"I have seen the walls of Balclutha, but they were desolate. The thistle shook there its lonely head: the moss whistled to the wind. The fox looked out from the windows; the rank grass of the wall waved round his head."—Ossian.
"I have seen the walls of Balclutha, but they were desolate. The thistle shook there its lonely head: the moss whistled to the wind. The fox looked out from the windows; the rank grass of the wall waved round his head."—Ossian.
"We do love these ancient ruins:We never tread upon them but we setOur foot upon some reverend history."
"We do love these ancient ruins:We never tread upon them but we setOur foot upon some reverend history."
To those of the present day who are in some degree acquainted with the extent of the vast Western Valley, it is not a little surprising to observe how inadequate the conception with which, by its early proprietors, it was regarded, and the singular measures which their mistaken estimates originated. It is but within a very few years that the extent and resources of this country have become sufficiently developed to be at all appreciated. That the French government was wholly unaware of its183true character in the cession of old Louisiana to Mr. Jefferson in the early part of the present century, and that our own people were at that time little less ignorant of the same fact, need hardly be suggested to one acquaintedwith the diplomatic negotiations of the day, or with the views and the feelings of the respective powers then expressed.
But there are few circumstances which more definitely betray the exceedingly inadequate idea entertained by France respecting her possessions in North America, than that early article of her policy, of uniting her Canadian colonies, by a continuous chain of military posts, with those upon the Gulf of Mexico. That any ministry should seriously have entertained the idea of a line of fortificationsfour thousand milesin extent, through a waste, howling wilderness such as this valley then was, and along the banks of streams such as the Ohio and Mississippi yet continue to be; and that the design should not only have been projected, but that measures should actually have been entered upon for its accomplishment, seems, at the present day, almost incredible. And yet, from the very discovery of the country, was this scheme designed, and ever afterward was steadily pursued by the government of France. La Salle, in his last visit to Paris, suggested the policy of acordonof posts from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, and urged the measure upon Colbert as affording a complete line of defence to the French settlements against those of the English along the Atlantic shore. In furtherance of this design, he sailed to establish a184colony at the mouth of the Mississippi, in prosecution of which expedition he lost his life. A line of fortifications was, however, commenced, and gradually extended along the southern shore of Lake Erie: one stood on the present site of the village of that name; another between that point and the Ohio; a third on the present site of Pittsburgh, named Du Quesne; a fourth at the mouth of the Kentucky River; a fifth on the south bank of the Ohio below; a sixth on the northernbank at the mouth of the Wabash; a seventh at the confluence with the Mississippi; half a dozen others on the latter stream below the junction, and several above upon its banks and along those of the Illinois. Among these last, and the most extensive of the fortifications then erected, wasFort Chartres, long the most celebrated military post in North America, now a pile of ruins.[50]
It was a beautiful afternoon, when, leaving the little French hamletLa Prairie du Rocher, after a delightful ride of three or four miles through rich groves of the persimmon, the wild apple, and the Chickasaw plum,[51]I began to believe myself not far from the ruins of this famous old fort. Accosting a French villager whom I chanced to meet, I inquired the site of the ruins. He turned on me his glittering dark eye for a moment, and, pointing away to the dense belt of forest upon the left in a direct line with an enormous black-locust on the right of the pathway, passed on. Not the slightest indication of the object of my inquiry was to be185seen; but deeming it fruitless to attempt gathering farther information from the dark-browed villager, who was now some distance on his way, I turned my horse's head from the path, and, after labouring several rods through the deep, heavy grass of the prairie, entered the wood. The dense undergrowthof bushes and matted vines was undisturbed, and there was not an indication of visiters at the spot for months. All seemed deserted, and silent, and drear. The ruins were completely shrouded in foliage, and gigantic trees were rearing their huge shafts from amid the crumbling heaps of rubbish. Wild grape-vines and other parasites were creeping in all directions over the trembling structures; or, drooping forth in pensile gracefulness from the disjointed walls, seemed striving to bind up the shattered fragments, and to conceal the pitiless ravage of time. The effect of this noble old pile of architecture, reposing thus in ruins, and shrouded in the cathedral duskiness of the forest, was singularly solemn.
"The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,O'ercome with moss and baleful mistletoe.Here never shines the sun; here nothing breedsUnless the nightly owl or fatal raven."
"The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,O'ercome with moss and baleful mistletoe.Here never shines the sun; here nothing breedsUnless the nightly owl or fatal raven."
Securing my horse to the trunk of a young sapling rearing up itself beneath the walls, I at length succeeded, by dint of struggling through the rough thickets and the enormous vegetation, in placing myself at a point from which most of the ruins could be taken at acoup d'œil. Some portions of the exterior wall are yet in good preservation, and186the whole line of fortification may be easily traced out; but all the structures within the quadrangle are quite dilapidated, and trees of a large size are springing from the ruins: an extensive powder-magazine, however, in a gorge of one of the bastions, yet retains its original form and solidity. The western angle of the fort and an entire bastion was, about fifty years since, undermined and thrown down by a slough from the Mississippi; but the channel is now changed, and is yearly receding, while a young belt of trees has sprung up between the ruins and the water's edge. The prairie infront of the fort was in cultivation not many years since, and was celebrated for its blue grass.
