Mr. Olmsted prefaces his Journey with a calm and able letter to a southern friend, in which, from the industrial point of view, he considers the general subject of free and slave labor. We heartily commend this letter to the perusal of every thoughtful man in the country; for no man can well avoid the conclusion at which the author arrives, and which is emphasized by contemporary events, that, any further extension or annexation of slavery, under whatever pretense or covering it is attempted, will only be effected in contemptuous defiance of the people of the Free States." 66 The Journey commences in Baltimore, where our author begins to feel that he is in another region, because- "Five minutes had not elapsed after we were all off at a wave of his hand, before a Virginia gentleman by my side, after carelessly gauging, with a glance, the effort necessary to reach the hinged ventilator over the window of the seat opposite us, spat through it, without a wink, at the sky. Such a feat in New England would have brought down the house. Here it failed to excite a thought even from the performer. "Here was rest for the mind. Scene, the South: bound West. It could be nowhere else. The dramatis personæ at once fell into place. The white baby drawing nourishment from a black mamma on the train; the tobacco wagons at the stations; the postillion driving; the outside chimneys and open-centre houses; the long stop toward noon at a railway country inn; the loafing nobles of poor whites, hanging about in search of enjoyment, or a stray glass of whisky, or an emotion; the black and yellow boys, shy of baggage, but on the alert for any bit of a lark with one another; the buxom, saucy, slipshod girls within, bursting with fat and fun from their dresses, unable to contain themselves even during the rude ceremonies of dinner : the bacon and sweet potatoes and corn-bread that made for most of the passengers the substantials of that meal; the open kitchen in the back-ground, and the unstudied equality of black and white that visibly reigned there: nothing of this was now a surpriso." Here is a sketch of Cincinnati, in which our author shows his natural right to tell of his travels by showing how well he can do it: "There is a prevalent superstition in Cincinnati that the hindermost citizen will fall into the clutches of the devil. A wholesale fear of this dire fate, secret or acknowledged with more or less candor, actuates the whole population. A ceaseless energy pervades the city and gives its tone to everything. A profound hurry is the marked characteristic of the place. I found it difficult to take any repose or calm refreshment, so magnetic is the air. Now then, sir!' everything seems to say. Men smoke and drink like locomotives at a relay-house. They seem to sleep only like tops, with brains in steady whirl. There is no pause in the tumultuous life of the streets. The only quiet thing I found was the residence of Mr. Longworth-a delicious bit of rural verdure, lying not far from the heart of the town, like a tender locket heaving on a blacksmith's breast. What more need be said of Cincinnati? Bricks, hurry, and a muddy roar make up the whole impression." All the descriptions of life and character, as the traveler advances toward the Mississippi, are full of humor and sly observation and entire appreciation. He is not a man going about with his ears strained to hear the crack of the slave-whip or the groan of the victim. "As we lay quiet one evening in the fog, we heard and listened long to the happy word less song of the negroes gathered at fire-light work, probably corn-husking, on some neighboring plantation. The sound had all the rich and mellow ring of pure physical contentment, and did one good to hear it. Like the nightingale, the performers seemed to love their own song, and to wait for its far-off echo. It was long before we discovered that this was artificial, and came in response from the next plantation. No doubt, had one the tender and ubiquitous ear of a fairy, he might hear, of a fine evening, this black melody, mingled with the whippoorwills' notes, all the way from Carolina to Kansas, resounding, as the moon went up, from river to river." In Nashville, although he found some residences that pleased him, he says, quietly, in a note: "The mansions of palatial magnitude and splendor, mentioned in Lippincott's late Gazetteer, we did not see." And so our author and his companion gradually make their way to the great Western highway, which they descend, and he draws a most lively picture of the life upon the steamer and upon the shore, with this conclusion: "Who would not rather own his ten acres on the Hudson than the two hundred or five hundred considered of equal value on the Mississippi ?" At Natchitoches, the travelers buy their horses, and