Mosses from an old manse
The conversation of our party soon became more animated and sincere,
and we recounted some traditions of the Indians, who believed that the
father and mother of their race were saved from a deluge by ascending
the peak of Mount Washington. The children of that pair have been
overwhelmed, and found no such refuge. In the mythology of the savage,
these mountains were afterwards considered sacred and inaccessible,
full of unearthly wonders, illuminated at lofty heights by the blaze of
precious stones, and inhabited by deities, who sometimes shrouded
themselves in the snow-storm and came down on the lower world. There
are few legends more poetical than that of the “Great Carbuncle” of the
White Mountains. The belief was communicated to the English settlers,
and is hardly yet extinct, that a gem, of such immense size as to be
seen shining miles away, hangs from a rock over a clear, deep lake,
high up among the hills. They who had once beheld its splendor were
enthralled with an unutterable yearning to possess it. But a spirit
guarded that inestimable jewel, and bewildered the adventurer with a
dark mist from the enchanted lake. Thus life was worn away in the vain
search for an unearthly treasure, till at length the deluded one went
up the mountain, still sanguine as in youth, but returned no more. On
this theme methinks I could frame a tale with a deep moral.
The hearts of the palefaces would not thrill to these superstitions of
the red men, though we spoke of them in the centre of their haunted
region. The habits and sentiments of that departed people were too
distinct from those of their successors to find much real sympathy. It
has often been a matter of regret to me that I was shut out from the
most peculiar field of American fiction by an inability to see any
romance, or poetry, or grandeur, or beauty in the Indian character, at
least till such traits were pointed out by others. I do abhor an Indian
story. Yet no writer can be more secure of a permanent place in our
literature than the biographer of the Indian chiefs. His subject, as
referring to tribes which have mostly vanished from the earth, gives
him a right to be placed on a classic shelf, apart from the merits
which will sustain him there.
I made inquiries whether, in his researches about these parts, our
mineralogist had found the three “Silver Hills” which an Indian sachem
sold to an Englishman nearly two hundred years ago, and the treasure of
which the posterity of the purchaser have been looking for ever since.
But the man of science had ransacked every hill along the Saco, and
knew nothing of these prodigious piles of wealth. By this time, as
usual with men on the eve of great adventure, we had prolonged our
session deep into the night, considering how early we were to set out
on our six miles’ ride to the foot of Mount Washington. There was now a
general breaking up. I scrutinized the faces of the two bridegrooms,
and saw but little probability of their leaving the bosom of earthly
bliss, in the first week of the honeymoon and at the frosty hour of
three, to climb above the clouds; nor, when I felt how sharp the wind
was as it rushed through a broken pane and eddied between the chinks of
my unplastered chamber, did I anticipate much alacrity on my own part,
though we were to seek for the “Great Carbuncle.”
THE CANAL-BOAT
I was inclined to be poetical about the Grand Canal. In my imagination
De Witt Clinton was an enchanter, who had waved his magic wand from the
Hudson to Lake Erie and united them by a watery highway, crowded with
the commerce of two worlds, till then inaccessible to each other. This
simple and mighty conception had conferred inestimable value on spots
which Nature seemed to have thrown carelessly into the great body of
the earth, without foreseeing that they could ever attain importance. I
pictured the surprise of the sleepy Dutchmen when the new river first
glittered by their doors, bringing them hard cash or foreign
commodities in exchange for their hitherto unmarketable produce. Surely
the water of this canal must be the most fertilizing of all fluids; for
it causes towns, with their masses of brick and stone, their churches
and theatres, their business and hubbub, their luxury and refinement,
their gay dames and polished citizens, to spring up, till in time the
wondrous stream may flow between two continuous lines of buildings,
through one thronged street, from Buffalo to Albany. I embarked about
thirty miles below Utica, determining to voyage along the whole extent
of the canal at least twice in the course of the summer.
Behold us, then, fairly afloat, with three horses harnessed to our
vessel, like the steeds of Neptune to a huge scallop-shell in
mythological pictures. Bound to a distant port, we had neither chart
nor compass, nor cared about the wind, nor felt the heaving of a
billow, nor dreaded shipwreck, however fierce the tempest, in our
adventurous navigation of an interminable mudpuddle; for a mudpuddle it
seemed, and as dark and turbid as if every kennel in the land paid
contribution to it. With an imperceptible current, it holds its drowsy
way through all the dismal swamps and unimpressive scenery that could
be found between the great lakes and the sea-coast. Yet there is
variety enough, both on the surface of the canal and along its banks,
to amuse the traveller, if an overpowering tedium did not deaden his
perceptions.
