ECHOES FROM THE BACKWOODS. BY CAPTAIN LEVINGE. CHAP. IX. "I have seen a fellow reckoned a great adept in gouging who constantly kept the nails of both his thumbs and second fingers very long and pointed, nay, to prevent their breaking and splitting in the execution of his diabolical intentions, he hardened them every evening in a candle."-TRAVELS BY AN OFFICER. Have you ever seen Buffaloe?-Cranberries out of Season-Antidote against Travelling-Illness-High-pressure in a Stage-Davy Crockett-Economical dress for Jockies- Mesmerising Deer-Lynch Law Captain Harris's Soirée-Possums-Red Rivers-Six Feet and a half. I TELL a Yankee that London is a large place, he will say, "Stranger, guess you've never seen Buffaloe ?" This said Buffaloe is the capital of the West, through which the great stream of emigration passes; it was burnt by us during the late war, but rose quickly from its ashes, and is appropriately termed by the Americans a great business place." Dollars were in every one's mouth, whether they were in their pockets or not. It is the emporium from whence start the numerous magnificent steamers which navigate Lakes Erie, Huron, and Michigan, in one of which we embarked, to cross the first of these lakes to Cleveland, in the state of Ohio, the boat touching at Erie, Ashtabula, and other towns en route. The passengers were, for the most part, of the lowest order, emigrating to the far west. The boat was crowded; and though there was a second price, before we had left Buffaloe three hours all distinction was at an end. We had not been out long before it came on to blow right ahead. The whole of the company, with the exception of ourselves and perhaps half-a-dozen others, were sick, and it was evident, from certain numerous red deposits on the deck, that cranberries were in season, and very plentiful in the Buffaloe market. It was the third day, owing to a contrary wind, before we could make Cleveland, and during the whole of that time they did not wash or clean the decks; and of all detestable conveyances, a steamer with a republican sea-sick company is most to be eschewed, they having no respect for themselves or their neighbours, distributing their favours over themselves and each other indiscriminately. One man begged me to ask my friend, who was smoking, to lend him his cigar; he said that he would not keep it long; he merely wanted a few puffs, as he felt very squeamish; and that if I "could borrow it for him, it might prevent his being sick." I had lent my eau-de-Cologne bottle to a young lady who was dreadfully ill; her brother, on returning it in the morning, begged to remunerate me for as much of it as had been used! There were a number of Kentucky men on board; they were dressed in blanket coats of green, crimson, and all colours. They were perched up on one of the paddle-boxes, eating cabbage swimming in vinegar, lumps of which they were thrusting down their capacious throats with their bowie-knives, assisted by an occasional shove from their huge forefingers, cursing and swearing between each mouthful. They had a March.-VOL. LXXVI. NO. CCCIII. T number of tumblers of gin-sling, cocktail, &c., before them, the effects of which were soon apparent in a general row; till the conductor of the boat was obliged to interfere. We were rejoiced to land in Ohio, and get clear of such accumulated horrors. Forty miles, the distance between Lake Erie and Wellsville, (where we struck the Ohio,) we accomplished in twenty-nine hours, passing by Pittsfield, the Birmingham of the United States. The road was vile; we were often obliged to turn out all hands, and support the top of the stage, by holding rails against it to prevent its capsizing. At last it fairly broke down; upon which the driver pulled a couple of long stakes out of the fence, and placed them across the axle-tree, to support the body of the coach. This he did so systematically, that it was evidently an every-day occurrence. To our dismay, a woman got in at Rome (one of the numerous towns of that name consisting of about four houses), who stated, by way of introduction, that "she was troubled with wind upon her stomach, and that riding in a coach always made her sea-sick." She was hardly seated, when she commenced roaring like a high-pressure steam engine, until she was relieved by being exceedingly ill, and we, by the driver's quietly assisting her out, and leaving her to her fate by the road-side. When we reached Wellsville, we found the river low, and a most diminutive steamer took us down, until deeper water enabled us to change into a larger boat, which changes were repeated several times, till we arrived at Cincinnati. The