complete the preparations for their camp-life in Texas; and, when all was ready, set forth to follow the old Spanish trail from Monterey, Chihuahua, and Sante Fé, to the states, as far as the Rio Grande. The reader will find the most copious and intelligible directions for a similar trip. At last they found themselves, upon "a crisp December morning, fairly en route." "We overtook, several times in the course of cach day, the slow emigrant trains, for which this road, though less frequented than years ago, is still a chief thoroughfare. Inexorable destiny it seems that drags or drives on, always Westward, these toil-worn people. Several families were frequently moving together, coming from the same district, or chance met and joined, for company, on the long road from Alabama, Georgia, or the Carolinas. Before you come upon them you hear, ringing through the woods, the fierce cries and blows with which they urge on their jaded cattle. Then the stragglers appear, lean dogs or fainting negroes, ragged and spiritless. An old granny, hauling on, by the hand, a weak boy-too old to ride and too young to keep up. An old man, heavily loaded, with a rifle. Then the white covers of the wagons, jerking up and down as they mount over a root or plunge into a rut, disappearing, one after another, where the road descends. Then the active and cheery prime negroes, not yet exhausted, with a joke and a suggestion about tobacco. Then the black pickaninnies, staring, in a confused heap, out at the back of the wagon, more and more of their eyes to be made out among the table legs and bedding as you get near; behind them, further in, the old people and young mothers, whose turn it is to ride. As you get by, the white mother and babies, and the tall, frequently ill-humored master, on horseback, or walking with his gun, urging up the black driver and his oxen. a scout ahead is a brother, or an intelligent slave, with the best gun, on the look-out for a deer or a turkey. We passed in the day perhaps one hundred persons attached to these trains, probably an unusual number; but the immigration this year had been retarded and condensed by the fear of yellow fever, the last case of which, at Natchitoches, had indeed begun only the night before our arrival. Our chances of danger were considered small, however, as the hard frosts had already come. One of these trains was made up of three largo wagons, loaded with furniture, babies, and invalids, two or three light wagons, and a gang of twenty able field-lands. They travel ten or fifteen miles a day, stopping wherever night overtakes them. The masters are plainly dressed, often in home-spun, keeping their eyes about them, noticing the soil, sometimes making a remark on the crops by the roadside; but, generally, dogged, surly, and silent. The women are silent, too, frequently walking, to relieve the teams, and weary, haggard, mud bedraggled, forlorn, and disconsolate, yet hopeful and careful. The negroes, mudincrusted, wrapped in old blankets or gunnybags, suffering from cold, plod on, aimless, hopeless, thoughtless, more indifferent than the oxen to all about them." As The travelers had entered the region of "getting along," which our author justly calls a "part of the peculiar southern and southwestern system." As a help in getting along, it appears that the revolver is a favorite instrument, and we find: "Of the Colt's we cannot speak in too high terms. Though subjected for six or eight months to rough use, exposed to damp grass, and to all the ordinary neglects and accidents of camp travel, not once did a ball fail to answer the finger. Nothing got out of order, nothing required care; not once, though carried at random, in coat-pocket or belt, or tied thumping at the pommel, was there an accidental discharge. In short, they simply gave us perfect satisfaction-being all they claimed to be. Before taking them from home, we gave them a trial alongside every rival we could hear of, and we had with us an unpatented imitation, but for practical purposes one Colt we found worth a dozen of all others. Such was the testimony of every old hunter and ranger we met. There are probably in Texas about as many revolvers as male adults, and I doubt if there are one hundred in the state of any other make. For ourselves, as I said, we found them perfect. After a little practice, we could very surely chop off a snake's head from the saddle at any reasonable distance, and, across a fixed rest, could hit an object of the size of a man at ordinary rifle range. One of our pistols was one day submerged in a bog for some minutes, but on trial, though dripping wet, not a single barrel missed fire. A border weapon, so reliable in every sense, would give brute courage to even a dyspeptic tailor." They were now in Texas, a region, like the city