Fort Chartres was erected by the French in 1720, as a link in the chain of posts which I have mentioned, uniting New-Orleans with Quebec; and as a defence for the neighbouring villages against the Spaniards, who were then taking possession of the country on the opposite side of the Mississippi, as well as against the incursion of hostile Indian tribes. The expense of its erection is said to have been enormous, and it was considered the strongest fortification in North America. The material was brought from the bluffs, some four or five miles distant over the bottom by boats across a considerable intervening sheet of water, and from the opposite side of the Mississippi. In 1756 it was rebuilt; and in 1763, when France ceded her possessions east of the Mississippi to England, the adjoining village embraced about forty families, and a church dedicated to St. Anne.[52]187When the English troops took possession of the country, the villagers all removed to the hamlets across the river, then under the French government, having been previously ceded, in the treaty of St. Ildefonso, by Spain to France. The fort was not evacuated, however, until July, 1765, when its commandant,M. de St. Ange de belle rive, proceeded to St. Louis with his forces.[53]
While Fort Chartres belonged to France, it was the seat of government for all the neighbouring region; and in 1765, when taken possession of by Captain Sterling, of the Royal Highlanders, it continued to retain its arbitrary character. It was here that the first court of justice, established by Lieutenant-colonel Wilkins, held its sessions.[54]Seven judges were appointed, who came togethermonthly at the fortress; but their decisions were very ill received by a people who, until then, had been released from all butarbitraryrestriction.[55]
The original form of Fort Chartres was an irregular quadrangle, with four bastions; the sides of the exteriorpolygon being about five hundred feet in extent. The ditch and scarp were commenced, but left uncompleted. The walls, massively constructed of stone, and stuccoed with lime, were upward of two feet in thickness and fifteen feet in height. They still retain this altitude in some portions which are uninjured; and many of the loopholes and the ports for cannon, in the face of the wall and in theflanks of the bastions, are yet to be seen entire. The elegantly dressed freestone, however, which188was employed about them, as well as for the cornices and casements of the gate and buildings, has long since been removed. Specimens are to be seen incorporated in someof the elegant structures which have since gone up in the neighbouring city.[58]
The military engineering of the early French fortifications in North America was of the school of Vauban; and the massive structures then erected are now monuments, not less of the skill of their founders than of departed time. The almost indestructible character of their masonry has long been a subject of surprise. The walls of Fort Chartres, though half a century has seen them abandoned to the ravages of the elements and of time, yet remain so imperishable, that in some instances it is not easy to distinguish the limestone from the cement; and the neighbouring villagers, in removing the materials for the purposes of building, have found it almost impossible to separate them one from the other.
The buildings which occupied the square area of Fort Chartres were of the same massive masonry as the walls. They consisted of a commandant's and commissary's residence, both noble structures of stone, and of equal size: two extensive lines of barracks, the magazine of stores, with vaulted cellars, and thecorps de guarde. Within the gorges of the eastern bastions were the powder-magazine and a bakehouse; in the western, a prison, with dungeons and some smaller buildings. There were two sally-ports to the fortification in the middle of opposite faces of the wall; and a broad avenue passed from one to the other, directly through the square,189along the sides of which were ranged the buildings. A small banquette a few feet in height ran parallel to the loopholes, for the purpose of elevating the troops when discharging musketry at an enemy without.
Such was Fort Chartres in the pride of its early prime; the seat of power, festivity, and taste; the gathering-spot of all the rank, and beauty, and fashion the province could then boast. Many a time, doubtless, have the walls of this stern old citadel rung to the note of revelry; and the light, twinkling footstep of the dark-eyed creole has beat in unison with a heart throbbing in fuller gush from the presence of the young, martial figure at her side! Fort Chartres, in its early years, was doubtless not more the headquarters of arbitration and rule than of gentility and etiquette. The settlers of the early French villages, though many of them indigent, were not all of them rude and illiterate. Induced by anticipations of untold wealth, such as had crowned the adventurers of Spain in the southern section of the Western Continent, grants and charters of immense tracts of territory in these remote regions had been made by the crown of France to responsible individuals; and thus the leaders in these golden enterprises were generally gentlemen of education and talent, whose manners had been formed within the precincts of St. Cloud, then the most elegant court in Europe. Many of these enthusiastic adventurers, it is true, returned to France in disappointment and disgust; and many of them removed to the more genial latitude of Lower Louisiana:190yet a few, astonished at the fertility and extent of a country of which they had never dreamed before; delighted with the variety and delicacy of its fruits, and reminded by the mildness of the climate of the sweetest portions of their own beautiful France, preferred to remain. By the present degenerate race of villagers, those early days are referred to as a "golden age" in their history, and the "old residenters" aswonderfulbeings. Consider the singular situation of these men—a thousand miles from the Atlantic shores, surrounded by savages and by their owncountrymen scarce less ignorant, and separated by pathless mountains from a community of civilized man. The higher stations in the French army were at that era, too, more than at present, occupied by men of genius and information, while the Catholic priesthood was equally distinguished for literary attainment. Under circumstances like these, was it other than natural that reciprocity of feeling and congeniality of taste should have sought their gratification by mutual and frequent intercourse? Fort Chartres must, therefore, have been the seat of hospitality, religious celebration, and kindly feeling. Here the fleshy oldhabitansof the neighbouring villages dozed away many an hour of sober jovialness with their "droughty cronies" over the pipe and the claret of their own vineyards; while their dark-haired daughters tripped away on the green sward before them in the balmy moonlit summer eve with the graceful officers of the fortress.
