Volume One—Chapter Ten
Troy, like a modern academy, is classical, as well as commercial, having Mount Olympus on one side, and Mount Ida in its rear. The panorama from the summit of the latter is splendid. A few years back a portion of Mount Ida made a slip, and the avalanche destroyed several cottages and five or six individuals. The avalanche took place on a dark night and in a heavy snow storm. Two brick kilns were lighted at the time, and, as the mountain swept them away, the blaze of the disturbed fires called out the fire engines, otherwise more lives would have been lost. Houses, stables, and sheds, were all hurled away together. Horses, children, and women, rolled together in confusion. One child had a very strange escape. It had been forced out of its bed, and was found on the top of a huge mass of clay, weighing forty or fifty tons; he was crying, and asking who had put him there. Had all the inhabitants of the cottages been within, at least forty must have perished; but notwithstanding the severity of the weather, the day being Sunday, they had all gone to evening meeting, and thus, being good Christians, they were for once rewarded for it on this side of the grave.
As I surveyed the busy scene below me, the gentleman who accompanied me to the summit of the mountain, informed me that forty-three years ago his father was the first settler, and that then there was but his one hut in the place where now stood the splendid town.
But signs of the times were manifest here also. Commerce had stopped for the present, and a long line of canal boats was laid up for want of employment.
I remained two hours perched upon the top of the mountain. I should not have staid so long, perhaps, had they not brought me a basket of cherries, so that I could gratify more senses than one. I felt becomingly classical whilst sitting on the precise birth-place of Jupiter, attended by Pomona, with Troy at my feet, and Mount Olympus in the distance; but I was obliged to descend to lumber and gin-slings, and I set off for Albany, where I had an engagement, having been invited to attend at the examination of the young ladies at the seminary.
Here again is a rivalry between Albany and Troy, each of them glorying in possessing the largest seminary for the education of young ladies, who are sent from every State of the Union, to be finished off at one or the other of them. Here, and indeed in many other establishments, the young ladies now quitting it have diplomas given to them, if they pass their examinations satisfactorily. They are educated upon a system which would satisfy even Miss Martineau, and prepared to exercise the rights of which she complains that women have been so unjustly deprived. Conceive three hundred modern Portias, who regularly take their degrees, and emerge from the portico of the seminary full of algebra, equality, and the theory of the constitution! The quantity and variety crammed into them is beyond all calculation. The examination takes place yearly, to prove to the parents that the preceptors have, done their duty, and is in itself very innocent, as it only causes the young ladies to blush a little.
This afternoon they were examined in algebra, and their performance was very creditable. Under a certain age girls are certainly much quicker than boys, and I presume would retain what they learnt if it were not for their subsequent duties in making puddings, and nursing babies. Yet there are affairs which must be performed by one sex or the other, and of what use can algebra and other abstruse matters be to a woman in her present state of domestic thraldom.
The theory of the American constitution was the next subject on which they were examined; by their replies, this appeared to be to them more abstruse than algebra: but the fact is, women are born tories, and admit no other than petticoat government as legitimate.
The next day we again repaired to the hall, and French was the language in which they were to be examined, and the examination afforded us much amusement.
The young ladies sat down in rows on one side of the room. In the centre, towards the end, was an easel, on which was placed a large black board on which they worked with chalk the questions in algebra, etcetera,—a towel hanging to it, that they might wipe out and correct. The French preceptor, an old Emigré Count, sat down with the examiners before the board, the visitors (chiefly composed of anxious papas and mammas) being seated on benches behind them. As it happened, I had taken my seat close to the examining board, and at some little distance from the other persons who were deputed or invited to attend. I don’t knew how I came there. I believe I had come in too late; but there I was, within three feet of every young lady who came up to the board.
“Now, messieurs, have the kindness to ask any question you please,” said the old Count. “Mademoiselle, you will have the goodness to step forward.” A question was proposed in English, which the young lady had to write down in French. The very first went wrong: I perceived it, and without looking at her, pronounced the right word, so that she could hear it. She caught it, rubbed out the wrong word with the towel, and rectified it. This was carried on through the whole sentence, and then she retreated from the board that her work might be examined. “Very well, very well, indeed, Miss, c’est parfaitement bien;” and the young lady sat down blushing. Thus were they all called up, and one after another prompted by me; and the old Count was delighted at the success of his pupils.
Now, what amused me in this was the little bit of human nature; the tact displayed by the sex, which appears to be innate, and which never deserts them. Had I prompted a boy, he would most likely have turned his head round towards me, and thus have revealed what I was about; but not one of the whole class was guilty of such indiscretion. They heard me, rubbed out, corrected, waited for the word when they did not know it, but never by any look or sign made it appear that there was any understanding between us. Their eyes were constantly fixed on the board, and they appeared not to know that I was in the room. It was really beautiful. When the examination was over, I received a look from them all, half comic, half serious, which amply repaid me for my assistance.
