-boats are carried from one side of the stream to the other by means of a suspended rope from shore to shore. The Chattanooga ferry is very picturesque, apart from the method of progression. In busy times a sort of tender accompanies the larger boat, and upon this our carriage, with some difficulty, was driven. Boat and tender were rude in construction, old, and dilapidated. The main vessel had a small enclosure, of a hen- coop suggestiveness, which was called a cabin, and which, at a pinch, might give shelter to three or four people. The groups upon its decks were striking. There were sports- men with a great following of dogs, horsemen with their Texan saddles and wide som- breros, vehicles, and groups of cattle, all mingled with the most happy contrast of color and form. On the opposite shore, as we drew near, were visible great numbers of waiting horsemen and cattle, giving evidence of the active business of the ferry, and emphasizing the wonder that the bridge has not been restored.

If any mortal hereafter essays a visit to the " Suck," let him go by saddle. If he ventures by vehicle, sore, very sore indeed, will be his trials. Our road, one of the most picturesque and charming we had ever travelled, certainly outdid in roughness of surface any previous experience. It led through superb woods ; under high banks ; over rocks and bowlders ; into swift-running streams ; up steep hills, and down declivities. We were pitched into the bottom of the wagon one moment, tossed against the top at another, now precipitated affectionately into each other's arms, now hurled discordantly apart against the wagon-sides — all of which, however, while trying to one's bones, added to the relish of the journey, or rather, it may be safer to say, to the relish of our recollections of it.

The Tennessee, as already said, runs between high hills, mountains even, being the continuation of the Cumberland range. Spreads of table-land, with intervening dips of the forest, mark one side of the river, while on the other the rocky hills rise abruptly from the water's edge. The river is very winding, and the road sometimes runs along its course, sometimes loses sight of its silvery waters altogether; but the appearing and reappearing surface of the stream affords contmual changes to the picture. Between the bluff and the river are narrow strips of arable bottom-land; and these, which sometimes are only narrow ribbons bordering the stream, and at others wide fields, are very rich in soil and carefully cultivated. But the owners, almost without exception, live in rude log- cabins. We saw but two or three houses above this condition. The occupants are sometimes negroes, but the majority are whites, who, however, as a rule, are not of the class known as "poor whites." The cabins are rude, the grounds limited, the means scanty, but the residents are a proud, intelligent set, who should be classed as hunters and woodsmen rather than as husbandmen. Their delight is the woods and the moun- tains, and they almost live on horseback. Their needs are a gun, a dog, a horse, a cottage, a wife, and a cow — and pretty much in the order enumerated. They are semi-

LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN AND THE TENNESSEE.

6r,

sportsmen, accomplished in woodcraft, who delight in all kinds of hunting, but exhibit very little energy in devel- oping the resources of the country. It would be a mistake to accuse them of a lack of intelligence. We met many people on the road that day whose faces were refined and handsome. With their sloping sombreros, their gray shawls or army coats, their picturesque saddles, and their general air of graceful dilapidation,

they looked like so many brigands.- We noted specially two or three ; and one who drove a herd of cattle along the road possessed a face that for intellectual refinement would be difficult to match.

At noon we reached our destination, and were shown a somewhat picturesquely- situated log-cabin, where we were assured dinner could be obtained. Our apprehensions may be imagined. But as soon as we drove up to it, and noticed the long array of polished tins and glistening buckets, we felt assured that at least cleanliness would char- acterize our repast. A very neat, pleasant-faced woman came forward at our appearance, and with quiet self-possession promised us a rural meal of ham, eggs, and hot rolls. The house was neat as a pin, and the woman refined and intelligent. But it contained one room only, and this without a window. Air and light penetrated the apertures between every layer of logs ; and in winter, when through the mountain-gully fierce winds must sometimes sweep, the comfort of this cottage by the river may be estimated. Rude

66

PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

as it was, the situation in summer-time was charming, which the reader may discover by consulting the initial drawing by Mr. Fenn,

At this place we desired to cross the river, but no means could be obtained to do so. No boats were to be found along the shore excepting the primitive " dug-out," which eveiy one said would not be safe on account of the swiftness and turbulence of the current. This was a little exasperating. The rudest savage tribes of the Pacific build canoes that can sail far out at sea in high winds and rough water, but the boats of the Tennessee can only be employed in the smoothest of water. They cannot be trusted in

Steamer on the Tennessee warped through the "Suck.

a ripple ; and yet the very simple contrivance of an outrigger, such as used by the Pa- cific natives, would render them safe even in a high sea. The skill of our Tennessee men is equal, no doubt, to many emergencies of the mountains, but their resources for the water are certainly very limited. As we could not get on the other side of the river, we started in search of the most eligible points on this side. In order to reach the shore, we had a wild and picturesque walk, reaching in due time the romantic stream which ignobly rests under the title of " Suck Creek." This stream is a mountain-tor- rent ; it comes tumbling through rocky crevices above with all the flash and splendor of the " waters of Lodore," and pours with turbulent energy into the Tennessee. In

LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN AND THE TENNESSEE. 67

freshets it comes from its mountain-home with tremendous volume and force, burying far under water even the high rocks dehneated in the illustration, and sweeping into the river a score or so of smaller impediments. We crossed this torrent on a round and very small tree-trunk, and, not having the skill of the natives, ignominiously crept along it on our hands and knees. But, shortly after, seeing one to the manner born, with a pack on his back, and a load in each hand, quietly and confidently walk the shaking and unsteadfast bridge, we on our return plucked up courage and performed the feat in an upright position. The picture here was very charming — mountains closing us in all around, a canopy of noble forest-trees, and the music of the mountain-stream as it plunged over its bed of rocks.

Securing the sketches necessary, we wended our way back. Under easier travelling, the drive would be one of great enjoyment. It was interesting to note the pains that are taken along the shore to cultivate every portion of the alluvial bottom-land, and in some instances we saw desperate endeavors to plough steep acclivities on which foothold could be obtained only with difficulty. The river annually overflows these bits of bottom- land, and leaves its valuable deposits. But, while these freshets thus enrich the land, they exact their compensation in fevers ; and occasionally the river disregards all limita- tions, and seems to aim at the very submerging of the mountains. All along the road signs were evident of the great freshet a few years before ; the high-water marks indicat- ing a rise of at least twenty feet above the line of the road, while the road itself was twenty or thirty above the river-bed. Far up, in crotches of trees, could be seen heaps of brushwood and debris left by the flood as it withdrew. The people were compelled, on that occasion, to rapidly withdraw to the mountains, many of them returning to find their rude but valued homesteads swept away by the stream.

If the morning drive was charming, the return was enhanced by the beauty of the setting sun. The river, the trees, the hills, gained new beauties from the rays of the level light ; and Lookout Mountain, whose high top would occasionally reveal itself, tow- ered superbly, purpling in the evening air. Arriving at the ferry near sunset, we expe- rienced some amusing incidents in getting across the stream. It is one feature of this method of crossing a river that the exact place of landing cannot be controlled, the rise or fall of the stream varying it considerably. On our return we found the nose of the boat thrust into a bank, and some apprehensions prevailing as to how the waiting cargo was to be got on board. Our horses were unharnessed, and the vehicle, by the strenuous effort of half a dozen negroes, lifted on board. Then the horses, our own and several others, without much difficulty, jumped the space ; but the cattle struggled, and backed, and plunged, with the most incorrigible perversity. Some charged back, and tried to escape up the hill ; others plunged into the water ; and one fine heifer was with diffi- culty saved from drowning. At last, after a great effort, much shouting, and woful con- fusion, cattle, horses, carriage, . and pedestrians, were successfully shipped, but crowded to-

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LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN AND THE TENNESSEE. 69

gather on the narrow flat with promiscuous disregard of class or species. Immense num- bers of Hve-stock constantly traverse the road along the Tennessee, and cross by the ferry described into Chattanooga. All day long the cry is, " Still they come ! " Chatta- nooga is an extensive cattle-market, being the source of supply for a large portion of the cotton States.

The Tennessee road is of historic interest, as being the principal avenue during the recent war by which supplies were sent for the army in East Tennessee. Ceaseless trains of army-wagons wound over the rough, devious, and picturesque road. The Con- federate sharp-shooters hung along the southern bank, and it was not uncommon for a sudden fusillade from the opposite hills to send death and consternation among the draught-animals and their drivers.