Here, too, has been witnessed something of "the pride, and pomp, and circumstance of glorious war."191Thefleur-de-lisof the Fifteenth Louis has rolled out its heavy folds above these stern old towers; the crimson Lion of England has succeeded; and the stripes and stars of our own republic have floated over both in triumph. The morning gun of the fortress has boomed across the broad prairie, and been reverberated from yonder cliffs: the merry reveille has rose upon the early breeze, and wakened the slumbering echoes of the forest; and the evening bugle from the walls has wailed its long-drawn, melancholy note along those sunset waters of theEternal River!
Such, I repeat, was Fort Chartres in its better days, but such is Fort Chartres no more. I lingered for hours with saddened interest around the old ruins, until the long misty beams of the setting sun, streaming through the forest, reminded me that I had not yet secured a shelterfor the coming night. Remounting my horse, I left the spot at a brisk pace, and a ride of a few miles brought me to a dwelling situated upon a mound somewhat elevated from the low, flat bottom-land around, about one mile from the Mississippi, and commanding a view of the distant lake and bluffs to the north. Here, then, I affix the name by which is known all the surrounding region.
Fort Chartres, Ill.
"I know not how the truth may be,I tell the tale as told to me."
"I know not how the truth may be,I tell the tale as told to me."
"Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war."Othello.
"Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war."Othello.
Fort Chartres has already detained me longer than was my design. My pen has been unconsciously led on from item to item, and from one topic to another; and now, in leaving this celebrated fortress, I cannot forbear alluding to a few incidents connected with its origin and early history, which have casually presented themselves to my notice. Selection is made from many of a similar character, which at another time and in a different form may employ the writer's pen. The conclusion of my last number attempted a description of the spot from which it was dated; and, reader, a beautiful spot it was, beneath the soft, gentle radiance of a summer evening. Not soon, I ween, shall I forget the wild romance of that moonlit scene as I reclined upon the gray old bench at the door of the farmhouse after the evening meal was over, and listened to the singular events of which that region had been the theatre in other days. More than forty years had seen mine host a resident of the spot, and no one, with diligence more exemplary193than hisown, had gathered up the curious legends of the place, many of them from aged men who had themselves been witnesses of the events they chronicled. By these traditions, whatever may be our inclination to yield them credence at this late period, the origin and history of the fortification of Fort Chartres is by no means devoid of interest. In 1720, when it was resolved on by the crown of France to erect a fortress at this point upon the Mississippi, in continuation of her line of posts uniting Quebec with New-Orleans, and for the defence of her colonies, a military engineer of the school of the celebrated Sebastian Vauban was sent over to project and accomplish the design.[59]To his own discretion, within prescribed limits—so goes the story—was confided the whole undertaking. Far and wide throughout the province resounded the note of preparation. The peaceful villager was summoned from his pipe and his plough; the din of steel and stone broke in upon the solitudes; and at length, at the enormous expenditure of nine millions of livres, arose Fort Chartres; and its battlements frowned over the forests and cast their shadows along the waters of theEternal River! The work was completed, and fondly believed its architect that he had reared for his memory a monument for the generations of coming time. A powerful battery of iron ordnance protruded from the ports, and every department of the fortress was supplied with the most extensive munitions of war. A large number of cannon for many years were laying beneath the walls of the fort, in the early part194of the present century, buried in matted vines and underbrush. The fortress was completed, and thesilver liliesfloated over the walls; but the engineer had far exceeded the limits prescribed in erecting a work of such massive and needless strength,and a missive royal summoned him to St. Cloud. The miserable man, aware that little was to be hoped from the clemency of the warlike Louis XV., poisoned himself upon arriving in his native land, to escape the indignation of his sovereign. Previously, however, to his departure for France, immense sums in gold for defraying the expenses of the fortress had been forwarded him to New Orleans and sent up the river, but, owing to his subsequent arrest, were never distributed to the labourers. Tradition averreth these vast treasures to have been buried beneath the foundations of the fort. However the truth may be, the number of those who have believed and searched has not been inconsiderable: but unhappily, as is ever the case with these "hidden treasures," the light has gone out just at the critical moment, or some luckless wight, in his zeal, has thought proper tospeakjust as the barrel of money has been struck by the mattock, or some other untoward event has occurred to dissolve the charm of the witch-hazel, and to stir up the wrath of those notable spirits which are always known to stand guard over buried gold! And thus has it happened that the treasure yet reposes in primeval peace; and the big family Bible, always conveyed to the spot on such inquisitorial occasions, has alone prevented consequences most195fatal! Whether the good people of the vicinity in the present unbelieving generation have faith to dig, I know not; but, when I visited the spot, the earth of the powder-magazine to which I have alluded exhibited marvellous indication of having been disturbed at no distant period previous. So much for the origin of Fort Chartres. The storymaybe true, it maynot. At all events, it will be remembered I do not endorse it.