of New York at the present time, in which every man looks out for his own neck, but having this advantage over New York, that every man is expected to do so. There are other advantages over the metropolis, as the following figures show, illustrating the expense of camping in Texas: "The following is a note of expenses during twenty-four hours. It will give a concise idea of our fare. 1 bbl. corn (in the husk), $1 00 75 03 $2 13 Horses, 44 cts. each; Mon, 124 cts. each. "The chocolate being soon exhausted, and not to be replaced, and eggs being a rare luxury, our private necessary expenses may be put down at five cents each per diem. To live upon this sum would, for some patients, be a capital prescription; for others it is only a sour and aggravating discomfort." "Returning with our corn, we overheard the following negro conversation: "Wher' you gwine to-morrow?' To 8.' "Ken you get whisky ther?' "Yes.' "Good rye whisky?' "'Yes.' "What do they ask for it?' "A dollar and a half a gallon. I don't want no whisky dat costs less 'n a dollar and a half a gallon. I'd rather hev it then your common rot-gut fur a dime. I don't want to buy no whisky fur less 'n a dollar and a half a gallon.' "Well, I du. I'd like it was a picayune a gallon, I would."" Compelled to unwilling brevity in our extracts, we shall quote incidents and descriptions that characterize the country: "An emigrant party from Alabama passed, having fifty negroes, and one hundred head of cattle, sheep, etc., going to the Brazos, to settle. 'Oh, my God! How tired I am,' I heard an old negro woman exclaim. A man of powerful frame answered, I feel like as tho' I couldn't lift my legs much longer.' This was about twelve o'clock. "Near us, within sound, were two negroes all day splitting rails-Sunday and New Year's day." "At evening F. rode into town to mail our letters. One was a package of notes, on letter sheets, in a large envelope. Wishing to prepay it, he asked, 'What is the postage on this, sir ?' "How many sheets are there?' "Oh, twelve or fourteen.' The postmaster commenced tearing off one end of the envelope. 66.6 Stop. Don't open it.' "It'll save putting it in a way-bill. I suppose I've no right to charge only one cent?" "Yes, three cents per half ounce. It must be weighed.' "His scales were 'broke down,' but it was finally weighed after a fashion, paid roundly, and put in a bag, unmarked. "On landing on the west side of the Trinity, we entered a rich bottom, even in winter, of an almost tropical aspect. The road had been cut through a cane-brake, itself a sort of Brobdignag grass. Immense trees, of a great variety of kinds, interlaced their branches and reeled with their own rank growth. Many vines, especially huge grapevines, ran hanging from tree to tree, adding to the luxuriant confusion. Spanish moss clung thick everywhere, supplying the shadows of a winter foliage. "These bottom lands bordering the Trinity are among the richest of rich Texas. They are not considered equal, in degree of fatness, to some parts of the Brazos, Colorado, and Guadalupe bottoms, but are thought to have compensation in reliability for steady cropping. The open coast-prairie grazing districts extend to within a short distance of where we crossed. Above are some fine planting counties, and high up, in the region of the Forks of the Trinity, are lands equally suitable to cotton, wheat, and corn, which were universally described to us as, for southern settlers, the most promising part of the state. "We made our camp on the edge of the bottom, and for safety against our dirty persecutors, the hogs, pitched our tent within a large hog-yard, putting up the bars to exclude them. The trees within had been sparingly cut, and we casily found tent-poles and fuel at hand." "SADDLE AND TENT LIFE. "Our days' rides were short, usually from twelve to twenty miles only, which was about the common distance, we found, in steady travel. We soon reduced the art of camping to a habit, and learned to go through the mo tions with mechanical precision, and the least possible fatigue. "As the shadows grow long, we intimate to one another that it is time to be choosing a camp-ground, and near the first house at which we can obtain corn, select a sheltered spot, where fuel and water are at hand. Saddles off and hampers-the horses are left free, save Fanny, who is tied for a nucleus. The mule instantly is down, and reappears with his four feet in the air, giving loud grunts of satisfaction. A tree, overhanging a smooth slope, is taken for the back-rope of the tent, the ham. pers, saddles, and arms placed by it. The tent is unrolled and hoisted to the tree, a pole is cut for its other end, the long tent-rope carried over it and made fast to a bush or a peg, and when the corners are pegged out by the flat iron pegs attached, our