There is one feature of the Tennessee at Chattanooga that remains to be described. Under a high cliff near the ferry-landing may, at suitable season, be seen a number of flat-boats unloading their cargoes of grain or other produce from the upper waters of the Tennessee. Here is often a very stirring picture. Crowds of vehicles are receiving grain ; there is the bustle of loading and unloading, the clamor of many voices, the noisy vociferation of the negro drivers, altogether making up a scene of great animation. These flat-boats come mainly far up through the Clinch or the Powell River, from the northern border of Tennessee, and the southern counties of Virginia, bringing corn, wheat, and bacon, A striking characteristic of their construction is their ponderous stern-oars, which often reach a hundred feet in length. Floating with the current, these oars are only needed as rudders, and the necessity of their great length is not obvious. The flat -boatmen of the Tennessee are not, like those of the Mississippi, notorious as "hard characters," They do not pursue the vocation as a business, but are mostly farmers, who, once a year possibly, bring down their harvests, and perhaps those of their neighbors, to market. We found them, while rustic in manner, polite, affable, and intelligent. One notable feature of this busy scene was the apparently friendly manner in which whites and blacks labored together. There was some little merry chaffing of each other, and that was all. As each boat included both colors in the composition of its crew, and among the teamsters was every shade of hue, there was abundant opportunity for the display of class hatreds if they had existed.

There would seem to be favorable occasion for the employment of capital and labor in this section of country, Chattanooga is a great railroad centre ; it is on the main line of travel between the North and the South ; and it must, in the nature of things, develop into an important place. Capital is needed, which, with fresh energy and a more varied industry, would soon give a marked impulse in the development of a section rich in natural resources.

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THE c^Awro/? D MO UMe/v

RICHMOND, SCENIC AND HISTORIC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY HARRY FENN.

T N one of the drawing-rooms of the Century Club, New York, there may be seen -^ a painting of a quaint old mansion of red brick, architecturally of the reign of Queen Anne, one wing of which stands only in its charred timbers and blackened walls. This mansion is situated on the left bank of the James River, and, a century and a half ago, was the stately dwelling of the " Hon. WiUiam Byrd, of Westover, Esquire." It was occupied for some time during the late civil war by the Federal troops (when the painting in possession of the Century Club was executed), and the name, Westover, will be freshly recalled in connection with the operations in Virginia during that struggle.

There were three William Byrds, of Westover, grandfather, father, and son, each one of whom makes a figure in the colonial history of Virginia, but it was the second of the name and title to whom reference is made above — a man of many shining traits of character and of imposing personal appearance, as we know from contemporary records and from the full-length portrait of him, in flowing periwig and lace ruffles, after the manner of Vandyck, which is still preserved at Lower Brandon, He had an immense

RICHMOND, SCENIC AND HISTORIC. 71

estate, and lived profusely on its revenue for many years in England ; he was the friend, as the inscription on his tomb at Westover tells us, of the learned and illustrious Charles Boyle, Earl of Orrery, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society ; he contributed a paper to the Philosophical Transactions, and he left behind him a considerable mass of papers, known as the Westover Manuscripts, one of which is a delightful history of the dividing-line between Virginia and North Carolina, From this narrative we learn — a fact not mentioned in his epitaph — that he was the founder of Richmond,

On the 19th day of September, in the year 1733, he says, on their return from the boundary expedition, one Peter Jones and himself laid out two towns or cities, one on the Appomattox and the other on the James River, twenty-two miles apart. The one they called Petersburg, from the baptismal name of the Jones of the period, and not in compliment to Peter the Great ; and the other they called Richmond, from a resem- blance, real or fancied, in its site with soft hills, and far-stretching meadows, and curving sweep of river, lost to view at last behind glimmering woods, to the beautiful English town in Surrey. Whatever hopes they may have indulged of the future greatness of these Virginian towns, hopes as yet unfulfilled, it probably did not occur to Colonel the Hon, William Byrd or to Peter Jones, his companion, that around these sites military engagements were to be fought as memorable as Pultowa or Malplaquet, and that Peters- burg and Richmond would become as famous in the history of sieges as Saragossa or Belgrade,

Colonel Byrd did not live to see Richmond attain unto any considerable size, for the town was not established by law until 1742, and he died only two years later, A few warehouses for the storage and shipment of tobacco were built first of all ; then an irregular and scattering collection of houses for trade grew up around them ; and on the hills overlooking the settlement arose the dwellings of a few rich planters and the thriv- ing Scotch and English merchants who had established themselves at the place. But the fine town-house of Madame Rachel Esmond Warrington was fixed there by Mr. Thackeray several decades too soon, Richmond, indeed, had no importance until it sup- planted Williamsburg as the seat of the State government in 1779, and so little prepared was it for defence in war that it was given up to the British troops, in Arnold's descent upon Virginia, without the firing of a gun, and Lieutenant-Colonel Simcoe, of the Queen's Rangers, rode into it with barely a show of opposition.

Immediately after the War of the Revolution, sanguine expectations were entertained that Richmond would soon become, not only the seat of a large trade, but a centre of learning and science. Commercial relations were established with London, and vessels of small tonnage made passages of sixty days from the wharves of Richmond to the pool of the Thames, Before many years an India-house was built, with the vague idea that the fabrics and spices of the East would be brought from Bombay and Calcutta direct to the capital of Virginia. But polite learning was to keep pace with material

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growth, and accordingly we read in the annals of the town that the Chevalier Alexandre Marie Quesnay de Beaurepaire did, "in the year of our Lord 1786, the loth of the Re- public, viii calends of July, Patrick Henry being Governor of Virginia," lay the corner- stone of an Academy of Arts and Sciences, which was designed to be the American sister of the famous Royal (National, Imperial, and Republican) Academy of Sciences of Paris, an enterprise which failed, however, long before the dreams of commercial great- ness had been relinquished.

The point from which the most commanding and comprehensive view of Richmond is visible, bears the name of Hollywood Cemetery, a picturesque elevation in the north- western suburbs, where rest the remains of many illustrious men, and of thousands who in the recent struggle

" Went down to their graves in bloody shrouds,"

Far away from the noises of city-life, curtained by Nature with the luxuriant foliage of tree and flower, and presenting at every turn of hill and dell patches of beauty which art cannot improve, there is perhaps no spot in America more suggestive of the solemn associations that attach to the sacred circle of the dead. At the southern extremity may be seen the monument erected to the memory of President Monroe, whose remains were removed hither from New York under the escort of the Seventh Regiment of that city several years before the war ; and all around the spacious grounds shafts and cenotaphs are reared to pay the tribute of the living to those who have "gone before."

The scene from President's Hill, in Hollywood, is one that never tires the eye, be- cause it embraces a picture which somewhere among its lights and shadows presents features that constantly appeal to imagination and refined taste. In the great perspective which bounds the horizon the distant hills and forests take new color from the changing clouds; while nearer — almost at your feet — the James River, brawling over the rocks, and chanting its perpetual requiem to the dead who lie around, catches from the sunshine playing on its ruffled breast kaleidoscopic hues. Hundreds of willowy islets impede its flow, diversifying the picture with patches of green, and the brown-backed rocks and ledges peeping out are marked by silvery trains of foam.

Intermediate in elevation between the river and the summit of President's Hill

winds, in a graceful curve, the canal, seeking its basin at the town ; and not far away

are the forges of the Tredegar Iron-works, the fiery chimneys of which at night belch

forth flames that send their sparkle into a thousand windows, and make pictures in the

rippling waters. Still beyond these, in the sketch, are visible the gigantic flour-mills for

which Richmond is justly famous, it being claimed that these buildings are the largest

of the kind in the world. The curious fact may be stated in this connection that the

flour manufactured here is said to be the only brand which is capable of resisting the

heat of the tropics.

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PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

That, however, which attracts the attention of the visitor above all other objects as he views the broad prospect, is the city itself, with its bold yet broken out- line of roofs and spires.

The ground on which Richmond is built is a succession of hills and valleys. Indeed, it is sometimes called, like Rome, " the seven-hilled city," and, in approaching from almost any direction, it produces upon the stranger the imposing effect of a large and populous capital. Nor will he be disap- pointed by his subsequent experience, for he will still find the city a place of interest as the social and political centre of Virginia.

From the period of the Revolution down to the present time the flower of the country-people have been in the habit of spending here a considerable portion of the year, while the sessions of the Legislature and the courts drew together many of the most brilliant intellects of the land. In 1861 still greater prominence was given to Rich- mond by its selection as the capital of the Southern Confederacy. It became the home of the Southern leaders and the resort of the officers of its armies, while the net-work of intrenchments that almost encircled the city and the battles fought in the neighbor- hood tell of the obstinacy with which it was defended as the key-stone of the cause. In April, 1865, when the Confederate forces evacuated their positions, nearly one thou-

RICHMOND, SCENIC AND HISTORIC. 75

sand houses, including property to the value of eight million dollars, were destroyed by fire. Since then, however, Richmond has nearly recovered from her misfortune, and there are now visible but few traces of the great conflagration.