There is also a tradition yet extant of a stratagem of war by which Fort Chartres was once captured, worthythe genius of Fabius Maximus, and partaking, moreover, somewhat of history in character. The name of George Rogers Clarke is familiar to every one who can claim even indifferent acquaintance with the early border warfare of the West. This extraordinary man, having satisfied himself, like Hannibal of Carthage, that the only way decisively to conquer a crafty and powerful foe was by carrying the war to his own altars and hearths, placed himself at the head of a few hundred of the Virginia militia in 1778, and set forth upon one of the most daring enterprises ever chronicled on the page of military history—the celebrated expedition against the distant post of Fort Vincent, now Vincennes. Our country was then at war with Great Britain, and this fort, together with those upon the lakes and the Mississippi, were in possession of the enemy and their savage allies. Colonel Clarke crossed the mountains with his little band; descended the Monongahela and the Ohio to within sixty miles of the mouth of196the latter, and there concealing his boats, he plunged with his followers through swamps, and creeks, and marshes almost impassable, a distance of one hundred and thirty miles, and in a space of time incredibly short, arrived at night opposite the village of Kaskaskia. So overwhelming was the surprise, that the town, though fortified, was taken without a blow. History goes on to tell us that a detachment of troops, mounted on the horses of the country, was immediately pushed forward to surprise the villages of Fort Chartres and Cahokia, higher up the Mississippi; and that they were all taken without resistance, and the British power in that quarter completely destroyed.[60]So much for History, now for Tradition.When the little band arrived beneath the walls of Fort Chartres, the numbers of the garrison far exceeding those of the besiegers, the latter, as if in despair of success, shortly took up the line of march and disappeared behind the distant bluffs. Days passed on; diligent examination of the heights was kept up with glasses from the walls, but no enemy returned. At length, when apprehension had begun to die away, early one morning a troop of cavalry appeared winding over the bluffs, their arms glittering in the sunlight, and descended from view apparently into the plain beneath. Hour after hour the march continued; troop after troop, battalion upon battalion, regiment after regiment, with their various ensigns and habiliments of warfare, appeared in lengthened files, wound over the bluffs, and disappeared. Alarmed197and astonished at the countless swarms of the invaders, the garrison hastily evacuated the fortress, and for dear life and liberty, soon placed the broad Mississippi between themselves and the cloud of locusts! Hardly was this precipitate manœuvre well accomplished, when the alarum of drum and fife was heard, and the identical force which but a few days before had raised the siege, and in despair had retreated from beneath the walls, now paraded through the open sally-ports, their rags and tatters fluttering by way of "pomp and circumstance" in the evening breeze. This fortunateruse du guerrehad been accomplished through the favourable nature of the ground, a few extra stand of colours manufactured for the occasion, and a variety of uniforms and arms of like character. After winding over the bluffs into the plain beneath, they againascended through a defile unobserved by the garrison, and once more appeared in different guise and order in rear of their comrades. "Distance," too, cast doubtless not a little "enchantment" over "the view;" and then the fear and trepidation of the worthy garrison probably sharpened their optics to detect all the peril in store for them, and, perchance, somewhat more. Now, reader, you can do as you choose touching belief of all this. And while you are making up a decision on the point, permit me to furnish yet another scrap ofHistory, which may, peradventure, assist.
