Wild Sports In The Far West. Gerstaecker Frederick
sort of stage-coach runs. I was now again in the cultivated part of the country. Wheat is grown in large quantities, and answers very well, as do oats and barley; Indian corn does not attain the degree of perfection in which it is found further south. The ears were small, and most of those I saw had yellow grain.
About thirty miles from the town, I overtook a cattle dealer from the United States, who was on his road back. He seemed a good sort of fellow, and I resolved to travel the thirty miles in his company. We soon became acquainted. He had two enormously fat oxen, which he had bought in Canada, and a dreadfully thin horse, on which he kindly invited me to take turns to ride, as he would willingly walk a little.
A light but penetrating rain was falling, and the ride would not have been disagreeable, though the road had become slippery; only the good man was constantly offering the horse, while I was riding, to every person he met, and would have been glad to exchange it for a couple of cows. When tired, he mounted again, and I walked. He carried a book in his pocket containing a deeply affecting tragedy, and as soon as he was firmly fixed in the saddle, he invariably took it out, and began to declaim, holding the book in his left hand, and gesticulating vehemently with his right, in which he brandished his long cattle whip. Whenever the more interesting parts of the tragedy occasioned an extra forcible movement of the right arm, and with it of the whip so formidable to the oxen, an implement on which they kept a constant watch, they started on one side or ran back, and only the prosaic “Quiet there! Gently!” &c., &c., uttered in a pathetic tone, brought back the horned audience to their duty.
On the evening of the 11th of November, I came a second time to the Falls of Niagara, and could now admire their grandeur and majesty from the Canadian side. From thence a beautiful road runs along the Niagara river to Lake Erie. The road itself is good and dry; on the left the glorious wide river, shaded with trees of the original dark forest, on the right a succession of prosperous farms, with excellent orchards; altogether a most enchanting prospect. The whole distance appeared scarcely more than a few paces. A few miles from Buffalo I crossed a ferry worked by horses in a large perpendicular wheel, and was now in the United States again. What I saw of Canada, showed me that it is, at least this part of it, a beautiful and fertile country, with a healthy, though very cold climate, too cold to suit me. It produces excellent corn, but except in the thickly inhabited parts, sheep and pigs do not succeed on account of the numerous wolves. Many Canadian farmers assured me that the bite of a wolf was like that of a venomous reptile to these animals, and that however slightly they may have been bitten, they are sure to die. But perhaps these deaths may have been caused by the bites of rabid wolves.
It was Sunday afternoon when I stepped into the public room of the “William Tell,” in Buffalo, and seated myself in a corner to rest. The eyes of several respectable German operatives, who were all in hot political debate, were at first attracted with astonishment towards the armed stranger, but soon following up their dispute they forgot all listeners, and I think it might very likely have come to more than words, if the host, a little fat figure, had not rolled himself in amongst them, and restored peace with the conciliatory words: “You are all as foolish as so many stockfish.” In these words, the equality of persons was proclaimed, and their feelings were pacified. It was, however, no trifle that formed the subject of their dispute; for an honest shoemaker would by no means allow that the English could send any troops over, on account of the disturbances in Canada, because the Russian was sitting across their necks. A cabinet-maker, seated opposite to him, maintained that Russia was too far off from England to be able to make war so quickly; but the shoemaker proved to him so clearly that Russia was close to England on the north, and that there was only a broad strip of land between the two Principalities, that the astonished cabinet-maker was silenced by the overwhelming amount of solid learning; the shoemaker admitted that the march from Russia to England was difficult, as the soldiers had sometimes to wade up to their shoulders in sand. Whence the good man had obtained his idea of a march through sand, and his geographical knowledge, is more than I can say, but the debate was amusing enough; and when the shoemaker appealed to me for my opinion, I agreed with him of course, but told him that the Russians intended to lay down bear-skins on the sand to make the march easier, upon which he exclaimed, in astonishment, “What desperate fellows!”
I was up early on the following morning in order to see the town; it is a very pretty place, and contains many Germans; it must become, and in fact is already, the central point of all the interior commerce of the north, for railroads, canals, steamers, and sailing vessels rival each other in bringing and taking away produce.
CHAPTER III
OHIO – INDIANA – ILLINOIS – MISSOURI
Lake Erie – Cleveland – Double-beds – March through the forest – Canton – Cincinnati – Lawrencebourg – A burning forest – Deserted farm-house – Wet weather and swollen rivers – A drunken companion – Versailles – Intrepid German Jews – Vincennes – Fording a river – The prairies of Illinois – Shooting deer – Salem – An Illinois settler – Lebanon – Ague – Passage of the Mississippi – St. Louis – German emigrants – A week’s work in the forest – Lead mines of Missouri – Courant river, the boundary of Missouri.
About noon the steamer “North America” left for Cleveland, in Ohio State, and with it my worthy self. There was such a number of passengers in the steerage, that it was hardly possible to move, and the state of affairs was made worse by each of the American ladies1 having a short pipe in her mouth. Yet worse was coming. Lake Erie, under the influence of a strong breeze, began to get very rough in its treatment of the boat; one pipe after another was extinguished, and the visages lengthened and whitened very suspiciously. I observed this change with horror, and took refuge in one of the uppermost of three rows of sleeping berths, to be out of range of shot.
It was dark when we arrived at Cleveland, and I stood on the shore in some difficulty, not knowing exactly where to look for shelter, when a young German, who, by the light of a lantern, recognized me by my costume for a fellow countryman, asked me if I would like to pass the night in a German house: on my quickly agreeing to it, he led me to one, some hundred yards off, where I soon went to bed. The beds in America are all double, that is to say, so wide as easily to hold three, and indeed I have sometimes made a fourth. I was shown into this abode of dreams by a little hump-backed youth, and on my asking if I could sleep alone there, he replied that perhaps some stranger might come by the stage-coach. Towards midnight I was disturbed by a noise, and thought to myself “Oh, oh, here comes the stranger;” and as I was not yet accustomed to this American fashion, I took the trouble to look up to see what my bedfellow was like, and had the felicity to see that a negro as black as pitch was preparing his ebony members to occupy part of my bed. I moved to the extreme edge, leaving at least two-thirds of the space to this son of the night. I was at this time but little acquainted with American habits, and if this had happened to me later, the landlord would not have had a whole bone in his skin; for it is the greatest insult to a white man in North America, and more particularly in the slave states, to place a negro on equal terms with him.
I was up before day, and, according to custom, went out to have a look at the town. From Cleveland I set off along the canal that goes to Portsmouth, on the river Ohio, intending to visit my fellow passenger by the “Constitution,” the apothecary Vogel, at the village of Canton. I shot several wild-fowl and a few hares as I went along, and found a bed at a New Englander’s, who gave me a hospitable reception. I was much amused by a little German maid, who had only lately left her home, and understood very little English, but as she spoke Low German, they managed to make out what each party wanted; they had a great regard for her, as she was very industrious.
It was the 17th of November when I arrived at the agreeable little town of Canton, situated in the middle of the forest. Some of the buildings were in very good taste. My friend was not here, and I learned that he lived in Cincinnati; so I decided on seeking him there, and, having nothing to detain me in Canton, I set off again the same evening.
Ohio is very extensively cultivated, and the journey through such a succession of fields was rather monotonous; there was a farm-house to be seen nearly every half hour, yet here and there was a pretty bit of forest, as I found rather too soon. About a hundred miles from Cincinnati I was overtaken one evening
Two Englishmen travelling together in America, on board a steamer, one of them was thus accosted: “I am the gentleman that cleans the shoes, and that man (pointing to the other) says, you are to pay.” – Translator.