Chief among the public buildings, and one that may be said to belong to the post- Revolutionary period, is the Capitol, a structure which lifts itself above all other buildings as from an Acropohs, and has, indeed, an imposing effect, which 'is not wholly lost when one gets near enough to see the meanness of its architectural details and the poverty of its materials. The Maison Carree at Nismes, in France, was selected by Mr. Jefferson as the model for the structure, but so many alterations were made in this model that the Capitol resembles the Maison Carree about as much as the Hall of Records in New- York City resembles the Temple of Wingless Victory. For all the purposes of the picturesque, however, the Capitol serves as well in the prospect from Hollywood' as if it were the Parthenon restored. At the distance of two miles the stucco of its exterior glitters in the sunlight, like marble, and there is a symmetry in its proportions which Mr. Ruskin himself would acknowledge, harrowing as the building might be to his aesthetic soul when he came to examine it.

It stands on the brow of what is known as Shockoe Hill, in the centre of a public square of about eight acres, which, being beautifully laid out, is a favorite place of resort for both citizens and strangers, who find in its shady recesses and the music of its foun- tains a grateful contrast to the dust and bustle of the streets. The building is of the Graeco-composite order, adorned with a portico of Ionic columns, and the view from it is extensive, varied, and beautiful. The entrances are on the two longer sides, and lead to a square hall in the centre of the building, surmounted by a dome. In the centre of this hall is the famous marble statue of Washington, bearing this inscription :

" Fait par Houdon, Citoyen Franfais, 1 788."

On the pedestal is the honest and affectionate inscription which follows :

" The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia have caused this statue to be erected as a monument of affection and gratitude to

George Washington,

who, uniting to the endowments of the Hero the virtues of the Patriot, and exerting

both in Establishing the Liberties of his Country, has rendered his name dear to his

Fellow Citizens, and given the World an immortal example of true Glory. Done in the

year of

CHRIST

One Thousand Seven Hundred and Eighty Eight and in the year of the Commonwealth the Twelfth."

76

PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

The statue is clothed in the uniform of an American general during the Revolution, and is of the size of life. In one of the niches of the wall is a marble bust of La- fayette. Among other objects of interest here, is an antique English stove covered with ornamental castings and inscriptions, and dating far back beyond the Revolution. It was used to warm the old Virginia House of Burgesses at Williamsburg, in colonial times, and still holds its place in the present hall as the centre of legislative discussion and gossip, as it no doubt was more than a hundred years ago. The library contains many historic relics and valuable old pictures, and indeed the entire building is rich in associa- tions which make the place seem almost sacred. Here Aaron Burr was tried for treason before John Marshall ; here Lafayette was received by his old companions in the cabinet and the field; here the memorable Convention of 1829-30 held its sessions, among whose members were Madison, Monroe, Marshall, John Randolph, Leigh, and many other

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The James above Richmond.

RICHMOND, SCENIC AND HISTORIC

11

men of national fame ; and here, at a later period, Stonewall Jackson lay in his coffin, with the new flag of the Con- federate States (then first used) for his pall.

A few rods distant from the Capi- tol stands the celebrated equestrian statue of Washington, by Crawford. It con- sists of a bronze horse and rider of gigantic size, artistically poised upon a pedestal of granite, and surrounded by immense bronze figures of Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, George Mason, Thomas Nelson, and Andrew Lewis. Each of these statues is a study in itself, as a specimen of the sculptor's genius, and as an almost " speaking likeness " of the original. Henry is represented in the act of delivering an impassioned address; Jefferson, with pen in hand, and thoughtful brow, appears the statesman; Marshall wears the dignity and firmness of the great judge; while the noble form of General Andrew Lewis, arrayed in the hunting-costume of the pioneer, recalls the romance and daring of early days. On smaller pedestals are civic and military alle- gorical illustrations, also in bronze; and, altogether, the monument is perhaps the most imposing in America.

In another portion of the Capitol grounds is a marble statue of Henry Clay, of life-size, which well deserves the attention of the tourist as a faithful work of art.

The prominent public buildings of Richmond are substantial, and in most instances handsome specimens of architecture. The City Hall, Custom-House, Governor's Mansion, Penitentiary, Medical College, and State Armory, are severally worthy of a visit ; while.

78 PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

among the many churches, that which occupies the site of the ill-fated theatre destroyed by fire in 1811, when the Governor of the State and sixty others perished in the flames, is the most notable. The " Old Stone House " is cherished in the affections of the citizens of Richmond as the first dwelling erected within the city limits. " It was occupied, when I visited it," says Lossing, in his " Field-Book of the Revolution," " by Mrs. Elizabeth Welsh, whose great-grandfather, Jacob Ege, from Germany, built it before Byrd's warehouse was erected. It was owned by Mrs. Welsh's father, Samuel Ege, who was a commissary in the American army during the War of the Revolution. Wash- ington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, have all been beneath its roof Mrs. Welsh informed me that she well remembers the fact that Monroe boarded with her mother while attending the Virginia Convention in 1788."

At the remotest point of the landscape in the drawing of " Richmond from Holly- wood " may be seen a white spire on the summit of a hill. This is the old parish-church of St. John's, Henrico, probably the first building of note that was erected within what are now the limits of the city, then standing solitary in the midst of the native forest which overlooked the small warehouses and tobacco-sheds at the head of navigation. At what exact period St. John's Church was built, the local historians do not inform us; but there are tombs in the burial-ground bearing date 1751, and probably no inter- ment was made there until after parish services were regularly performed in the building itself Mr. Fenn's beautiful sketch presents it exactly as it now appears, and gives that side which is oldest in construction. Originally, it was without architectural pretensions of any kind ; but, thirty years or more ago, it was modernized by the erection of a tower, and enlarged by an addition joining the ancient part at right angles. During the late civil war the tower fell in a high wind, and has been replaced by the spire which is seen in the drawing. The old church was far less imposing, without and within, than Trinity at Newport, which it resembled in the general arrangement of its pews, and in an old sounding-board that once stood above the pulpit, but yielded at last to the prog- ress of decay. The associations of the building are of the most stirring and interesting character. Here assembled, on the 20th of March, 1775, the Second Convention of Vir- ginia, which was called to determine the question of peace or war between the colony and the crown, and which gave to the Old Dominion the honor of organizing the first plan of resistance to British tyranny. The deliberations of this convention form a striking chapter in the history of the American Revolution, and are familiar to all educated persons in the United States. The body contained a large number of men who were destined to become illustrious in the annals of the Commonwealth and the country. Among them were Peyton Randolph and Richard Bland, George Wythe and Richard Henry Lee. The delegate from Albemarle was Thomas Jefferson, and the delegate from Fairfax was George Washington. But the leading spirit of the convention was Patrick Henry, and the walls of this old church gave back the animating strains of his eloquence,

RICHMOND, SCENIC AND HISTORIC.

79

T3

as, rising to the full height of his argument, he uttered the war-cry of the Revolution : " Is life so dear oi peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery ? For- bid it. Almighty God ! I know not what course others may take, but, as for me, give me liberty or give me death ! "

The populous graveyard around the church has long since been dis- used for interments, and the tombs themselves are crumbling into ruin, which the deep grasses and running ivy of the spot half conceal. On some the inscriptions are almost ille- gible, and it is plain, from the neglect of all, that few descendants of the dead that repose beneath them now remain among the inhabitants of Richmond. None of the great historic names of the Commonwealth are to be found among these tombs, and the thoughts they suggest are such as were excited in the mind of Gray at Stoke Pogis, which the " Elegy " so beautifully and effectively embodies in verse. The sleepers were the undistinguished fore- fathers of the hamlet mostly, of various races and nationalities, and, though three generations are repre- sented in this city of silence and forgetfulness, quite as many lie here who prayed for King George in the church near by as for the Presi- dent of the United States in later times.