For sixteen days was Col. Clarke employed in his march from Kaskaskia to Vincennes, after the198capture of the military posts upon the Mississippi. At length, after toils incredible, he reached the Wabash. High upon the eastern bank, its base swept by the rolling flood, stood Fort Vincent, the British fortress, at that period garrisoned by a superior corps of soldiery, with an auxiliary force of six hundred Indian warriors, and under the command of a skilful officer, Gov. Hamilton. On the western bank was spread out a broad sheet of alluvion five miles in breadth, completely inundated by the swollen stream. After five days of toil this wilderness of waters was passed; the rolling current of the Wabash was crossed in the night, and the morning sun beheld these daring men before Vincennes. As they approached the town—history goes on to relate—over the broad and beautiful prairie upon which it stands, at the moment his troops were discovered by the enemy, Clarke found himself near a small ancient mound, which concealed part of his force from the foe. Under this covert he countermarched his men in so skilful a manner, that the leading files, which had been seen from the town, were transferred undiscovered to the rear, and made to pass again and again insight of the enemy, until his whole force had several times been displayed, and his little detachment of jaded troops assumed the appearance of an extended column greatly superior to its actual strength. The garrison was promptly summoned to surrender, and, after a brief defence, Gov. Hamilton struck his flag to a body of men not half as powerful as his own.[61]
199Next in importance to Fort Chartres, of that chain of military posts commenced by the French in the Valley of the Mississippi, wasFort du Quesne;[62]and of this celebrated fortress, so notorious in the bloody annals of border warfare, it may not be irrelevant, in concluding the present subject, to add a few sentences. This post was erected on that low tongue of land, at the head of the Ohio and confluence of the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers, where Pittsburgh now stands, commanded on all sides by lofty bluffs. It was built by M. de la Jonquier, at command of the Marquis du Quesne, governor of Canada. In 1754 the bold Contrecœur came down the Alleghany, with a thousand Frenchmen in canoes, and eighteen pieces of artillery; and, dispersing the small colonial force, intrenched himself upon the spot. This was the prologue to that bloody drama, the catastrophe of which deprived France of all her possessions east of the Mississippi. In 1758 Fort du Quesne was taken by Gen. Forbes; a more scientific and extensive fortress was erected on the spot, at an expense of sixty thousand pounds sterling,and, in honour of William Pitt, then Premier of England, named Fort Pitt. It is difficult to conceive what could have been the design of these commanders in erecting such a massive fortress on such a spot, unless to impress the minds of their savage but simple neighbours; for resistance to artillery planted upon the neighbouring heights would have been quite as vain as any attack of the Indians upon its walls with their primitive weapons. The same may be said of200nearly all the early fortifications in the West, and of some of more modern date upon our frontier. Subsequently Fort Pitt came into the possession of our government as part of the estate of the Penn family, and is now only a heap of rubbish. Thus much for early military posts in the Valley of the Mississippi.
So deeply interested was I in listening to the "legendary lore" associated with the spot upon which I was sitting, that hours glided unobserved away, and the full moon was culminating in cloudless splendour from the zenith when we retired.
Early the following morning I was in the saddle. The heavy night-mists lay wavering, like a silvery mantle, all over the surface of that broad plain; and the crimson clouds, rolling up the eastern sky, proclaimed the rising sun. After a short ride I reached the former site of St. Philippe, a settlement of the French, since calledLittle Village. Its "common field" is now comprised in the single plantation of Mr. M'David. It was at this point that Philippe Francis Renault—from whom the village received its name, as well as a large section of the neighbouring region, known to this day as "Renault's Tract"—established himself in 1719, with two hundred miners from France, in anticipation of discovering gold and silver.[63]He was disappointed; but is said to have obtained large quantities of lead from the region along the opposite bank of the Mississippi, in the vicinity of Ste. Genevieve; and to have discovered, moreover, a copper mine near Peoria. St. Philippe was once a considerable village. Previous to 1765—when possession of the country was claimed201by the English government, and, like the other French settlements, it was abandoned by the villagers—it is said to have comprised twenty or thirty families, a Catholic church, and a water-mill; while the surrounding meadow afforded pasturage for extensive herds of cattle.
Leaving St. Philippe, the winding pathway in a few miles had conducted me into the depths of a forest of gigantic cotton-trees upon the left, encircled by enormous grape-vines, and the ground beneath entangled by a wilderness of underbrush and thickets of wild fruit. In a few moments the forest opened unexpectedly before me, and at my feet rolled on the turbid floods of the Mississippi, beyond which went up the towering cliffs of limestone, hoar and ragged, to the sheer height of some hundred feet from the water's edge. They were the cliffs of Herculaneum, with their shot-towers.