night quarters are ready, and our traps already under it, secure from dew. One of us, meanwhile, has collected fuel and lighted a fire, brought water and set it heating. Then there is a journey for corn, and a task to husk it. The horses are caught and offered their supper, each on his own blanket, as manger. They bite it from the the ear, taking, now and then, especially the mule, some of the husks, as salad By this time it is nearly dark, and we hastily collect fuel for the night, thinking, rather dolefully, what we may have for supper. If nothing have been shot or bought, there is only the hot corn-meal, engaged at the cabin with the corn, to be sent for. This we discuss with some rancor and a cup of coffee. Then comes a ramble out into the vague, nominally for logs of firewood, but partly for romance. A little way from the firelight glower indistinct old giants all about; sticks crack under the feet, the horses start and peer wildly, with stretched cars, after you; who knows what wild-cat, wolf, or vagabond nigger may be watching to spring upon you if you go further from the light. Then, leaning upon your elbow, you lounge awhile upon the confines of combustion, toasting your various fronts, and never getting warmed through. Then a candle and a book or pencil in the tent, hooded in blankets. Then a piling on of logs for a parting and enduring fire, and your weary bones, covered with everything available, stretch themselves, from a saddle-bag, out towards the blaze, and-the chilly daylight." "Late in the same evening we reached the town of Caldwell, the 'seat of justice' of Burleson County. We were obliged to leave our horses in a stable, made up of a roof, in which was a loft for the storage of provender, set upon posts, without side-boarding, so that the norther met with no obstruction. It was filled with horses, and ours alone were blanketed for the night. The mangers were very shallow and narrow, and as the corn was fed on the cob, a considerable proportion of it was thrown out by the horses in their efforts to detach the edible portion. With laudable economy, our landlord had twenty-five or thirty pigs running at large in this stable, to prevent this overflow from being wasted. "The hotel building was an unusually largo and fine one; the principal room had glass windows. Several panes of these were, however, broken, and the outside door could not be closed from without; and, when closed, was generally pried open with a pocket-knife by those who wished to go out. A great part of the time it was left open. Supper was served in another room, in which there was no fire, and the outside door was left open for the convenience of the servants in passing to and from the kitchen, which, as usual here at large houses, was in a detached building. Supper was, however, eaten with such rapidity that nothing had time to freeze on the table. "TEXAN CONVERSATION. "There were six Texans, planters and herdsmen, who had made harbor at the inn for the norther, two German shop-keepers and a young lawyer, who were boarders, besides our party of three, who had to be seated before the fire during the evening.' We kept coats and hats on, and gained as much warmth, from the friendly manner in which we drew together, as possible. After ascertaining, by a not at all impertinent or inconsiderate method of inquiry, where we were from, which way we were going, what we thought of the country, what we thought of the weather, and what were the capacities and the cost of our fire-arms, we were considered as initiated members of the crowd, and the conversation became general.' "One of the gentlemen asked me if I had seen this new instrument.' "What instrument?' "This grand boojer.' "I never heard of it before; what is it?' "I don't know, only that.' He pointed to a large poster on the wall, advertising L. Gilbert's celebrated patent GRAND, BOUDOIR, and square piano-fortes.' I mention the circumstance as a caution to printers in the choice of words for the use of their emphatic type. Sam. Houston and his eccentricities formed a very interesting topic of conversation. Nearly every person present had seen the worthy senator in some ridiculous and not very honorable position, and there was much laughter at his expense. As he seemed to be held in very little respect, we inquired if ho were not popular in Texas. He had many warm old friends, they said, and always made himself popular with now acquaintances, but the greater part of the old fighting Texans hated and despised him. ABOUT NIGGERS. "But the most interesting subject to North erners which was talked of, was brought up by two gentlemen speaking of the house where they spent the previous night. The man made a white boy, fourteen or fifteen years old, get up and go out in the norther for wood, when there was a