From the hill on which the church stands, and indeed from most of the

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PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

hills about Richmond, the James River is in view for several miles of its course, and lends much to the attractiveness of the prospect. Above the city, in the rapids which for six miles tumble over a rocky bed, we see whence is derived the water-power that animates the mills, and how art has overcome the obstructions of Nature by means of a canal which opens the navigation of the river above the falls. Below the bridge, the scene is more

Scene on the Canal.

peaceful, and the tranquil surface of the water reflects the steadily-increasing commerce of the capital. Barks and steamers ply regularly between its sister-ports, and the white gleam of their sails and the dark smoke of their furnaces, though far from fulfilling the visions of the builders of the India-house of which we have spoken, give a charm to picturesque surroundings that will always be worthy of the pencil of the artist. The

RICHMOND, SCENIC AND HISTORIC 8i

accompanying illustrations correctly present various aspects of the river; but it is among the rapids, or just below them, that Mr. Fenn has happily embraced the upward and the downward view. The covered bridge, which a train of cars is about entering, seen in the drawing of the rapids, is that of the Richmond and Danville Railroad, and the frames which appear above the water are the fish-traps which are rebuilt every spring to catch the shad as they come over the falls. The unwary fish swims with the swift current right into the trap, and is carried by its force out of his native element, high and dry upon the strips of planking, there to remain until the owner of the trap re- moves it, unless stolen at night by the prowling human shad-thief, or the predatory raccoon which inhabits the islands in the stream. Once in the trap, the shad cannot possibly go back, and, in seasons when a good run of this fish ascends the river, large numbers are thus caught for the Richmond market. It may be supposed that the navi- gation of a river so rapid and so rocky as the James at this point, is difficult, but the negro boatmen have great dexterity in poling and paddling their little skiffs across from island to island ; and the small steam-yacht, which lies under the island's bank in the picture, does no more than shoot the torrent into the deeper and smoother water lower down.

The canal, which is seen in the last of Mr. Fenn's collection of drawings, is con- nected with tide-water by a series of locks, with an aggregate lift of ninety-six feet. Two of these locks on the highest level constitute the central part of a sketch which, at first glance, looks as if it were designed to set before us a quaint, old, tumble- down nook or corner of some European city. Upon examination, however, one sees the African element of the population in such force, tending the lock, feeding the poultry, and driving the team across the bridge, as to determine the locality in a Southern town of the United States. One cannot help recognizing in this sketch how much more effective in the hands of the artist is dilapidation than tidiness, and a ruin than a perfect structure. The ramshackle porches of the negro tenements here have a higher effect than would a neat row of white-painted houses with green blinds, in a well-kept New-England village, and the broken walls of the warehouse (destroyed by the fire of April, 1865, and never rebuilt) are more picturesque than would be the smooth front of a factory that might give occupation to five hundred operatives.

Richmond retains yet, in the marks of her great conflagration, much of that un- desirable picturesqueness that belongs to ruins. But such is the beauty of its site, and the charm of its landscape, that, when not one ragged wall or cruel chasm shall be left to suggest the ravage it has undergone — when the whole river-margin along the rapids shall have been made vulgar and noisy (and profitable) by lines of factories, and Rich- mond shall become the great manufacturing city of the South — even then it will tempt the wandering artist to take out his portfolio and sketch the outlines of its hills, and the tumult of its leaping waters.

THE NATURAL BRIDGE, VIRGINIA.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY HARRY FENN.

HE Falls of Niaga- ra and the Natural Bridge are justly esteemed the most remarkable curi- osities m Noith America. So exceptional is the beauty, min- gled with sublimity, of these fa- mous scenes, that thoughtless per- sons have characterized them as "freaks of Nature." But in Na- ture— great, beneficent, and doing all things in order — there are no freaks. She shows her power in the grand

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THE NATURAL BRIDGE, VIRGINIA. 83

cataract, spanned with its rainbow, and in the dizzy arch of the Natural Bridge, as in the daisy and the violet she shows her grace and beauty.

The Natural Bridge, the character and formation of whose upper portion are dis- played in the first of the accompanying sketches, has been, from about the middle of the eighteenth century, an object of curiosity and admiration in Europe as well as in America. Whatever traveller came to the Western World, to compare its natural grandeur with the grandeur of art and architecture in the countries he had left, went first, in the North, to the Falls of Niagara, and, in the South, to the world-famous bridge. Among these may be mentioned the courtly and distinguished Marquis de Chastellux, major-general in the French Army and member of the Institute, who in 1 78 1 visited the place, and from whose rare volumes we present a few paragraphs which may interest the reader.

" Having thus travelled for two hours," writes the marquis, " we at last descended

a steep declivity, and then mounted another At last my guide said to me : ' You

desire to see the Natural Bridge — don't you, sir ? You are now upon it ; alight and go twenty steps either to the right or left, and you will see this prodigy.' I had per- ceived that there was on each side a considerable deep hollow, but the trees had pre- vented me from forming any judgment or paying much attention to it. Approaching the precipice, I saw, at first, two great masses or chains of rocks, which formed the bottom of a ravine, or, rather, of an immense abyss. But, placing myself, not without precaution, upon the brink of the precipice, I saw that these two buttresses were joined under my feet, forming a vault of which I could yet form no idea but of its height. After enjoying this magnificently-tremendous spectacle, which many persons could not bear to look at, I went to the western side, the aspect of which was not less imposing, but more picturesque. This Thebais, these ancient pines, these enormous masses of rocks, so much the more astonishing as they appear to possess a wild symmetry, and rudely to concur, as it were, in forming a certain design — all this apparatus of rude and shapeless Nature, which art attempts in vain, attacks at once the senses and the thoughts, and excites a gloomy and melancholy admiration."

Such are the terms in which the gallant marquis describes his first sensations, when, as yet, the view from the summit was all he had seen. He goes on to say :

" But it is at the foot of these rocks, on the edge of a little stream which flows under this immense arch, that we must judge of its astonishing structure. There we discover its immense spurs, its back-bendings, and those profiles which architecture might have given it. The arch is not complete ; the eastern part of it not being so large as the western, because the mountain is more elevated on this than on the opposite side. It is very extraordinary that at "the bottom of the stream there appear no considerable ruins, no trace of any violent laceration which could have destroyed the kernel of the rock and have left the upper part alone subsisting ; for that is the only hypothesis that

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84

PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

can account for such a prodigy. We can have no possible recourse either to a volcano or a deluge, no trace of a sudden conflagration or of a slow and tedious undermining by the water."

The point here touched upon is one of the most interesting, in a scientific view, connected with this famous curiosity. The marquis, it will be seen, declares his convic- tion that the " prodigy " was neither caused by a volcanic upheaval, a conflagration burn-

The Natural Bridge and its Surroundings.

ing in the heart of the rock-ribbed mountain, nor by the attrition of water slowly wear- ing away the stubborn limestone. These views are supported by men of science, as the following paragraphs will show. They are taken from the memoir of the Baron de Tur- pin, an engineer of ability, sent by the Comte de Rochambeau to measure the great structure :

" The mass of rock and stone which loads this arch," says the baron, " is forty- nine feet solid on the key of the great centre, and thirty-seven on that of the small

THE NATURAL BRIDGE, VIRGINIA. 85

one; and, as we find about the sarne difference in taking the level of the hill, it may be supposed that the roof is on a level the whole length of the key. . It is proper to ob- serve that the live rock continues also the whole thickness of the arch, and that on the opposite side it is only twenty-five feet wide in its greatest breadth, and becomes gradu- ally narrower. The whole arch seems to be formed of one and the same stone ; for the joints which one remarks are the effect of lightning, which struck this part in 1779. The other head has not the smallest vein, and the intrados is so smooth that the mar- tins, which fly around it in great numbers, cannot fasten on it. The abutments, which have a gentle slope, are entire, and, without being absolute planes, have all the polish which a current of water would give to unhewn stone in a certain time. The four rocks adjacent to the abutments seem to be perfectly homogeneous, and to have a very trifling slope. The two rocks on the right bank of the rivulet are two hundred feet high above the surface of the water, the intrados of the arch a hundred and fifty, and the two rocks on the left bank a hundred and eighty."

The baron then proceeds, as though weary of his " great centres," " intrados," and other technicalities, to burst forth with :

" If we consider this bridge simply as a picturesque object, we are struck with the majesty with which it towers in the valley. The white-oaks which grow upon it seem to rear their lofty summits to the clouds, while the same trees which border on the rivulet appear like shrubs."

This exhibition of sentiment, however, appears to exhaust the baron's stock, and he returns to his better-loved science, adding :

" We see that these rocks, being of a calcareous nature, exclude every idea of a vol- cano, which, besides, cannot be reconciled- with the form of the bridge and its adjacent parts. If it be supposed that this astonishing arch is the effect of a current of water, we must suppose, like\yise, that this current has had the force to break down and carry to a great distance a mass of five thousand cubic fathoms, for there remains not the slightest trace of such an operation."

What, then, was the mystery of the origin of this celebrated structure .? Science is powerless in face of the wonder, and perhaps, after all, the conclusion of De Chastellux is the only one attainable — that "it is to the labor only of the Creator that we owe the magnificent construction of the Natural Bridge " — to which he adds : " The opinion of the Comte de Buffon, whom I have since consulted, has left me no doubt upon the subject."

