driving rain, which now poured down more soak-
ingly than ever, had admitted of a window being
opened, or if our number had been something less
than thirty ; but there was scarcely time to think
as much, when a train of three horses was attached
to the tow-rope, the boy upon the leader smacked
his whip, the rudder creaked and groaned complain-
ingly, and we had begun our journey.



CHAPTER X.

SOME FURTHER ACCOUNT OF THE CANAL BOAT, ITS
DOMESTIC ECONOMY, AND ITS PASSENGERS. — JOUR-
NEY TO PITTSBURG ACROSS THE ALLEGHANY MOUN-
TAINS. PITTSBURG.

As it continued to rain most perseveringly, we all
remained below : the damp gentlemen round the
stove gradually becoming mildewed by the action of
the fire : and the dry gentlemen lying at full length
upon the seats, or slumbering uneasily with their
faces on the tables, or walking up and down the
cabin, which it was barely possible for a man of the
middle height to do without making bald places on
his head by scraping it against the roof. At about
six o'clock all the small tables were put together to
form one long table, and everybody sat down to
tea, coffee, bread, butter, salmon, shad, liver, steak,
potatoes, pickles, ham, chops, black puddings, and
sausages.

*' Will you try," said my opposite neighbor, hand-
ing me a dish of potatoes broken up in milk and
butter, " will you try some of these fixings ? "

There are few words which perform such various
duties as this word " fix." It is the Caleb Quotem
of the American vocabulary. You call upon a gen-

211



212 AMERICAN NOTES

tleman in a country town, and his help informs you
that he is "fixing himself" just now, but will be
down directly : by which you are to understand
that he is dressing. You inquire, on board a steam-
boat, of a fellow-passenger, whether breakfast will
be ready soon, and he tells you he should think so,
for. when he was last below, they were " fixing the
tables : " in other words, laying the cloth. You beg
a porter to collect your luggage, and he entreats
you not to be uneasy, for he'll " fix it presently : "
and if you complain of indisposition, you are ad-
vised to have recourse to Doctor So-and-so, who will
" fix you " in no time.

One night I ordered a bottle of mulled wine at an
hotel where I was staying, and waited a long time
for it ; at length it was put upon the table, with an
apology from the landlord that he feared it wasn't
" fixed properly." And I recollect once, at a stage-
coach dinner, overhearing a very stern gentleman
demand of a waiter who presented him with a
plate of under-done roast beef, " whether he called
that fixing God A'mighty's vittles ? "

There is no doubt that the meal, at which the
invitation was tendered to me which has occasioned
this digression, was disposed of somewhat raven-
ously; and that the gentlemen thrust the broad-
bladed knives and the two-pronged forks further
down their throats than I ever saw the same
weapons go before, except in the hands of a skilful
juggler: but no man sat down until the ladies
were seated ; or omitted any little act of politeness
which could contribute to their comfort. Nor did
I ever once, on any occasion, anywhere, during my
rambles in America, see a woman exposed to the



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 213

slightest act of rudeness, incivility, or even inatten-
tion.

By the time the meal was over, the rain, which
seemed to have worn itself out by coming down so
fast, was nearly over too ; and it became feasible to
go on deck : which was a great relief, notwithstand-
ing its being a very small deck, and being rendered
still smaller by the luggage, which was heaped
together in the middle under a tarpaulin covering ;
leaving, on either side, a path so narrow, that it
became a science to walk to and fro without tum-
bling overboard into the canal. It was somewhat
embarrassing at first, too, to have to duck nimbly
every five minutes whenever the man at the helm
cried *' Bridge ! " and sometimes, when the cry was
"Low Bridge," to lie down nearly flat. But custom
familiarizes one to anything, and there were so
many bridges that it took a very short time to get
used to this.

As night came on, and we drew in sight of the
first range of hills, which are the outposts of the
Alleghany Mountains, the scenery, which had been
uninteresting hitherto, became more bold and
striking. The wet ground reeked and smoked after
the heavy fall of rain ; and the croaking of the
frogs (whose noise in these parts is almost incredi-
ble) sounded as though a million of fairy teams
with bells were travelling through the air, and
keeping pace with us. The night was cloudy yet,
but moonlight too : and when we crossed the Sus-
quehanna Eiver — over which there is an extraordi-
nary wooden bridge with two galleries, one above
the other, so that, even there, two boat-teams
meeting may pass without confusion — it was wild
and grand.