great, strong nigger fellow lying on the floor, doing nothing. God! I had an appetite to give him a hundred, right there.' "Why, you wouldn't go out into the norther, yourself, would you, if you were not forced to? inquired one, laughingly. "I wouldn't have a nigger in my house that I was afraid to set to work at anything I wanted him to do at any time. They'd hired him out to go to a new place next Thursday, and they were afraid if they didn't treat him well, he'd run away. If I couldn't break a nigger of running away, I wouldn't have him any how.' "I can tell you how you can break a nig ger of running away, certain,' said another. There was an old fellow I used to know in Georgia, that always cured his so. If a nigger ran away, when he caught him he would bind his knee over a log, and fasten him so he couldn't stir; then he'd take a pair of pinchers and pull one of his toe-nails out by the roots; and tell him that if he ever run away again, he would pull out two of them, and if he run away again after that, he told them he'd pull out four of them, and so on, doubling each time. He never had to do it more than twice-it always cured them.' "One of the company then said that he was, at the present time, in pursuit of a negro. Ho had bought him of a connection of his in Mississippi; he told him when be bought him that he was a great runaway. He had run away from him three times, and always when they caught him he was trying to get back to Illinois; that was the reason he sold him. 'He offered him to me cheap,' ho continued,' and I bought him because he was a first-rate nig. ger, and I thought perhaps I could break him of running away by bringing him down to this new country. I expect he's making for Mexico, now. I am a-most sure I saw his tracks on the road about twelve miles back, where he was a-coming on this way. Night before last I engaged with a man, who's got some firstrate nigger dogs, to meet me here to-night; but I suppose the cold keeps him back.' He then asked us to look out for him as we went on west, and gave us a minute description of him that we might recognize him. He was 'a real black nigger,' and carried off a doublebarreled gun with him. Another man, who was going on by another road westward, offered to look for him that way, and to advertise him. Would he be likely to defend himself with the gun, if he should try to secure him, ho asked. The owner said he had no doubt he would. He was as humble a nigger when he was at work as ever he had seen; but he was a mighty resolute nigger-there was no man had more resolution. Couldn't I induce him to let me take the gun, by pretending I wanted to look at it, or something? I'd talk to him simple; make as if I was a stranger, and ask him about the road, and so on, and finally ask him what he had got for a gun, and to let me look at it.' The owner didn't believe he'd let go of the gun; he was a nigger of sense--as much sense as a white man; he was not one of your kinkey-headed niggers.' The chances of catching him were discussed. Some thought they were good, and some that the owner might almost as well give it up, he'd got such a start. It was three hundred miles to the Mexican frontier, and he'd have to make fires to cook the game he would kill, and could travel only at night; but then every nigger or Mexican he could find would help him, and if ho had so much sense, he'd manage to find out his way pretty straight, and yet not have white folks see him. "SHEEP AND PRICES. "We had observed sheep not far from Caldwell, for the first time. They were in a large flock of some four or five hundred, overlooked by a black boy on horseback, attended by two hounds. We were told that the wool from this flock had been sold in the neighborhood at twenty-seven cents per pound, and that the flock had averaged four pounds to the fleece. "There had been a 'hiring' of negroes at the County House the week before. Eight or ten were hired out at from $175 to $250 per annum-the hirer contracting to feed them well and to provide two substantial suits of clothing and shoes. "The price of beef at Caldwell was two cents per pound; pork, five cents; corn-fed ditto, six cents. "" MANNERS AND THE WEATHER. "We slept in a large upper room, in a company of five, with a broken window at the head of our bed, and another at our side, offering a short cut to the norther across our heads. "We were greatly amused to see one of our bed-room companions gravely spit in the candle before jumping into bed, exclaiming to some one who made a remark, that he always did so, it gave him time to see what he was about before it went out. "The next morning the ground was covered with sleet, and the gale still continued (a pretty steady close-reefing breeze) during the day. "We wished to have a horse shod. The blacksmith, who was a white