Sometimes we met a black and rusty-looking vessel, laden with lumber,
salt from Syracuse, or Genesee flour, and shaped at both ends like a
square-toed boot, as if it had two sterns, and were fated always to
advance backward. On its deck would be a square hut, and a woman seen
through the window at her household work, with a little tribe of
children who perhaps had been born in this strange dwelling and knew no
other home. Thus, while the husband smoked his pipe at the helm and the
eldest son rode one of the horses, on went the family, travelling
hundreds of miles in their own house and carrying their fireside with
them. The most frequent species of craft were the “line-boats,” which
had a cabin at each end, and a great bulk of barrels, bales, and boxes
in the midst, or light packets like our own decked all over with a row
of curtained windows from stem to stern, and a drowsy face at every
one. Once we encountered a boat of rude construction, painted all in
gloomy black, and manned by three Indians, who gazed at us in silence
and with a singular fixedness of eye. Perhaps these three alone, among
the ancient possessors of the land, had attempted to derive benefit
from the white mail’s mighty projects and float along the current of
his enterprise. Not long after, in the midst of a swamp and beneath a
clouded sky, we overtook a vessel that seemed full of mirth and
sunshine. It contained a little colony of Swiss on their way to
Michigan, clad in garments of strange fashion and gay colors, scarlet,
yellow, and bright blue, singing, laughing, and making merry in odd
tones and a babble of outlandish words. One pretty damsel, with a
beautiful pair of naked white arms, addressed a mirthful remark to me.
She spoke in her native tongue, and I retorted in good English, both of
us laughing heartily at each other’s unintelligible wit. I cannot
describe how pleasantly this incident affected me. These honest Swiss
were all itinerant community of jest and fun journeying through a
gloomy land and among a dull race of money-getting drudges, meeting
none to understand their mirth, and only one to sympathize with it, yet
still retaining the happy lightness of their own spirit.
Had I been on my feet at the time instead of sailing slowly along in a
dirty canal-boat, I should often have paused to contemplate the
diversified panorama along the banks of the canal. Sometimes the scene
was a forest, dark, dense, and impervious, breaking away occasionally
and receding from a lonely tract, covered with dismal black stumps,
where, on the verge of the canal, might be seen a log-cottage and a
sallow-faced woman at the window. Lean and aguish, she looked like
poverty personified, half clothed, half fed, and dwelling in a desert,
while a tide of wealth was sweeping by her door. Two or three miles
farther would bring us to a lock, where the slight impediment to
navigation had created a little mart of trade. Here would be found
commodities of all sorts, enumerated in yellow letters on the
window-shutters of a small grocery-store, the owner of which had set
his soul to the gathering of coppers and small change, buying and
selling through the week, and counting his gains on the blessed
Sabbath. The next scene might be the dwelling-houses and stores of a
thriving village, built of wood or small gray stones, a church-spire
rising in the midst, and generally two taverns, bearing over their
piazzas the pompous titles of “hotel,” “exchange,” “tontine,” or
“coffee-house.” Passing on, we glide now into the unquiet heart of an
inland city,—of Utica, for instance,—and find ourselves amid piles of
brick, crowded docks and quays, rich warehouses, and a busy population.
We feel the eager and hurrying spirit of the place, like a stream and
eddy whirling us along with it. Through the thickest of the tumult goes
the canal, flowing between lofty rows of buildings and arched bridges
of hewn stone. Onward, also, go we, till the hum and bustle of
struggling enterprise die away behind us and we are threading an avenue
of the ancient woods again.
This sounds not amiss in description, but was so tiresome in reality
that we were driven to the most childish expedients for amusement. An
English traveller paraded the deck, with a rifle in his walking-stick,
and waged war on squirrels and woodpeckers, sometimes sending an
unsuccessful bullet among flocks of tame ducks and geese which abound
in the dirty water of the canal. I, also, pelted these foolish birds
with apples, and smiled at the ridiculous earnestness of their
scrambles for the prize while the apple bobbed about like a thing of
life. Several little accidents afforded us good-natured diversion. At
the moment of changing horses the tow-rope caught a Massachusetts
farmer by the leg and threw him down in a very indescribable posture,
leaving a purple mark around his sturdy limb. A new passenger fell flat
on his back in attempting to step on deck as the boat emerged from
under a bridge. Another, in his Sunday clothes, as good luck would have
it, being told to leap aboard from the bank, forthwith plunged up to
his third waistcoat-button in the canal, and was fished out in a very
pitiable plight, not at all amended by our three rounds of applause.
Anon a Virginia schoolmaster, too intent on a pocket Virgil to heed the
helmsman’s warning, “Bridge! bridge!” was saluted by the said bridge on
his knowledge-box. I had prostrated myself like a pagan before his
idol, but heard the dull, leaden sound of the contact, and fully
expected to see the treasures of the poor man’s cranium scattered about
the deck. However, as there was no harm done, except a large bump on
the head, and probably a corresponding dent in the bridge, the rest of
us exchanged glances and laughed quietly. O, bow pitiless are idle
people!
The table being now lengthened through the cabin and spread for supper,
the next twenty minutes were the pleasantest I had spent on the canal,
the same space at dinner excepted. At the close of the meal it had
become dusky enough for lamplight. The rain pattered unceasingly on the
deck, and sometimes came with a sullen rush against the windows, driven
by the wind as it stirred through an opening of the forest. The
intolerable dulness of the scene engendered an evil spirit in me.
Perceiving that the Englishman was taking notes in a memorandum-book,