As young ladies are assembled here from every State of the Union, it was a fair criterion of American beauty, and it must be acknowledged that the American women are the prettiest in the whole world.
Volume One—Chapter Eleven
Saratoga Springs.—Watering places all over the world are much alike: they must be well filled with company, and full of bustle, and then they answer the purpose for which they are intended—a general muster, under the banner of folly, to drive care and common sense out of the field. Like assembly-rooms, unless lighted up and full of people, they look desolate and forlorn: so it was with Saratoga: a beautiful spot, beautiful hotels, and beautiful water; but all these beauties were thrown away, and the water ran away unheeded, because the place was empty. People’s pockets were empty, and Saratoga was to let. The consequence was that I remained a week there, and should have remained much longer had I not been warned, by repeated arrivals, that the visitors were increasing, and that I should be no longer alone.
The weariness of solitude, as described by Alexander Selkirk and the Anti-Zimmermanns, can surely not be equal to the misery of never being alone; of feeling that your thoughts and ideas, rapidly accumulating, are in a state of chaos and confusion, and that you have not a moment to put them into any lucid order; of finding yourself, against your will, continually in society, bandied from one person to the other, to make the same bows, extend the same hand to be grasped, and reply to the same eternal questions; until, like a man borne down by sleep after long vigils, and at each moment roused to reply, you either are not aware of what you do say, or are dead beat into an unmeaning smile. Since I have been in this country, I have suffered this to such a degree as at last to become quite nervous on the subject; and I might reply in the words of the spirit summoned by Lochiel—
“Now my weary lips I close;
Leave, oh! leave me to repose.”
It would be a strange account, had it been possible to keep one, of the number of introductions which I have had since I came into this country. Mr A introduces Mr B and C, Mr B and C introduce Mr D, E, F, and G. Messrs D, E, F, and G introduce Messrs H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, and so it goes on, ad infinitum during the whole of the day; and this to me who never could remember either a face or a name.
At introduction it is invariably the custom to shake hands; and thus you go on shaking hands here, there, and everywhere, and with everybody; for it is impossible to know who is who, in this land of equality.
But one shake of the hand will not do; if twenty times during the same day you meet a person to whom you have been introduced, the hand is every where extended with—“Well, captain, how do you find yourself by this time?” and, in their good-will, when they seize your hand, they follow the apothecary’s advice—“When taken, to be well shaken.” As for the constant query—“How do you like our country?”—that is natural enough. I should ask the same of an American in England, but to reply to it is not the less tedious. It is all well meant, all kindness, but it really requires fortitude and patience to endure it. Every one throws in his voluntary tribute of compliments and good-will, but the accumulated mass is too great for any one individual to bear. How I long for the ocean prairies, or the wild forests. Subsequently, I begged hard to be shut up for six months in the Penitentiary at Philadelphia, but Sammy Wood said it was against the regulations. He comforted me with a tête-à-tête dinner, which was so agreeable, that at the time I quite forgot I wished to be alone.
When I left Saratoga, I found no one, as I thought, in the car, who knew me; and I determined, if possible, they should, in the Indian phrase, lose my trail. I arrived at Schenectady, and was put down there. I amused myself until the train started for Utica, which was to be in a few hours, in walking about the engine-house, and examining the locomotives; and having satisfied myself, set out for a solitary walk in the country. There was no name on my luggage, and I had not given my name when I took my ticket for the railroad. “At last,” said I to myself, “I am incog.” I had walked out of the engine-house, looked round the compass, and resolved in which direction I would bend my steps, when a young man came up to me, and very politely taking off his hat, said, “I believe I have the pleasure of speaking to Captain M—.” Had he known my indignation when he mentioned my name, poor fellow! but there was no help for it, and I replied in the affirmative. After apologising, he introduced himself, and then requested the liberty of introducing his friend. “Well, if ever,” thought I; and, “no never,” followed afterwards as a matter of course, and as a matter of course his friend was introduced. It reminded me of old times, when, midshipmen at balls, we used to introduce each other to ladies we had none of us seen before in our lives. Well, there I was, between two overpowering civilities, but they meant it kindly, and I could not be angry. These were students of Schenectady College: would I like to see it? a beautiful location, not half a mile off. I requested to know if there was any thing to be seen there, as I did not like to take a hot walk for nothing, instead of the shady one I had proposed for myself. “Yes, there was Professor Nott”—I had of course heard of Professor Nott.—Professor Nott, who governed by moral influence and paternal sway, and who had written so largely on stones and anthracite coal. I had never before heard of moral influence, stones, or anthracite coal. Then there were more professors, and a cabinet of minerals—the last was an inducement, and I went.