[64]For the first time I discovered that I had mistaken my way. Perceiving the low log-cabin of a woodcutter among the trees, I had soon obtained the requisite information, and was retracing my steps; but a weary plod through the deep blackloam, and the tall grass weltering in the night-dews, and the thickets of the dripping meadows, was anything but agreeable. There were but few farms along my route, and the tenants of those with whom I chanced to meet betrayed too plainly, by their ghastly visages, and their withered, ague-racked limbs, the deadly influences of the atmosphere they inhaled. As I wandered through this region, where vegetation, towering in all its rank202and monstrous forms, gave evidence of a soil too unnaturally fertile for culture by man, whose bread must be bought by "the sweat of his brow," I thought I could perceive a deadly nausea stealing over my frame, and that every respiration was a draught of the floating pestilence. I urged onward my horse, as if by flight to leave behind me the fatal contagion which seemed hovering on every side; as if to burst through the poisonous vapours which seemed distilling from every giant upas along my path. That this region should be subject to disease and death is a circumstance by no means singular. Indeed, it seems only unaccountable to the traveller that it may be inhabited at all. A soil of such astonishing depth and fertility, veiled from the purifying influences of the sun by the rank luxuriance of its vegetation, in the stifling sultriness of midsummer sends forth vast quantities of mephitic vapour fatal to life; while the decay of the enormous vegetables poisons the atmosphere with putrid exhalations. Cultivation and settlement will, of course, as in the older states, remedy this evil to some extent in time. It is said that the southern border of a lake in this region is less unhealthy than the northern, on account of the prevalence of winds from the former quarter during the summer months; and that the immediate margin of a river, though buried in vegetation, is less liable to disease than the neighbouring bluffs, upon which hang the night and morningvapours. A dry and somewhat elevated spot is preferable to either for a cabin; and it should be well ventilated, and never closely surrounded by203cornfields. The rank and massive foliage shields the earth from the sunbeams, which exhale its poisonous damps; and in its rapid growth, the plant abstracts from the surrounding atmosphere one of its vital ingredients. Indeed, most of the diseases peculiar to the West are superinduced by imprudence, ignorance, or negligence in nursing. Let the recent emigrant avoid the chill, heavy night-dews and the sickening sultriness of the noontide sun; provide a close dwelling, well situated and ventilated, and invariably wear thicker clothing at night than in the day, and he may live on as long and as healthily in the West as in his native village. Bilious intermittents are the most prevalent and fatal diseases in the sickly months of August, September, and October; and in the winter and spring pleurisies are frequent. The genuine phthisic, or pulmonary consumption of New-England, is rarely met. A mysterious disease, called the "milksickness"—because it was supposed to be communicated by that liquid—was once alarmingly prevalent in certain isolated districts of Illinois.[65]Whole villages were depopulated; and though the mystery was often and thoroughly investigated, the cause of the disease was never discovered. By some it was ascribed to the milk or to the flesh of cows feeding upon a certain unknown poisonous plant, found only in certain districts; by others, to certain springs of water, or to the exhalations of certainmarshes. The mystery attending its operations and its terrible fatality at one period created a perfect panic in the settlers; nor was this at all wonderful. The disease appears204now to be vanishing. But, of all other epidemics, the "fever and ague" is the scourge of the West. Not that it often terminates fatally, except by superinducing a species of consumption; but, when severe and protracted, it completely shatters the constitution; and, like Mezentius, the victim ever after bears about him a living death. In its lighter form, most of the settlers at some time or other experience it, as it is brought on by exposure: and when I consider that, during my ramble in the West, I have subjected myself to every variety of climate and circumstance; have been drenched by night-dews and morning-dews; by the vapours of marshes and forests, and by the torrents of summer showers; have wandered day after day over the endless prairies beneath a scorching sun, and at its close have laid myself anywhere or nowhere to rest; when I consider this, I cannot but wonder at the escape of a constitution naturally feeble from complete prostration. Yet never was it more vigorous than during this tour on the prairies.
At length, after a ride which seemed interminable, I found myself at the foot of the bluffs; and, drawing up my horse, applied at a cabin attached to an extensive farm forrefreshment. A farmer of respectable garb and mien came tottering towards the gateway; and, to my request, informed me that every individual of his family was ill of the "fever and ague." I inquired for the state of his own health, remarking hisshatteredappearance. "Yes, I am shattered," he replied, leaning heavily against the rails for support; "the agues and fevers have terribly205racked me; but I am better, I ambetternow." Ah, thought I, as, returning his kind good-morning, I resumed my route, you think, poor man, that health will revisit your shattered frame; but that pallidness of brow, and those sunken temples, tell me that you must die. Consumption's funeral fires were already kindling up in the depths of his piercing eye. At the next cabin, where I was so fortunate as to succeed in obtaining refreshment, I was informed that the poor fellow was in the last stages of a decline brought on by undue exposure to the chill, poisonous night-dews of the bottom. The individual from whom this information was received was himself far from enjoying uninterrupted health, though thirty-five years had seen him a tenant of the spot upon which I met him.
Monroe County, Ill.
"'Tis many moons ago—a long—long time."R. H. Wilde.
"'Tis many moons ago—a long—long time."R. H. Wilde.
"Rich, silent, deep, they stand; for not a galeRolls its light billows o'er the bending plain:A calm of plenty! till the ruffled airFalls from its poise, and gives the breeze to blow."The Seasons.
"Rich, silent, deep, they stand; for not a galeRolls its light billows o'er the bending plain:A calm of plenty! till the ruffled airFalls from its poise, and gives the breeze to blow."The Seasons.