scenery on the Ohio entitles it to the French appellation, "la belle rivière." The effect was at this time greatly heightened by the autumnal change in the foliage; the tints of the sumachs, maples, and papaws, were most brilliant; and this being our first autumn in America, we knew not sufficiently how to admire them. A man told me, that a white willow transplanted became weeping; he "guessed" we had nothing like that in the old country. He then proceeded "to guess" that we came from the north, as we were “almighty healthy-looking.' We found them at Cincinnati, complaining that they had had a "dreadfully dull season.' This, which we imagined might relate to a paucity of amusements or even a want of briskness in trade, we found to relate solely to hogs. "No quantity had been killed;" they hoped the following season would be better, and contrasted it gloomily with the last, "when the streets had run rivers of blood." Mrs. Trollope's Bazaar they call Trollope's Folly, and seem to hold her in especial detestation. The steamers on the Ohio and Mississippi have all high-pressure engines. The reason given is, that the water of the Mississippi is so muddy that the deposit in the boiler would choke them up; certainly the escape valve vomits forth a stream of mud mixed with the steam. The largest vessels are well fitted up; some have three tiers of decks, one above the other, they are all constructed with large overhanging guards, which gives great deck room. Accidents are frequent from all the passengers rushing to one side at the landing places, and the boilers, often to the number of ten or twelve, being placed horizontally, the water rushes from one to the other, and they collapse, on which occasions some ten or twenty persons are generally either burnt or scalded to death. The furnaces are open to the front and the great draught made by moving so rapidly through the air causes them to burn brilliantly; when racing with other boats, they will burn tar-barrels. As for gambling and drinking, it exceeded all belief, and the consumption of gin-sling and mint-juleps was enormous. Races were going on at Louisville, the capital of Kentucky. The Kentuckians, with Davy Crocket at their head, are a sporting race, and are in general fine-looking fellows, good shots, and, par excellence, the roughest of all the inhabitants of the United States. Every thing here is Davy Crockett. He was member of Congress. His voice was so rough it could not be described-it was obliged to be drawn as a picture. He took hail-stones for "Life Pills" when he was unwell-he picked his teeth with a pitch-fork-combed his hair with a rake-fanned himself with a hurricane, wore a cast-iron shirt, and drank nothing but kreosote and aquafortis. Almanacs bear his name, and he snored so loud that he was obliged to sleep at a house in the next street for fear of waking himself. He had a farm, which was so rocky, that when they planted the corn they were obliged to shoot the grains into the crevices of the rocks with muskets; and, on another part of his property, the stones were so thick that the ducks couldn't get their bills between them to pick up the grasshoppers; in short, he was a devil of a fellow. He could whip his weight in wild cats-drink the Mississippi dry-shoot six cord of bear in one day-and, as his countrymen say of themselves, he could jump higher, dive deeper, and come up dryer than any one else Then he could slide down the slippery end of a rainbow, and was half-horse, half-alligator, and a bit of a snapping turtle. Even his domestic animals were the most cunning in the world, and he possessed a cat which, having lost her kittens, was so "cute" that she was observed moaning for several days at the door of a sausage maker's. I whip my weight in wild cats, I eat an alligator, And tear up more ground Dan kivers fifty load of tater. I sit upon a hornet's nest, I dance upon my head, On awaking the morning after our arrival at Louisville, a great noise attracted us to the window; half the street had disappeared; numbers of oxen were carrying off the houses bodily; some fifteen or twenty being harnessed to a house, the passage of which was facilitated by rollers placed at intervals. Like the Virginians, the Kentuckians are extensive breeders of horses, and take great trouble, sparing no expense, to improve the breed. The race-course was enclosed with railings, so that the horses could not bolt, but were obliged to run round in a circle as at Astleys. The jockeys who bestrode them were most diminutive negro boys. The economy of their dress was delightful: white drawers tied round their bare legs a little below the