I saw Professor Nott, but not the cabinet of minerals, for Professor Savage had the key. With Professor Nott I had rather a hot argument about anthracite coal, and then escaped before he was cool again. The students walked back with me to the hotel, and, with many apologies for leaving me, informed me that dinner was ready. I would not tax their politeness any longer, and they departed.
Schenectady College, like most of the buildings in America, was commenced on a grand scale, but has never been finished; the two wings are finished, and the centre is lithographed, which looks very imposing in the plate. There is a peculiarity in this college: it is called the Botany Bay, from its receiving young men who have been expelled from other colleges, and who are kept in order by moral influence and paternal sway, the only means certainly by which wild young men are to be reclaimed. Seriously speaking Professor Nott is a very clever man, and I suspect this college will turn out more clever men than any other in the Union. It differs from the other colleges in another point. It upholds no peculiar sect of religion, which almost all the rest do. For instance, Yule (Yale), William’s Town, and Amherst Colleges, are under presbyterian influence; Washington episcopal; Cambridge, in Massachusets, unitarian.
There is one disadvantage generally attending railroads. Travellers proceed more rapidly, but they lose all the beauty of the country. Railroads of course run through the most level portions of the States; and the levels, except they happen to be on the banks of a river, are invariably uninteresting. The road from Schenectady to Utica is one of the exceptions to this rule: there is not perhaps a more beautiful variety of scenery to be found anywhere. You run the whole way through the lovely valley of the Mohawk, on the banks of the Mohawk river. It was really delightful, but the motion was so rapid that you lamented passing by so fast. The Utica railroad is one of the best in America; the eighty miles are performed in four hours and a-half, stoppages for taking in water, passengers, and refreshments, included. The locomotive was of great power, and as it snorted along with a train of carriages of half a mile long in tow, it threw out such showers of fire, that we were constantly in danger of conflagration. The weather was too warm to admit of the windows being closed, and the ladies, assisted by the gentlemen, were constantly employed in putting out the sparks which settled on their clothes—the first time I ever heard ladies complain of having too many sparks about them. As the evening closed in we actually were whirled along through a stream of fiery threads—a beautiful, although humble imitation of the tail of a comet.
I had not been recognised in the rail car, and I again flattered myself that I was unknown. I proceeded, on my arrival at Utica, to the hotel, and asking at the bar for a bed, the book was handed to me, and I was requested to write my name. Wherever you stop in America, they generally produce a book and demand your name, not on account of any police regulations, but merely because they will not allow secrets in America, and because they choose to know who you may be. Of course, you may frustrate this espionage by putting down any name you please; and I had the pen in my hand, and was just thinking whether I should be Mr Snooks or Mr Smith, when I received a slap on the shoulder, accompanied with—“Well, captain, how are you by this time?” In despair I let the pen drop out of my hand, and instead of my name I left on the book a large blot. It was an old acquaintance from Albany, and before I had been ten minutes in the hotel, I was recognised by at least ten more. The Americans are such locomotives themselves, that it is useless to attempt the incognito in any part except the west side of the Missisippi, or the Rocky Mountains. Once known at New York, and you are known every where, for in every place you will meet with some one whom you have met walking in Broadway.
A tremendous thunder-storm, with torrents of rain, prevented my leaving Utica for Trenton Falls until late in the afternoon. The roads, ploughed up by the rain, were any thing but democratic; there was no level in them; and we were jolted and shaken like peas in a rattle, until we were silent from absolute suffering.
I rose the next morning at four o’clock. There was a heavy fog in the air, and you could not distinguish more than one hundred yards before you. I followed the path pointed out to me the night before, through a forest of majestic trees, and descending a long flight of steps found myself below the Falls. The scene impressed you with awe—the waters roared through deep chasms, between two walls of rock, one hundred and fifty feet high, perpendicular on each side, and the width between the two varying from forty to fifty feet. The high rocks were of black carbonate of lime in perfectly horizontal strata, so equally divided that they appeared like solid masonry. For fifty or sixty feet above the rushing waters they were smooth and bare; above that line vegetation commenced with small bushes, until you arrived at their summits, which were crowned with splendid forest trees, some of them inclining over the chasm, as if they would peep into the abyss below and witness the wild tumult of the waters.