214 AMERICAN NOTES

I have mentioned my having been in some uncer-
tainty and doubt, at first, relative to the sleeping
arrangements on board this boat. I remained in the
same vague state of mind until ten o'clock or there-
abouts, when, going below, I found suspended, on
either side of the cabin, three long tiers of hanging
book-shelves, designed apparently for volumes of the
small octavo size. Looking with greater attention
at these contrivances (wondering to find such liter-
ary preparations in such a place), I descried on each
shelf a sort of microscopic sheet and blanket ; then
I began dimly to comprehend that the passengers
were the library, and that they were to be arranged
edgewise on these shelves till morning.

I was assisted to this conclusion by seeing some
of them gather round the master of the boat at
one of the tables, drawing lots with all the anxieties
and passions of gamesters depicted in their counte-
nances ; while others, with small pieces of cardboard
in their hands, were groping among the shelves in
search of numbers corresponding with those they
had drawn. As soon as any gentleman found his
number, he took possession of it by immediately
undressing himself and crawling into bed. The
rapidity with which an agitated gambler subsided
into a snoring slumberer was one of the most singu-
lar effects I have ever witnessed. As to the ladies,
they were already abed, behind the red curtain,
which was carefully drawn and pinned up the cen-
tre ; though as every cough, or sneeze, or whisper,
behind this curtain, was perfectly audible before it,
we had still a lively consciousness of their society.

The politeness of the person in authority had
secured to me a shelf in a nook near this red cur-



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 215

tain, in some degree removed from the great body
of sleepers : to which place I retired, with many
acknowledgments to him for his attention. I found
it, on after-measurement, just the width of an ordi-
nary sheet of Bath post letter-paper ; and I was at
first in some uncertainty as to the best means of
getting into it. But the shelf being a bottom one,
I finally determined on lying upon the floor, rolling
gently in, stopping immediately I touched the mat-
tress, and remaining for the night with that side
uppermost, whatever it might be. Luckily, I came
upon my back at exactly the right moment. I was
much alarmed, on looking upward, to see, by the
shape of his half yard of sacking (which his weight
had bent into an exceedingly tight bag), that there
was a very heavy gentleman above me, whom the
slender cords seemed quite incapable of holding;
and I could not help reflecting upon the grief of
my wife and family in the event of his coming
down in the night. But, as I could not have got up
again without a severe bodily struggle, which might
have alarmed the ladies ; and as I had nowhere to
go to even if I had ; I shut my eyes upon the dan-
ger, and remained there.

One of two remarkable circumstances is indisput-
ably a fact, with reference to that class of society
who travel in these boats. Either they carry their
restlessness to such a pitch that they never sleep at
all ; or they expectorate in dreams, which would be
a remarkable mingling of the real and ideal. All
night long, and every night, on this canal, there was
a perfect storm and tempest of spitting ; and once
my coat, being in the very centre of a hurricane
sustained by five gentlemen (which moved vertically,



216 AMERICAN NOTES

strictly carrying out Eeid's Theory of the Law of
Storms), I was fain the next morning to lay it on
the deck, and rub it down with fair water before it
was in a condition to be worn again.

Between five and six o'clock in the morning we
got up, and some of us went on deck, to give them
an opportunity of taking the shelves down ; while
others, the morning being very cold, crowded round
the rusty stove, cherishing the newly kindled fire,
and filling the grate with those voluntary contribu-
tions of which they had been so liberal all night.
The washing accommodations were primitive. There
was a tin ladle chained to the deck, with which every
gentleman who thought it necessary to cleanse him-
self (many were superior to this weakness) fished the
dirty water out of the canal, and poured it into a tin
basin, secured in like manner. There was also a
jack-towel. And, hanging up before a little look-
ing-glass in the bar, in the immediate vicinity of
the bread and cheese and biscuits, were a public
comb and brush.