From this strictly scientific, but, we think, suggestive and interesting, view of the - great curiosity, we pass to details and circumstances connected with it, calculated, per- haps, to interest in a larger degree the general reader.

Mr. Fenn's second drawing furnishes a distant view of the bridge, the surrounding country, and objects in its vicinity. It will recall, doubtless, to many persons, agreeable recollections of the landscape which saluted their eyes as they first drew near the place

86 PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

— and the names of such are legion, for the spot has been, for more than half a cen- tury, the resort of parties led by a desire to explore the beauties of the romantic scene. Of the daring of some of these visitors, in climbing, or venturing to the brink of the precipice, we shall give one or two instances, kept alive by tradition. Among these tra- ditions, the most thrilling is that of the unshrinking nerve displayed by Miss Randolph, a young Virginieime, a great belle of her time, which was the early portion of the pres- ent century. The young lady had ridden, with a gay party of youthful maidens and gal- lant cavaliers, to the bridge, and reached it on a beautiful evening of summer. Miss Randolph is said, by those who knew and remember her, to have been a young lady of surpassing loveliness — ^tall, slender, with sparkling eyes, cheeks all roses, and noted for her gayety and mirthful abandon. Reaching the summit of the bridge, the party dismounted, cautiously approached the brink, fringed with trees growing among the rocks, and gazed into the gulf beneath. Of the terrifying character of the spectacle. President Jefferson's words will give some idea :

" Though the sides of the bridge are provided, in some parts, with a parapet of rocks," he says, " yet few men have resolution to walk to them and look over into the abyss. You involuntarily fall on your hands and feet, creep to the parapet, and look over it. Looking down from this height about a minute gave me a violent headache ; the view is painful and intolerable."

Reaching this dizzy brink, the party of young ladies and gentlemen gazed below, when one of the gallants, pointing to the broken stump of a huge cedar which had once towered aloft upon a jagged abutment, separated by an intervening cleft from the main structure, expressed his conviction that no human being lived sufficiently daring to stand erect upon it. A gay laugh echoed the words, a silken scarf brushed by him, and the whole party uttered a cry of terror — Miss Randolph, at one bound, had reached and now stood erect upon the dizzy pinnacle. Tradition relates that her companions looked at her, white and speechless, as so many corpses. Her death seemed certain. A wild spirit of bravado had given her courage for this terrible proceeding ; but, perched thus on her slight footing above the frightful abyss, she must lose her nerve, grow dizzy, and be hurled upon the rocks beneath — the beautiful being of a moment since — a mass of mangled and unrecognizable flesh and bones. For an instant, the daring young lady stood erect, riding-whip in hand, her scarf floating, her eyes sparkling with triumph ; then, at a single bound, she regained her former position, and, with a gay laugh, asked if any gentleman could do as much. Tradition declares that, despite their gallantry, the youthful cavaliers exhibited their good judgment by declining.

The most striking view of the Natural Bridge is that from below, and no better hour could be selected than that fixed upon by Mr. Fenn. As the sun rises and flashes its splendors through the gigantic arch, the scene becomes one of extraordinary beauty and sublimity — beauty from the exquisite flush which spreads itself over rocky mass and

THE NATURAL BRIDGE, VIRGINIA. 87

stately fir, over pendent shrub, and the fringe of evergreen ; and sublimity from the well- nigh overpowering sentiment which impresses the mind in presence of the mighty arch of rock, towering far above, and thrown as by the hand of some Titan of old days across the blue sky, appearing both above and beneath. It has been well said that no one who has witnessed this extraordinary spectacle has ever forgotten it.

With the brilliant drawing of Mr. Fenn before his eyes, the reader would only be wearied by any description of the exquisite scene which it represents. The grandeur and serene loveliness of the spectacle are sufficiently indicated — the gentle stream which passes with a murmur from its hiding-place in the bosom of the hills — the lengthening vistas, cool and soft, and bathed in dawn — the silent mountains — and, in the midst of all this exquisite beauty, the great soaring arch, with its jutting buttresses and fringes of the evergreen pine, the shaggy eyebrows of the giant. They dwindle these heavy-headed evergreens into little fringes only — even that picturesque monarch, represented in the second drawing of Mr. Fenn, on the summit of the bridge, shows scarce so large as the spray of ferns and cedar held in the hand of a girl ! There is excellent reason, indeed, why the loftiest forest-trees, proudly raising their heads to heaven, and affording a resting- place for the eagle, should thus shrink in dimensions. From the summit to the surface of the stream below is two hundred and fifteen feet ; and thus the Natural Bridge is fifty-five feet higher than Niagara.

It remains only, before terminating our brief sketch of this celebrated curiosity, to speak of the hazardous attempts, made by more than one person, to climb the rocky sides of the great arch and reach the summit. This has never yet been done, but a considerable distance has been attained by venturesome climbers, who have recorded their prowess by cutting their names on the surface, at the highest point reached by them. High up among these, it is commonly reported, may be found the name of no less a personage than George Washington, who, strong, adventurous, and fond of manly sports, was seized, like many others before and after him, with the ambition to ascend the precipice and inscribe his name upon the face of the rock.

The highest point ever reached by any one of these adventurous explorers is said to have been attained by Mr. James Piper, at the time a student of Washington College, and subsequently a State senator. It was about the year 181 8, when, with some of his fellow-students, Mr. Piper visited the bridge, descended to the foot of the precipice, and determined to ascertain to what height it was possible for a human being to ascend by means of inequalities on the surface, the assistance of shrubs, or otherwise. He accord- ingly commenced chmbing the precipice, and, taking advantage of every ledge, cleft, and protuberance, finally reached a point which, to his companions far beneath, seemed directly under the great arch. He was tar above the names cut on the stone — fully fifty feet above that of Washington — and, standing upon a ledge, which appeared to his terrified fellow-students but a few inches in width, shouted aloud, waving one hand in triumph,

UNDER THE NATURAL BRIDGE.

ABOVE THE NATURAL BRIDGE.

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90 ■ PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

while with the other he clung to the face of the precipice. They shouted back to him, begging him for God's sake to descend, but he only replied by laughter. They then saw him continue the ascent, clinging to every object at hand, until he reached a cleft almost directly beneath the cedar-stump which we have mentioned as the scene of Miss Ran- dolph's perilous adventure. His ambition was not yet satisfied, however. He had not ascended the rock to inscribe his name upon it, but with the daring design of immor- talizing himself by mounting from the bottom to the top of the Natural Bridge. He accordingly continued his way, working his toilsome and dangerous passage through clefts in the huge mass of rock. These were just sufficient, in many places, to permit his body to pass ; and huge roots from the trees above, protruding through splits in the mass, curled to and fro, and half obstructed the openings. With unfaltering resolution, and not daring to look into the hideous gulf beneath him, the young man fought his way on, piercing by main force the dark clefts, crawling along narrow ledges, springing from abutment to abutment, until finally he stopped at an elevation of one hundred and seventy feet from the earth below. Here he was seen to look upward, but he did not move. His heart had failed him. Instead of designing any further ascent, his only ambition now was plainly to descend in safety, if possible, from his frightful perch. To look beneath would have been certain death. His head would have turned at the first glance, and, losing his footing on the narrow ledge, which he just clung to, his body would have been dashed to pieces on the rocks.

Under these circumstances the young gentleman acted with a nerve and presence of mind highly honorable to the force of his character. He slowly and cautiously divested himself first of one of his shoes, and then the other, next drew off his coat, and these articles he threw from him into the gulf beneath, without daring to look in the direction in which they fell. Then, clinging close to the face of the precipice, and balancing his body carefully as he placed each foot down, and raised each one up, he tottered along inch by inch, hanging between life and death until he reached a friendly cleft. Here pausing for a moment to brace his nerves, he continued his way in the same cautious manner, followed by the eyes of his pale and terrified friends ; when, disappearing in a cleft, he reappeared no more. A cry rose from beneath ; he was lost, it seemed — must have fallen into one of the huge fissures and been dashed to pieces. His friends had given him up, and agony had succeeded the long suspense, when suddenly, from behind a clump of evergreens, extending like a screen across the narrow opening between two towering rocks, appeared the young student — safe, sound, and smiling, after his perilous feat, during which he had stood face to face with the most terrible of deaths.

The Natural Bridge is in the southeastern corner of Rockbridge County, in the midst of the wild scenery of the Blue-Ridge region, and almost under its shadow upon its western side. It is reached from Lexington, fourteen miles distant, by stage, and from Lynchburg, by canal-boat, thirty-six miles.