From the narrowness of the pass, the height of the rocks, and the superadded towering of the trees above, but a small portion of the heavens was to be seen, and this was not blue, but of a misty murky grey. The first sensation was that of dizziness and confusion, from the unusual absence of the sky above, and the dashing frantic speed of the angry boiling waters. The rocks on each side have been blasted so as to form a path by which you may walk up to the first fall; but this path was at times very narrow and you have to cling to the chain which is let into the rock. The heavy storm of the day before had swelled the torrent so that it rose nearly a foot above this path; and before I had proceeded far, I found that the flood swept between my legs with a force which would have taken some people off their feet. The rapids below the Falls are much grander than the Falls themselves; there was one down in a chasm between two riven rocks which it was painful to look long upon, and watch with what a deep plunge—what irresistible force—the waters dashed down and then returned to their own surface, as if struggling and out of breath. As I stood over them in their wild career, listening to their roaring as if in anger, and watching the madness of their speed, I felt a sensation of awe—an inward acknowledgment of the tremendous power of Nature; and, after a time, I departed with feelings of gladness to escape from thought which became painful when so near to danger.
I gained the lower falls, which now covered the whole width of the rock, which they seldom do except during the freshets. They were extraordinary from their variety. On the side where I stood, poured down a rapid column of water about one-half of the width of the fall; on the other, it was running over a clear thin stream, as gentle and amiable as water could be. That part of the fall reminded me of ladies’ hair in flowing ringlets, and the one nearest me of the Lord Chancellor Eldon, in all the pomposity and frowning dignity of his full-bottomed wig. And then I thought of the lion and the lamb, not lying down, but falling down together; and then I thought that I was wet through, which was a fact; so I climbed up a ladder, and came to a wooden bridge above the fall, which conveyed me to the other side. The bridge posses over a staircase of little falls, sometimes diagonally, sometimes at right angles with the sites, and is very picturesque. On the other side you climb up a ladder of one hundred feet, and arrive at a little building with a portico, where travellers are refreshed. Here you have a view of all the upper falls, but these seem tame after witnessing the savage impetuosity of the rapids below. You ascend another ladder of one hundred feet, and you arrive at a path pointed out to you by the broad chips of the woodman’s axe. Follow the chips and you will arrive four or five hundred feet above both the bridge and the level of the upper fall. This scene is splendid. The black perpendicular rocks on the other side; the succession of falls; the rapids roaring below; the forest trees rising to the clouds and spreading with their majestic boughs the vapour ascending from the falling waters; together with the occasional glimpses of the skies here and there—all this induces you to wander with your eyes from one point of view to another, never tiring with its beauty, wildness, and vastness: and, if you do not exclaim with the Mussulman, God is great! you feel it through every sense, and at every pulsation of the heart.
The mountain was still above me, and I continued my ascent; but the chips now disappeared, and, like Tom Thumb, I lost my way. I attempted to retreat, but in vain; I was no longer amongst forest trees, but in a maze of young mountain ash, from which I could not extricate myself: so I stood still to think what I should do. I recollected that the usual course of proceeding on such occasions, was either to sit down and cry, or attempt to get out of your scrape. Tom Thumb did both; but I had no time to indulge in the former luxury, so I pushed and pushed, till I pushed myself out of my scrape, and found myself in a more respectable part of the woods. I then stopped to take breath. I heard a rustling behind me, and made sure it was a panther:– it was a beautiful little palm squirrel, who came close to me, as if to say “Who are you?” I took off my hat and told him my name, when, very contemptuously, as I thought, he turned short round, cocked his tail over his back, and skipped away. “Free, but not enlightened,” thought I; “hasn’t a soul above nuts.” I also beat a retreat, and on my arrival at the hotel, found that, although I had no guides to pay, Nature had made a very considerable levy upon my wardrobe: my boots were bursting, my trowsers torn to fragments, and my hat was spoilt; and, moreover, I sat shivering in the garments which remained. So I, in my turn, levied upon a cow that was milking, and having improved her juice very much by the addition of some rum, I sat down under the portico, and smoked the cigar of meditation.
The walls of the portico were, as usual, scribbled over by those who would obtain cheap celebrity. I always read these productions; they are pages of human life. The majority of the scribblers leave a name and nothing more: beyond that, some few of their productions are witty, some sententious, mostly gross. My thoughts, as I read over the rubbish, were happily expressed by the following distich which I came to:—
Les Fenêtres et les Murailles,
Sont le papier des Canailles.
A little farther on, I found the lie given to this remark by some philosophic Spaniard:
Amigo quien quiera que seas, piensa que si acqui
Pones tu nombre, pronto il tiempo lo borrara
Escribe lo pues en il libro de Dio en donde.
Permancera eternamente—
In Amigo.