At eight o'clock, the shelves being taken down
and put away, and the tables joined together, every-
body sat down to the tea, coffee, bread, butter, sal-
mon, shad, liver, steak, potatoes, pickles, ham, chops,
black puddings, and sausages, all over again. Some
were fond of compounding this variety, and having
it all on their plates at once. As each gentleman
got through his own personal amount of tea, coffee,
bread, butter, salmon, shad, liver, steak, potatoes,
pickles, ham, chops, black puddings, and sausages,
he rose up and walked off. When everybody had
done with everything, the fragments were cleared
away : and one of the waiters, appearing anew iu



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 217

the character of a barber, shaved such of the com-
pany as desired to be shaved ; while the remainder
looked on, or yawned over their newspapers. Din-
ner was breakfast again, without the tea and coffee ;
and supper and breakfast were identical.

There was a man on board this boat with a light,
fresh-colored face, and a pepper-and-salt suit of
clotlies, who was the most inquisitive fellow that
can possibly be imagined. He never spoke other-
wise than interrogatively. He was an embodied
inquiry. Sitting down or standing up, still or mov-
ing, walking the deck or taking his meals, there he
was, with a great note of interrogation in each eye,
two in his cocked ears, two more in his turned-up
nose and chin, at least half a dozen more about the
corners of his mouth, and the largest one of all in
his hair, which was brushed pertly off his forehead
in a flaxen clump. Every button in his clothes said,
" Eh ? What's that ? Did you speak ? Say that
again, will you ? " He was always wide awake, like
the enchanted bride who drove her husband frantic ;
always restless ; always thirsting for answers ; per-
petually seeking and never finding. There never
was such a curious man.

I wore a fur great-coat at that time, and before
we were well clear of the wharf, he questioned me
concerning it, and its price, and where I bought it,
and when, and what fur it was, and what it weighed,
and what it cost. Then he took notice of my watch,
and asked what that cost, and whether it was a
French watch, and where I got it, and how I got
it, and whether I bought it or had it given me, and
how it went, and where the keyhole was, and when
I wound it, every night or every morning, and



218 AMERICAN NOTES

whether T ever forgot to wind it at all, and if I did,
what then ? Where had I been to Last, and where
was I going next, and where was I going after that,
and had I seen the President, and what did he say,
and what did I say, and what did he say when I had
said that ? Eh ? Lor, now ! do tell !

Finding that nothing would satisfy him, I evaded
his questions after the first score or two, and in par-
ticular pleaded ignorance respecting the name of the
fur whereof the coat was made. I am unable to say
whether this was the reason, but that coat fascinated
him ever afterwards; he usually kept close behind
me as I walked, and moved as I moved, that he might
look at it the better ; and he frequently dived into
narrow places after me at the risk of his life, that he
might have the satisfaction of passing his hand up
the back, and rubbing it the wrong way.

We had another odd sjjecimen on board of a dif-
ferent kind. This was a thin-faced, spare-figured
man of middle age and stature, dressed in a dusty
drabbish-colored suit, such as I never saw before.
He was perfectly quiet during the first part of the
journey : indeed, I don't remember having so much
as seen him until he was brought out by circum-
stances, as great men often are. The conjunction
of events which made him famous happened, briefly,,
thus.

The canal extends to the foot of the mountain, and
there, of course, it stops ; the passengers being con-
veyed across it by land carriage, and taken on after-
wards by another canal boat, the counterpart of the
first, which awaits them on the other side. There
are two canal lines of passage boats ; one is called
the Express, and one (a cheaper one) the Pioneer.



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 219

The Pioneer gets first to the mountain, and waits
for the Express people to come up ; both sets of pass-
engers being conveyed across it at the same time.
We were the Express company ; but when we had
crossed the mountain, and had come to the second
boat, the proprietors took it into their heads to draft
all the Pioneers into it likewise, so that we were
five and forty at least, and the accession of passen-
gers was not at all of that kind which improved the
prospect of sleeping at night. Our people grumbled
at this, as people do in such cases ; but suffered the
boat to be towed off with the whole freight aboard
nevertheless ; and away we went down the canal.
At home I should have protested lustily, but, being
a foreigner here, I held my peace. Not so this pass-
enger. He cleft a path among the people on deck
(we were nearly all on deck), and, without address-
ing anybody whomsoever, soliloquized as follows : —
"This may suit you, this may, but it don't suit
me. This may be all very well with Down Easters,
and men of Boston raising, but it won't suit my
figure nohow ; and no two ways about that ; and so I
tell you. Now! I'm from the brown forests of the
Mississippi, / am, and when the sun shines on me,
it does shine — a little. It don't glimmer where I
live, the sun don't. No. I'm a brown forester, I
am. I ain't a Johnny Cake. There are no smooth
skins where I live. We're rough men there. Rather.
If Down Easters and men of Boston raising like this,
I'm glad of it, but I'm none of that raising nor of
that breed. No. This company wants a little fix-
ing, it does. I'm the wrong sort of man for 'em, /
am. They won't like me, they won't. This is piling
of it up a little too mountainous, this is." At the,