»

i

THE DELAWARE WATER-GAP.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY GRANVILLE PERKINS.

" I "HE Indians called the Kitta- -^ tinny the Endless fountain ; and, disregarding all the discussions of modern science, we may still say that the great range stretching from Maine to Georgia was the strong backbone of the thirteen colonies,

that made them stand erect among the nations. In such union, indeed, there is strength ; and grandeur and beauty invest the whole — whether, as the Green Mountains, giving its euphonic name to Vermont, or when the snow-capped peaks become the White Moun- tains of New Hampshire; whether Dutched into Kaatskill, or when, in Pennsylvania and the more Southern States, the even tinting of the forest-clad sides renames them, as, melting softly into the atmosphere, they are as blue as the circumambient air.

92 PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

In Pennsylvania the range is peculiarly symmetrical, and the richly-wooded sides and regular outline well entitle it to the name of Blue Ridge, given to it, in popular par- lance, by the early settlers. The uniformity of character is still further illustrated in this State by the almost equal intervals at which the barrier is broken by the waters of the Delaware, Lehigh, Schuylkill, Swatara, and Susquehanna.

Pretty streams rise on the western declivity of the Catskills, and, quitting their mountain birthplace, wander toward the southwest until near the line of Pennsylvania they unite, and thence, as the mighty Delaware, move on in constantly-increasing vol- ume, the fitting boundary of majestic commonwealths.

Near the junction of the three States of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, the river again approaches the mountains, and follows their western side through a succession of magnificent scenes, which, gradually increasing in grandeur, find a sub- lime culmination where the river turns abruptly into the mountain, which opens to give it passage into a defile, or caiion, called, in our prosaic vernacular, the Delaware Water-Gap. Thence forward the forms gradually soften from grandeur into grace, and the river, escaping from bluff, precipice, and rock, pursues its way through picturesque rolling lands toward the level of the seaboard.

The country north of the Blue Ridge and above the Gap bore the Indian name of Minisink, or " Whence the Waters are gone." Here a vast lake once probably extended ; and, whether the great body of water wore its way through the mountain by a fall like Niagara, or burst through a gorge, or whether the mountains uprose in fonvulsion upon its margin, it is certain that the Minisink country bears the mark of aqueous action in its diluvial soil, and in its rounded hills, built of pebbles and bowlders.

Whether by upheaval or down-dropping, by slow friction or sudden disruption, the wound was made, rarely is seventeen hundred feet of Mother Earth's anatomy so laid bare to the eye, and the Gap furnishes especial temptations for geological speculation.

To the first settlers the mountains proved a troublesome barrier, and all intercourse to the southward necessarily passed through the natural gate-ways of the gaps ; but the Delaware writhed its way through its cavernous passage with contortions too like those of the rattlesnakes that thronged upon the banks, and the dangerous pass was long avoided for the easier road through the Lehigh Gap, where the water-course of a pretty stream led to the head-waters of Cherry Creek, and a pleasant road followed its bank through the beautiful Cherry Valley, full of dimpling hills and fine orchards, among which stalwart men lived to a ripe old age upon the purest apple-whiskey. This Cherry Creek, running toward the north along the western side of the mountain, to join the Delaware just above the Gap, formed a natural road to Philadelphia, which by reason of its pleasantness long maintained its popularity. Nearly midway between the two rivers. Nature had also provided another gate-way in the Wind Gap, called, by the early Dutch settlers, " Die Wind Kaft," a sharp notch, which, descending almost to the base of the

94 PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

mountain, but not low enough for a water-passage, was only a pass for the winds. This route, early used, was the well-known road cut by General Sullivan and his army in 1779. These better routes caused the Gap of the Delaware to be left to the rattlesnakes for a long period, and it was not until the year 1800 that a serviceable road was made through it, by the exertions -of the people of the neighboring country, for their own convenience.

The earliest history of the region is involved in obscurity; but, shortly after Hen- drick Hudson, in his little Half-Moon, passed up the river that was thenceforth to bear his name, his enterprising countrymen founded settlements at Orange, afterward to be known as Albany, and at Esopus, since the historic city of Kingston. The pretty val- leys leading to the southwest wooed these colonists to travel, and the Dutch, certainly at an early day, traversed the valleys of the Mamakating and Neversink to the land of the Minisink. Near the Gap were found mines of copper and iron, and " the mine- road" was soon opened, proving so available that, even as late as the year 1800, it was chosen by John Adams as the best route from Boston to Philadelphia.

Of these earliest Dutch immigrants little is positively known, and it is believed that some of those farthest advanced into the wilderness returned to safer and more friendly regions when the country, in 1664, fell into the hands of the English.

The religious persecutions in France, which compelled the Protestants to escape into Holland, were the remote cause of the introduction of French settlers into these forest- wildernesses. Among them, Nicholas Depuy, coming with the Dutch to Esopus, finally established himself a few miles above the Delaware Water-Gap. Two fertile islands in the river furnished him farming-ground, and he soon built upon the main-land a stone edifice, which, well known as a frontier fort during the long period of the Indian wars, is now a charming residence. Seated in the broad, spacious hall, a forward view leads through a lovely lane of greenery to the base of a high mountain ; and then, glancing backward, a flowery path carries the vision down to the gleaming waters of the river, thence over the fertile island to the towering mountains beyond, whose tops seem to touch the very clouds.

The pioneer Frenchman, vigorously and bravely erecting his home in the wilder- ness, had never heard of the peaceful settlement of Quakers away down the stream, and both parties seem to have been equally astonished when the envoys of the Penn government, after toilsomely leading their horses through the unknown terrors of the cavernous Gap, entered the fertile country beyond, and found a firmly-established settle- ment. The Huguenot told them of his crops, and how he carried his wheat along a good road to 'Sopus, and proudly showed his little fort and his cultivated islands, while the envoys especially marvelled at his fine apple-trees, and told him how a town was being planted down the river.

The love of adventure that marks the true frontiersman is well illustrated in the

THE DELAWARE WATER-GAP. 95

stoiy of the La Barres. Three brothers, who had also fled from France to find rehgious liberty in a new country, landed first at Philadelphia, and, anxious to found a home in the wilderness, pursued their course up the Delaware. Believing that the remotest fron- tier was at the Forks, where Easton now stands, they wandered on still farther, until, assured that they had safely passed the very utmost verge of civilization, they built themselves a cabin on a hill-side near the Delaware, a little below the Gap. Expert marksmen, they supplied themselves with game, while, with the adaptability of their nation, they were speedily in friendly relations with the Indians, who willingly supplied them with corn. Congratulating themselves on having reached the longed-for iclilina Thule of savage solitude, they lived for some months in blissful ignorance of the fact that Depuy was already firmly established on the other side of the mountain ; and there is something ludicrous in the description of their first annoyance and disgust at the discovery of a neighbor. They, however, submitted heroically to the misfortune, and allowed themselves white bread on Sundays, as a compensation for living so near Depuy's mill that it took only one entire day to toil with a bag of wheat over the mountain-road, wait till it was ground, and then return.

The stalwart brothers married Dutch wives, and founded families near the Gap, where they remained until the country, in 1808, became too crowded for one of the descendants, who in that year, at the age of eighty-five, emigrated to Ohio to find more room. On that new frontier, when he was ninety-eight, his first wife died, and the widower, at the ripe age of one hundred, was married again, and lived to reach one hundred and five. A son remained at the Gap, where he was living a couple of years ago, at the age of one hundred and seven, and was still frequently employed in the forests in cutting wood. His brother, aged ninety-eight, and two sisters, above eighty- six, were all strong and hearty ; and, as an instance of a prosperous early marriage, it may be mentioned that his son, who at twenty-one had chosen a bride of thirteen, was still hale and hearty at seventy-nine, his wife being only seventy-one.

The curious conglomeration of American society is well exemplified by the history of the Gap ; for another leading family was founded by Daniel Brodhead, a Yorkshire- man, captain of grenadiers to Charles II., who assisted in the capture of the New Netherlands from the Dutch. His son Daniel, colloquially Dan, invited the Moravians to found a mission at his settlement, which he plainly called Dansbury, a name which it retained until it was rechristened into Stroudsburg, in honor of Colonel Stroud, another ancient resident.

The two grand mountains which form the mighty chasm of the Gap have been fittingly named. The one on the Pennsylvania side is Minsi, in memory of the Indians, who made the Minisink their hunting-ground. The opposing more rugged and rocky cliff in New Jersey bears the name of Tammany, the chief of chiefs, who clasped hands in solemn covenant with William Penn under the elm-tree of Shackamaxon.