In the course of my journeying in the regions of the "Far West," it has more than once chanced to me to encounter individuals of that singular class commonlytermed "Squatters;" those sturdy pioneers who formed the earliest American settlements along our western frontier. And, in my casual intercourse with them, I have remarked, with not a little surprise, a decision of character, an acuteness of penetration, and a depth and originality of thought betrayed in their observations, strangely enough contrasting with the rude solitude of their life. For more than half a century, mayhap, Nature
"Had been to them a more familiar faceThan that of man;"
"Had been to them a more familiar faceThan that of man;"
and whether, in the present exhibition of intellectual energy, we are to claim an argument for the influence of natural scenery upon character, or may find a corroboration of the theory of diversity of mental ability; or to whatever circumstance it may be attributed,207very assuredly it owes not its origin to the improvements of education or the advantages of society. There is also remarked in these rude men a susceptibility and refinement of feeling, and a delicacy of sentiment, which one would suppose hardly compatible with a protracted continuance of their semi-savage life.
It was at the frugal, though well-spread board of an individual of this class that I was pleased to find myself seated, after my tedious morning ramble of several hours through the weltering vegetation of the prairie. Mine host was a man of apparently forty, though in reality some eight or ten years in advance of that age: his form, of medium stature, was symmetrical, erect, and closely knit, betraying considerable capability of endurance, though but little of muscular strength: his countenance, at first sight, was by no means prepossessing; indeed, the features, while in repose, presented an aspect harsh—almost forbidding; but, when lighted up by animation, there was discoverable in their rapid play a mildness which wellcompared with the benevolent expression of a soft blue eye. Such was thephysiqueof my backwoods pioneer, who for forty years had been a wanderer on the outskirts of civilization, and had at length been overtaken by its rapid march.
As I had before me but an easy ride for the day, I proposed to mine host, when our repast was over, that he should accompany me to the summit of the range of bluffs which rose behind his cabin, towering to the height of several hundred feet above the roof. To this he readily assented, and well did208the magnificent view commanded from the top compensate for the toil of the ascent. The scene was grand. "Yonder," said my companion, seating himself on the earth at my side, and stretching out his arm to the southeast, "yonder lies the village of old Kaskaskia, with the bluffs of the river beyond, rising against the sky; while a little to the left you catch the white cliffs of Prairie du Rocher. In that heavy timber to the south are the ruins of Fort Chartres, and to the right, across the lake, fifty years ago stood St. Philippe. The Mississippi is concealed from us, but its windings can be traced by the irregular strip of forest which skirts its margin. Beyond the stream, stretching away to the northwest, the range of heights you view are the celebratedcornice-cliffs[66]above Herculaneum; and at intervals you catch a glimpse of a shot-tower, resting like a cloud against the sky, upon the tallest pinnacles. The plain at our feet, which is now sprinkled with cornfields, was once the site of an Indian village. Forty years ago, the ruins of the wigwams and the dancing circle surrounding the war-post could be distinctly traced out: and even now my ploughshare every spring turns up articles of potterywhich constituted their domestic utensils, together with axes and mallets of stone, spear and arrow heads and knives of flint, and all their rude instruments of war. Often of a fine evening," continued my companion, after a pause, "when my work for the day is over, and the sun is going down209in the west, I climb up to this spot and look out over this grand prospect; and it almost makes me sad to think how the tribes that once possessed this beautiful region have faded away. Nearly forty years ago, when I came with my father from old Virginia, this whole state, with its prairies, and forests, and rich bottoms, was the hunting-ground of the Indians. On this spot we built our cabin; and though I have since lived far off on the outskirts of the Missouri frontier, I always had an affection for this old bottom and these bluffs, and have come back to spend here the rest of my days. But the Indians are gone. The round top of every bluff in yonder range is the grave of an Indian chief."
While my singular companion was making these observations, somewhat in the language I have attempted to give, interrupted from time to time by my inquiries, I had myself been abstractedly employed in thrusting a knife which was in my hand into the yielding mould of the mound upon which we sat, when, suddenly, the blade, striking upon a substance somewhat harder than the soil, snapped into fragments. Hastily scraping away the loose mould to the depth of some inches, thefemurof a human skeleton protruding from the soil was disinterred, and, in a few minutes, with the aid of my companion, the remnants of an entire skeleton were laid bare. Compared with our own limbs, the bones seemed of a size almost gigantic; and from this circumstance, if from no other, it was evident that our melancholy moralizing upon the destinies of the Indians had been indulged upon a veryfitting spot—210the grave of one of its chieftains. Originally, the body had no doubt been covered to the depth of many feet, and the shallowness of soil at the present time indicates a lapse of centuries. Still these graves of the bluffs, which doubtless belonged to the ancestors of the present aborigines, will neither be confounded nor compared with the gigantic earth-heaps of the prairies. Strangely enough, thishasbeen the case, though a moment's reflection must convince one that they are the monuments of a far later race.