220 AMERICAN NOTES

end of every one of these sliort sentences lie turned
upon his heel, and walked the other way ; checking
himself abruptly when he had finished another short
sentence, and turning back again.

It is impossible for me to say what terrific mean-
ing was hidden in the words of this brown forester,
but I know that the other passengers looked on in a
sort of admiring horror, and that presently the boat
was put back to the wharf, and as many of the
Pioneers as could be coaxed or bullied into going
away were got rid of.

When we started again, some of the boldest spirits
on board made bold to say to the obvious occasion of
this improvement in our prospects, " Much obliged
to you, sir : " whereunto the brown forester (waving
his hand, and still walking up and down as before),
replied, "No, you ain't. You're none o' my raising.
You may act for yourselves, you may. I have pinted
out the way. Down Easters and Johnny Cakes can
follow if they please. I ain't a Johnny Cake, /ain't.
I am from the brown forests of the Mississippi, I
am " — and so on, as before. He was unanimously
voted one of the tables for his bed at night — there
is a great contest for the tables — in consideration,
of his public services : and he had the warmest cor-
ner by the stove throughout the rest of the journey.
But I never could find out that he did anything ex-
cept sit there ; nor did I hear him speak again until,
in the midst of the bustle and turmoil of getting the
luggage ashore in the dark at Pittsburg, I stumbled
over him as he sat smoking a cigar on the cabin
steps, and heard him muttering to himself, with a
short laugh of defiance, " I ain't a Johnny Cake, /
ain't. I'm from the brown forests of the Missis-



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 221

sippi, / am, damme ! " I am inclined to argue,
from this, that he had never left off saying so;
but I could not make affidavit of that part of
the story, if required to do so by my Queen and
Country.

As we have not reached Pittsburg yet, however,
in the order of our narrative, I may go on to remark
that breakfast was perhaps the least desirable meal
of the day, as, in addition to the many savory odors
arising from the eatables already mentioned, there
were whiffs of gin, whiskey, brandy, and rum from
the little bar hard by, and a decided seasoning of
stale tobacco. Many of the gentlemen passengers
were far from particular in respect of their linen,
which was in some cases as yellow as the little riv-
ulets that had trickled from the corners of their
mouths in chewing, and dried there. Nor was the
atmosphere quite free from zephyr whisperings of
the thirty beds which had just been cleared away,
and of which we were further and more pressingly
reminded by the occasional appearance on the table-
cloth of a kind of Game not mentioned in the Bill
of. Fare.

And yet despite these oddities — and even they
had, for me at least, a humor of their own — there
was much in this mode of travelling which I
heartily enjoyed at the time, and look back upon
with great pleasure. Even the running up, bare-
necked, at five o'clock in the morning, from the
tainted cabin to the dirty deck ; scooping up the icy
water, plunging one's head into it, and drawing it
out all fresh and glowing with the cold ; was a good
thing. The fast, brisk walk upon the towing-path,
between that time and breakfast, when every vein



222 AMERICAN NOTES

and artery seemed to tingle with health ; the exqui-
site beauty of the opening day, when light came
gleaming off from evei-y thing ; the lazy motion of
the boat, when one lay idly on the deck, looking
through, rather than at, the deep blue sky ; the
gliding on at night, so noiselessly, past frowning
hills, sullen with dark trees, and sometimes angry
in one red burning spot high up, where unseen men
lay crouching round a fire ; the shining out of the
bright stars, undisturbed by noise of wheels or
steam, or any other sound than the liquid rippling
of the water as the boat went on : all these were
pure delights.