96

PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

The ruggedness of the narrow defile is seen in the sketch of the entrance. The bold face of Tammany exhibits vast, frowning masses of naked rock, while the densely- wooded Minsi displays a thicket of evergreen, with the railway-track skirting it down by the water's edge. Mount Tammany defies ascent except by a vigorous climber, but the bold and distinct stratification shown in the great rocky mass called the Indian Ladder adds to the grand abruptness of the outlines, and from the narrow mountain- top is best beheld the wide, extended view of the magnificent scenery above the Gap.

Mount Minsi owes its sweeter beauty to the lovely streams of water that descend

Distant View of the Gap.

its sides beneath a dense foliage, which veils the mossy pools and fern-draped cascades from the sunlight into the cool twilight that enraptures the summer tourist.

Successive ledges, or geological steps, mark the face of Minsi, and upon the lowest of these, at nearly two hundred feet above the river, stands the old and well-known hotel —

" Kittatinny House, that on a rock is founded, So, when floods come, the folks won't be drownded."

The stream that issues beneath the hotel, to fall in a cascade into the river, has come down the mountain-side through a dark ravine. The densest bordering of rhododen- drons fringes its sides with dark foliage and lovely blossoms, while tall trees complete

THE DELAWARE WATER-GAP.

97

the shade. Far up the ascent it takes its rise in the Hunter's Spring, whose cool mar- gin has long been known as a welcome resting-place to the sportsmen that sought deer along the range. Under the name of Caldeno Creek, it continues its downward course by cascade and water-fall, and, to those who have once followed its devious way through the shaded ravine, the lovely glens and fairy grottos must return in dreams, for to dream-land does their witching, twilight beauty seem to belong.

Along the face of Minsi, about five hundred feet above the river, runs a grand horizontal plateau of red shale. Extending for several miles along the mountain, it

Cherry Valley.

makes one of its most remarkable features, and is known as the Table Rock. Over the slope of this ledge, at an angle of forty-five degrees, the lovely Caldeno flows in a charming succession of miniature falls or rapids. The rocky strata beneath are densely covered with moss, which, kept ever verdant by the passing streamlet, is still further fos- tered in its growth by the thick shade of towering trees, and gives the spot its claim to the name of Moss Cataract.

Lower down, Caldeno, stilling its wavelets into temporary repose, rests a while in the cool confines of a rocky basin. Shade even more dense makes a twilight at mid- day, and, dark, silent, and secure, a happy fancy has made it Diana's Bath.

At a still lower range, or ledge, the stream dashes at Caldeno Falls over a nagged.

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98 PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

rocky precipice, in which the singular regularity of the formation is exposed in the broken surface of the falling water.

One of the loveliest aspects of the varied beauties of the Gap is under the early morning light, when — ■

" The mountain-mists uprolling let the waiting sunhght down — "

dense clouds of vapor break the contours of the peaks, causing uncertainty of vision, in- creasing or diminishing the apparent height, at times making the tops suddenly appear to bend forward as if threatening to fall, or as suddenly recede into vast distance, while softly-tinted masses of veiling vapor are wafted hither and thither by the wind at its own sweet will to catch the morning splendors, and wreathe in many-colored scarfs around rock, and crag, and lofty pine.

Poetry and romance have familiarized us with the legend that, as a forerunner of storm, Pontius Pilate still appears above the mountain that bears his name, and, bend- ing in cloudy presence, wrings his hands in remorse for his evil deed. A cloud-phenom- enon somewhat similar occurs upon these heights. A narrow space between two jutting peaks foretells by clearness or cloud the fortunes of the morrow, but no legend lingers around the summits, and prosaic Americans call it the Rain-Hole.

The mysterious ravines and wooded fastnesses of Minsi ever stimulate a thirst for exploration, and many years ago some visitors in pleasant frolic organized the Honor- able Company of Sappers and Miners. With a merry assumption of business, officers were appointed and rules prescribed ; half in work and half in play, the company from year to year continued its explorations, opening new paths, bridging streamlets, strength- ening frail foot-ways, and gaining from their exertions all the pleasurable enjoyments of a mimic frontier-life, with the additional zest of knowing that, notwithstanding all their civilizing efforts, it was still possible to be lost upon Mount Minsi. The annual festival of the Sappers and Miners was always commemorated by the ascent of Minsi to unfurl the national banner from the highest tree-top, and, as the flag caught the mountain- breeze, an answering shout rose from valley and hill-side from the less valorous or less light-footed beholders.

But, wild and wonderful as is the interior of the Gap, it is outside its limits that the grand scenery of the region must be sought. From the mountain-peaks on every hand open magnificent vistas, and from the river, both below and above the chasm, the views are of marvellous extent. Spurs jutting out from the main range give endless variety to the landscape, while hollows, gaps, and ravines, add their countless beauties.

Several miles above the Gap, the Delaware is joined by the mountain-stream called the Bushkill. This creek was long regarded as the extreme limit of civilization in this di- rection, all beyond being a howling wilderness too often full of howling savages. In this neighborhood were the copper-mines which at an early date attracted the Dutch settlers

THE DELAWARE WATER~GAP.

99

from the Hudson, and induced them to open the famous Mine Road, which became the thoroughfare from Albany to Philadelphia, following the Esopus and Neversink Creeks to the Delaware, crossing that river to reach the western side of the Blue Ridge, and passing near the Gap of the Delaware to find a passage at the Lehigh Gap, and thence a southerly course to Philadelphia.

Delaware Water-Gap, from the South.

Upon the Bushkill is one of the most beautiful water-falls of the district. A chasm one hundred feet in height is surrounded upon three sides by an almost perpendicular wall of rock, over which the water falls. From a point below, the scene is grand in its sombre magnificence, as the swift torrent, striking midway upon a projecting ledge in the rock, rebounds in snowy foam-flakes, which, after the momentary interruption, continue to

loo PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

fall into the dark chamber of rock below. On the walls of the chasm, at a level with the summit of the water-fall, there is still another scene of equal beauty, as the rapid stream emerges from the dark shades of the forest to make the sudden plunge from the precipice.

Another small mountain-torrent near by frets its way through a tortuous channel of dark fossiliferous limestone, until, in a sheet of foam, it leaps over a precipice in a shower of dazzling whiteness, which some unpoetic beholder compared to — buttermilk. Submissively has the uncouth misnomer been accepted, and the singularly beautiful cascade still bears the name of Buttermilk Falls. Upon the same stream the Mar- shall Falls deserve special note for their picturesqueness. The dark surrounding rock is crowded with fossil impressions, which fill the stone with irregular fissures ; through this ledge the waters have torn and gnawed their way down a chasm fifty feet in depth, leav- ing a veil of overhanging rock in front, through which the spectator gazes at the gloomy cataract as through a curtained casement.

That the Minisink was a favorite abode of the red-men is proved at almost every step. The plough turns up innumerable quantities of spear-heads and arrow-points, as well as hammers, axes, and tomahawks of stone, and rude cutting instruments fashioned out of flint ; stone mortars and pestles have also been found, with bowls and jars of earthenware.

Upon commanding elevations, where small plateaus permit at once a kind of seclu- sion as well as an extensive outlook over the mountains and the river, there are many Indian burial-grounds, always chosen for the beauty of the position. In the graves al- most invariably are found articles of personal adornment, with warlike weapons, and fre- quently vessels of clay. Glass beads, bells, and trinkets of metal, are supposed to prove some intercourse with the white race, but beads of bone, bowls of baked earthenware composed of pounded shell and clay, and the ruder instruments made out of stone, mark Indian workmanship, and may belong to more remote generations.

As one of the wonders of the Gap, must be counted the marvellous lake upon Tammany — a lake so singular that popular superstition has been tempted to add a final touch to its surpassing strangeness, and declare that it has no bottom. As if in quaint climax to her wild work, Nature, after riving, the mountain to its very base, here places beside the rude chasm, on the very apex of the lofty peak, a peaceful lake. Masses of bare gray sandstone stand about its margin, and within the stern encirclement the pure water reflects alone the swift-darting birds or the slowly-moving clouds, for naught else comes between it and the sky. In this unbroken solitude, beside the lonely lake, is a single Indian grave in a narrow cleft of rock. On a lower level, near at hand, many graves were gathered into one place of sepulture, as if to make the loneHness of this solitary tomb even more marvellous ; and fanciful conjecture can but gather round the grave to ascribe to its tenant some strange history, and imagine him to be a king who

I02 PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

disdained companionship in death with those he had ruled when living ; or a poet who sought a resting-place beneath the clouds, or a prophet entombed by his devout follow- ers beneath the skies in which he had beheld visions.