man, we found in his shop, cleaning a fowling-piece. It was too d-d cold to work, he said, and he was going to shoot some geese; he, at length, at our urgent request, consented to earn a dollar; but, after getting on his apron, he found that we had lost a shoe, and took it off again, refusing to make a shoe while this d--¿ norther lasted, for any inan. As he had no shoes ready made, he absolutely turned us out of the shop, and obliged us to go seventyfive miles further, a great part of the way over a pebbly road, by which the beast lost three shocs before he could be shod. "This respect for the norther is by no means singular here. The publication of the week's newspaper in Bastrop was interrupted by the norther, the editor mentioning, as a sufficient reason for the irregularity, the fact that his printing-office was in the north part of the house. "We continued our journey during the day, in spite of the increased chilliness of the air, occasioned by the icy surface with which the slect of the night had clothed the prairies, without any discomfort, until we were obliged again to enter one of these prairie houses. During the next night it fell calm, and the cold, as measured by the contraction of the mercury, was greater than at any time before. But the sun rose clear the next day, and, by noon, the weather was mild and agreeable as in the fairest October day in New York. "During the continuance of the norther, the sky was constantly covered with dense gray clouds, the wind varied from N.N.E. to N.W., and was also of variable force. Our thermometrical observations were as follow: Jan. 5th, 10.30 A.M. 10.42 66 67 deg 55 47 "6 42" 40 66 25 " "It continued at about this point during the following two days, when it fell (Jan. 8th, 7.30 A.M.) to 21°. "We visited, several times, the Texas Leg islature in session, and have seldom been more impressed with respect for the working of Democratic institutions. "I have seen several similar bodies at the North-the Federal Congress, and the Parliament of Great Britain, in both its branches, on occasions of great moment-but none of them commanded my involuntary respect, for their simple manly dignity and trustworthiness for the duties that engaged them, more than the General Assembly of Texas. There was honest eloquence displayed at every opportunity for its use, and business was carried on with great rapidity, but with complete parliamentary regularity, and all desirable gentlemanly decorum. One gentleman, in u state of intoxication, attempted to address the house (but that happens elsewhere), and he was quietly persuaded to retire." "This gentleman had thirty or forty negroes, and two legitimate sons. One was an idle young man. The other was already, at eight years old, a swearing, tobacco-chewing young bully and ruffian. We heard him whipping his puppy behind the house, and swearing between the blows, his father and mother being at hand. His tone was an evident imitation of his father's mode of dealing with his slaves. "I've got an account to settle with you; I've let you go about long enough; I'll teach you who's your master; there, go now, God damn you, but I haven't got through with you yet.' "You stop that cursing,' said his father, at length, it isn't right for little boys to curse.' "What do you do when you get mad?' replied the boy; 'reckon you cuss some; 80 now you'd better shut up.' We repeatedly heard men curse white women and children in this style, without the least provocation." Ono "In the whole journey through Eastern Texas, wo did not see one of the inhabitants look into a newspaper or a book, although we spent days in houses where men were lounging about the fire without occupation. evening I took up a paper which had been lying unopened upon the table of the inn where we were staying, and smiled to see how painfully news items dribbled into the Texas country papers, the loss of the tug-boat 'Ajax, which occurred before we left New York, being here just given as the loss of the 'splendid steamer Ocax.' "A man who sat near said"Reckon you've read a good deal, hain't you?' "Oh, yes; why?' "Reckoned you had.' 666 Why?' "You look as though you liked to read. Well, it's a good thing. S'pose you take a pleasure in reading, don't you?' "That depends, of course, on what I have to read. I suppose everybody likes to read when they find anything interesting to them, don't they?' "No; it's damn tiresome to some folks, I reckon, any how, 'less you've got the habit of it. Well, it's a good thing; you can pass away your time so.' These extracts, selected almost from successive pages, have the value of Teniers's pictures. They are elaborate interiors, full of characteristic life, and pregnant with proof of the general state of the people. Texas, in fact, is not civilized. Decency is forgotten; cook |