Then, there were new settlements and detached
log-cabins and frame-houses, full of interest for
strangers from an old country : cabins with simple
ovens, outside, made of clay ; and lodgings for the
pigs nearly as good as many of the human quarters ;
broken windows, patched with worn-out hats, old
clothes, old boards, fragments of blankets and
paper ; and home-made dressers standing in the
open air without the door, whereon was ranged the
household store, not hard to count, of earthen jars
and pots. The eye was pained to see the stumps
of great trees thickly strewn in every field of wheat,
and seldom to lose the eternal swamp and dull
morass, with hundreds of rotten trunks and twisted
branches steeped in its unwholesome water. It was
quite sad and oppressive to come upon great tracts
where settlers had been burning down the trees,
and where their wounded bodies lay about like those
of murdered creatures, while here and there some
charred and blackened giant reared aloft two with-
ered arms, and seemed to call down curses on his



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 223

foes. Sometimes, at night, the way wound through
some lonely gorge, like a mountain pass in Scotland,
shining and coldly glittering in the light of the
moon, and so closed in by high steep hills all round,
that there seemed to be no egress save through
the narrower path by which we had come, until
one rugged hillside seemed to open, and, shutting
out the moonlight as we passed into its gloomy
throat, wrapped our new course in shade and dark-
ness.

We had left Harrisburg on Friday. On Sunday
morning we arrived at the foot of the mountain,
which is crossed by railroad. There are ten inclined
planes; five ascending, and five (descending; the
carriages are dragged up the former, and let slowly
down the latter, by means of stationary engines;
the comparatively level spaces between being trav-
ersed, sometimes by horse, and sometimes by engine
power, as the case demands. Occasionally the rails
are laid upon the extreme verge of a giddy preci-
pice ; and looking from the carriage window, the
traveller gazes sheer down, without a stone or scrap
of fence between, into the mountain depths below.
The journey is very carefully made, however; only
two carriages travelling together ; and, while proper
precautions are taken, is not to be dreaded for its
dangers.

It was very pretty, travelling thus at a rapid pace
along the heights of the mountain in a keen wind,
to look down into a valley full of light and softness ;
catching glimpses, through the tree-tops, of scattered
cabins ; children running to the doors ; dogs bursting
out to bark, whom we could see without hearing;
terrified pigs scampering homewards; families sit-



224 AMERICAN NOTES

ting out in their rude gardens ; cows gazing upward
with a stupid indifference ; men in their shirt-
sleeves, looking on at their unfinished houses, plan-
ning out to-morrow's work ; and we riding onward,
high above them, like a whirlwind. It was amus-
ing, too, when we had dined, and rattled down a
steep pass, having no other moving power than the
weight of the carriages themselves, to see the engine,
released long after us, come buzzing down alone,
like a great insect, its back of green and gold so
shining in the sun, that if it had spread a pair of
wings and soared away, no one would have had
occasion, as I fancied, for the least surprise. But
it stopped short of us in a very business-like man-
ner when we reached the canal ; and, before we
left the wharf, went panting up this hill again,
with the passengers who had waited our arrival for
the means of traversing the road by which we had
come.

On the Monday evening, furnace fires and clank-
ing hammers on the banks of the canal warned us
that we approached the termination of this part of
our journey. After going through another dreamy
place — a long aqueduct across the Alleghany
River, which was stranger than the bridge at Har-
risburg, being a vast, low, wooden chamber full of
water — we emerged upon that ugly confusion of
backs of buildings, and crazy galleries and stairs,
which always abuts on water, whether it be river,
sea, canal, or ditch : and were at Pittsburg.

Pittsburg is like Birmingham in England; at
least, its townspeople say so. Setting aside the
streets, the shops, the houses, wagons, factories,
public buildings, and population, perhaps it may be.



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 225

It certainly has a great quantity of smoke hanging
about it, and is famous for its iron-works. Besides
the prison to which I have already referred, this
town contains a pretty arsenal and other institu-
tions. It is very beautifully situated on the Alle-
ghany River, over which there are two bridges ; and
the villas of the wealthier citizens, sprinkled about
the high grounds in the neighborhood, are pretty
enough. We lodged at a most excellent hotel, and
were admirably served. As usual, it was full of
boarders, was very large, and had a broad colonnade
to every story of the house.

We tarried here three days. Our next point was
Cincinnati : and as this was a steamboat journey,
and western steamboats usually blow up one or two
a week in the season, it was advisable to collect
opinions in reference to the comparative safety of