Descending the bluffs by an ancient path in a ravine,saidto have been made in conveying oak timber to Fort Chartres at the period of its erection, my host conducted me into one of the enclosures of his farm, a spot which had evidently once been the ordinary burial-place of the ancient Indian village. Graves, sufficient, apparently, for hundreds of individuals, were yet to be seen upon every side. They were arranged parallel to each other in uniform ranges, and were each formed by a rough slab of limestone upon either side, and two at the extremities, terminating in an obtuse angle. From several of these old sepulchres we threw out the sand, and, at the depth of about four feet, exhumed fragments of human remains in various stages of preservation, deposited upon a broad slab of limestone at the bottom. When taken together, these slabs form a complete coffin of stone, in which the body originally reposed; and this arrangement, with the silicious nature of the soil, has probably preserved the remains a longer period than would otherwise have been the case. But the circumstance respecting211these ancient graves which chiefly excited my astonishment was their marvellous littleness, none of them exceeding a length of four feet; and the wondrous tales of a "pigmy race of aborigines" once inhabiting the West, which Ihad often listened to, recurred with considerable force to my memory. Resolved to decide this long-mooted question to my own satisfaction, if possible, the earth from one of the graves, the most perfect to be found, was excavated with care, and upon the bottom were discovered thefemurandtibiaof a skeleton in a state of tolerable preservation, being parallel to each other and in immediate proximity. Proof incontestible, this, that the remains were those of no Lilliputian race four feet in stature, and affording a fair presumption that the limbs were forcibly bent in this position at the time of burial, occupying their stone coffin much as the subject for scientific dissection occupies a beef-barrel. In this manner may we satisfactorily account for the ancient "pigmy cemetery" near the town of Fenton, on the Merrimack in Missouri, as well as that on theRivière des Pères, in the same vicinity, already referred to, and those reported to exist in various other sections of the West, in which, owing to the dampness of the soil, the remains have been long resolved to dust, and only the dimensions of the grave have remained.[67]
Among the articles which my host had procured from these old graves, and deemed worthy of preservation, was a singular species of pottery, composed, as appeared from its fracture, of shells calcined and pulverized, mixed with an equal quantity212of clay, and baked in the sun. The clay is of that fine quality with which the waters of the Missouri are charged. The vessels are found moulded into a variety of forms and sizes, capable of containing from a quart to a gallon.[68]One of these, which my hostinsisted upon hanging upon the bow of my Spanish saddle as I mounted, was fashioned in the shape of aturtle,with the form and features very accurately marked. The handle of the vessel, which was broken off, once formed a tapering tail to the animal, presenting ararespecimen of a turtle with that elegant appendage.
Ascending the bluffs by a tortuous though toilsome pathwaythrough the ravines, my route for some miles wound away through a sparse growth of oaks, and over a region which seemed completely excavated intosink-holes. Some of these tunnel-shaped hollows were several hundred feet in diameter, and of frightful depth, though of regular outline, as if formed by the whirl of waters subsiding to the level of the plain beneath. They were hundreds in number, yet each was as uniformly circular as if excavated by scientific skill. I have met with none so regular in outline, though I have seen many in the course of my journeyings.
The puissant little village of Waterloo furnished me a very excellent dinner, at a very excellent tavern. The town appeared, from a hasty view in passing through its streets, remarkable for nothing so much as for the warlikesoubriquetattached to it, if we except a hugewindmill, which,213like a living thing, flings abroad its gigantic arms, and flaunts its ungainly pinions in the midst thereof. The place, moreover, can boast a courthouse, indicative of its judicial character as seat of justice for the county of Monroe; and, withal, is rather pleasantly located than otherwise. About five miles north of the village is situated a large spring, and a settlement called Bellefontaine. This spot is celebrated as the scene of some of the bloodiest atrocities of the Kickapoo Indians and predatory bands of other tribes some fifty years since. Many of the settlers were killed, and others carried into a captivity scarce to be preferred.[69]
An evening ride of a dozen miles, interesting for nothing but a drenching shower, succeeded by a glare of scorching sunshine, which, for a time, threatened perfect fusion to the traveller, or, more properly, an unconditional resolution into fluidity; such an evening ride, under circumstances aforesaid, brought me at sunset to the town of Columbia, a place, as its name denotes, redolent of patriotism.[70]"Hail Columbia!" was the exhilarated expression of my feelings, if not of my lips, as I strode across the threshold of a log-cabin, the appurtenance of a certain worthy man with one leg and the moiety of another, who united in his calling the professions of cobbler and publican, as intimated by the sign-board over his door. Hail Columbia! All that it is possible to record touching this patriotic village seems to be that it adds one more to the five hundred previous villages of the selfsame appellation scattered over the land, whose chief214consequence, like that of a Spanish grandee, is concentrated and consists in a title. Every county of almost every state of the Union, it is verily believed, can boast a Columbia. Indeed, the name of the Genoese seems in a fair way of being honoured as much as is that of George Washington; a distinction we are sure to find bestowed upon every bullet-pated, tow-haired little rascal, who, knowing not who his father was, can claim no patronymic less general, having been smuggled into the world nobody can tell when or how: George Washington, "Fatherof hiscountry,"indeed, if the perpetration of a very poor pun on a venerated name may be pardoned.
The earliest peep of dawn lighted me into the saddle; for, with the unhappy Clarence,feelinglycould I ejaculate,