Throughout the whole Minisink single bodies are occasionally exhumed by the plough, or washed out from the river-banks, but it has been conjectured that these have been enemies, or those whose fate was unknown or not regarded, for the numerous burial-grounds attest that even the wild wanderer of the forest craved to find his last resting-place in companionship with his kind. In these ancient cities of the dead each tenement is a low mound surrounded by a clearly-marked trench, and frequently several mounds are connected into a single group by a ditch encircling the whole, as if to ex- hibit some bond of clan or kindred. In the graves that have been examined in the pla- teaus consisting of coarse gravel and clay, the bodies are found embedded in the ri\ier- sand, which must necessarily have been carried a considerable distance expressly for the purpose.

Little but their graves remains of the original people that once congregated into the valleys of the Minisink, and hunted upon its hills, and little legendary lore has been preserved. The peaceful relations between the earlier colonists and the Indians were in- terrupted, and a long, bitter, and bloody war for the possession of the land soon swept away every friendly recollection, and the settlers learned to blot out the very memory of their antagonists, and erase every trace of that occupation which had been so fiercely contested.

The last lingerer of the primitive people was Tatamy, veritably the last of the Mo- hicans. He had long served as interpreter to the travelling Moravian ministers, and his sympathies bound him so closely to the region of the Minisink that he voluntarily re- mained behind when his tribe moved to the West. An iconoclastic generation has de- graded the name of his lonely home into the wretched diminutive of Tat's Gap. In this wild spot he remained, and a touching picture is drawn of the solitary man sitting alone at the door of his wigwam, hunting alone upon the mountain, singing in the forest wilds the songs of his departed nation, and striving feebly to preserve the habits of his old life amid the encroachments of civilization. At the commencement of the Revolu- tionary War bands of hostile Indians frequently made inroads into the frontier settle- ments, and poor Tatamy became a special object of their hatred. Fears for his safety were felt by the white friends to whom he had adhered with such singular faithfulness, and he was induced to abandon his dangerous solitude. Land was provided for him in a safer region near Depuy's, and there he continued until his death.

The story of the relations between the aboriginal races of America and their Euro- pean conquerors has always been a sad one, and it is especially so in the land of the Minisink. Here a singularly mild and cultivated tribe, the Lenni - Lenape, welcomed the early settlers with unusual kindness, a feeling which seems to have been quite heartily

THE DELAWARE WATER-GAP. 103

reciprocated by the French and Dutch. This friendly intercourse was preserved unbroken for a long period, and promised to remain so, when it was utterly destroyed by the inci- dents of the disastrous "Walk" of the year 1737.

The Indians had apparently been perfectly satisfied with the terms of the purchases made by William Penn. According to the native custom, the territory sold was always measured by distances to be walked within specified times. In the first walk, William Penn had taken part in person, and the affair had been conducted in true Indian fashion, the walkers loitering, resting, or smoking, by the way. But the successors of Penn had determined upon a different policy, and prepared a scheme for driving a sharp bargain.

The boundaries of the territory \^^re to be determined by the point reached by walking for a day and a half from a certain chestnut-tree at Wrightstown Meeting- house, and the proprietors were undoubtedly determined to make, what in modern phrase is termed, a "good thing of it."

Of the incidents of the famous " Walk " many accounts have been given, diflfering slightly in details, but agreeing in the important facts. Offers were published in the public papers, promising five hundred acres of land anywhere within the territory to be measured, with five pounds in money, to the person who would walk the farthest in the specified time.

By the terms of the agreement, the governor was to select three persons for the task, and the Indians to furnish a like number from their own nation. The men engaged, as particularly fitted for the purpose on the part of the province, were Edward Marshall, James Yates, and Solomon Jennings. *

Also, according to Indian usage, the measurement was to be decided when the days and nights were equal, marking precisely twelve hours between sunrise and sunset. Therefore, attended by a large number of curious spectators, belonging to both of the interested parties, the six walkers met before sunrise on the 20th of September.

They stood together, each resting one hand upon the tree awaiting the signal, and then, just as the sun appeared upon the horizon, started upon the unfortunate trial of speed.

By established custom, a day's walk was, with the Indians, a well-ascertained dis- tance, and the day and a half from Wrightstown was expected by them to end at the Blue Ridge, the savages never intending, or even supposing, that the boundaries of the purchase could by any possibility intrude into, much less include, their favorite hunting- grounds of the Minisink.

The previous arrangements had, however, been made with care ; the direction of the route had been distinctly marked, and a line run to the greatest advantage of the pur- chasers. That no time should be lost, relays of horsemen attended the walkers with liquors, and refreshments awaited them at suitable places along the route.

Marshall fulfilled his part of the contract, walking with great rapidity and without

I04

PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

Moss Cataract.

pause. This infringement, at least of the spirit of the bargain, provoked in- cessant complaints and protests from all the Indians, not only those who be- longed to the party, but those who were assembled as spectators, the sav- ages exclaiming again and again, in an- gry expostulation : " No sit down to smoke — no shoot squirrel ; but lun, lun, "lun, all day!"

Before the first day ended, one of the white men and two of the Indians had given out ; and when, before sunset, Marshall and Yates reached the Blue Ridge, they met there assembled a great number of the savages gathered to wit- ness the expected ratification of the boundary. When it was discovered that not even the first day's walk was yet accomplished, the manifestation of anger became general ; the Indians loudly proclaiming the whole affair a cheat, by which all the good land would be taken from them, indignantly refusing their assent to the purchase, and

even proposing that, if necessary, every Indian would come in the spring-time with a buckskin in his hand and buy the land back again.

By sunset Marshall and Yates had passed the mountains, and started afresh at sunrise the next day ; but Yates soon turned faint and fell from exhaustion, while Marshall pursued his course, and at noon reached the Pocono Mountain, having walked about eighty -six miles, according to the estimation made at

the time.

The indignant Indians immediately

inaugurated a systematic retaliation, and

the purchasers, who began to move upon

the land in considerable numbers, found

Diana's Bath. the savagcs arrayed in armed hostility.

THE DELAWARE WATER-GAP.

105

The warfare in this case did not consist of the usual occasional skirmishing and depredations from small bands of drunken savages accidentally- aroused to open enmity, but was much more for- midable, as being a part of a determined attempt of the Indians to regain the lost territory, which they believed had been taken by fraud, and which they never relinquished until the year 1 764.

The condition of the district may be inferred from the fact that, in 1740, the settlers near the Gap demanded armed assistance from the provin- cial government, and again in 1 763 presented a petition, signed by the prominent residents, pray- ing for help, as " we lie entirely open to the mercy of those barbarous, savage Indians." The effect of the continuous conflict upon the agriculture of the region may be gathered from the order given in 1740, by Nicholas Depuy, upon the treasurer of Bucks County, for the payment of the bounty upon sixteen wolves, all killed by the same man.

The struggle was • at the fiercest from 1752 to 1759, the war-front being considered as extend- ing from Bethlehem to Bushkill, and the danger being so imminent that in many cases the farmers abandoned their homes and their unharvested crops, to be burnt by the Indians ; while those residing below the Blue Ridge demanded with importunity that the mountains should be made the frontier, and all the region beyond abandoned without any attempt either at defence or occu- pation.

Depuy's house, which had always been re- garded as a stronghold, seems to have been strengthened into a sort of fortress, surrounded by a stockade, with a swivel-gun mounted at each corner. When times of special danger required a call for government assistance, Depuy furnished the supplies for the men sent to him; and in an officer's report, in 1758, the garrison is described as consisting of twenty-two men, with eight months' provisions.

Moss Grotto.

io6 PICTURESQUE AMERICA.

In the year 1756 the condition of affairs had become so terrible that a large number of farmers were thoroughly panic-stricken, and threatened to abandon the dis- trict entirely to the Indians. In this emergency, Benjamin Franklin was sent by Gov- ernor Morgan to Bethlehem, and succeeded in forming a line of defence from the Lehigh to Bushkill. At his instance, Governor Morgan soon afterward visited the distressed district in person, and established a line of block-houses from Shamokin, on the Susque- hanna, to the ever-uttermost Bushkill.

These primitive fortifications consisted merely of a wall of defence, made of stakes driven into the ground and banked up with earth; while within the enclosure a log-hut was usually erected in each corner, to serve as barracks, and also as shelter for neigh- boring families, when driven to seek protection from the savage enemy.

The condition of society produced by these years of warfare was, of course, peculiar. While many of the men, who daily lived in fear of attack, were educated into all the