knee, leaving the little black legs naked; at a short distance, it had the appearance of boots and breeches. As the horses ran away from the start, it was a fair runaway match, and the boy who rode the winner, came in well upon the horse's neck; the ears of the horse alone, to all appearance, preventing the boy's being dragged over its head. The Kentuckians are capital rifle shots, and will usually hit a squirrel in the eye at sixty yards; the barrels of their rifles are very long, and the bore remarkably small, but so heavy that it prevents any recoil. They shoot deer at night, taking with them a pan of charcoal, which they carry through the woods; this, they say, does not alarm the deer, but on the contrary, has the effect of fascinating the animal, the eyes of which appear to the hunter like two balls of fire; a good marksman (his sight being assisted by a line of chalk, drawn down the barrel of the rifle, as a guide at night) shoots him exactly between the eyes. We followed the Ohio, to its junction with the Mississippi, having built many castles in the air as to the meeting of these two mighty rivers, we were (as is usually the case) extremely disappointed. We glided quite imperceptibly into the Father of the Waters, whose lazy muddy flood is lost for nearly two miles in the stronger and beautiful green stream of the Ohio, which drives the Mississippi quite to one side. Here we passed many large steamers, on their voyage up to St. Louis on the Missourias the course of this latter is much longer than the Mississippi before their junction, it should have been the prevailing name, and as far as the entrance of the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico. However, custom will have her way; the continent is called America, and not Columbia, and so the Mississippi will ever be the name of this mightiest of rivers, though the Missouri, which is muddy from its source in the Rocky Mountains, discolours both rivers till they are lost together in the same gulf. And now commenced that tiresome voyage so often described;-snags, sawyers, running aground;-then all the contrivances for getting afloat again. We were soon weary of it. For days the scenery was unvaried. The country on either side a dead flat, covered with masses of gigantic forest, excepting where the growth of white poplar of different heights, one above another, indicated, like a flight of steps, the constant shifting of the river, and the formation of its deposits. It is this perpetual change which renders the navigation so difficult and uncertain, and the pilots unable to guard against running aground. The Rhine, from Strasbourg to Carlsruhe, and the Danube, from Volk to Vienna, are affected in the same way, and have much the appearance of the Mississippi. As we advanced towards the south, the vegetation daily changed. Where swamps existed in the opening of the forests, the trees were covered with long pendant mosses, which are dried and used to stuff mattrasses. On examination, a long hair is found in each fibre. Peccan trees, bearing delicious nuts, many kinds of bay, evergreen oaks, cypress, lauristinus, magnolia grandiflora, palma christi, &c. &c., took the place of forest trees. Once a day we stopped "to wood," in which operation the deck passengers were expected to assist; the squalid appearance of the wretched squatters who make the provision of wood has often been described; in one place we came on a set of people strangely out of character with the surrounding scene,- -a set of actors rehearsing in a cane brake, hard by the water's edge. They had embarked at Pittsville on the Ohio, and were acting their way down to New Orleans. Luckily there were but few passengers on board, who after having asked every question they could think of, left us in peace for their cards and dram drinking. I was * Indian name for the Mississippi. writing a letter in the cabin, when the steward of the boat came behind me and began reading over my shoulder; I suspected what he was about, and having somewhere heard or read (in Joe Miller, perhaps) of a like case, I wrote, "I cannot add more, for a carrotty-headed rascal is looking over my shoulder." He took the hint, and filling one cheek with tobacco, went off whistling "Yankee Doodle."* The only instance of any thing approaching to a hill, was at Natchez and Randolph, both situated upon bluffs of land, and these were not of any considerable height. The former had been the head-quarters of a notorious set of gamblers and scoundrels. It was a common practice to put lights in the windows, and to begin music and dancing when the steamers came alongside. The passengers were attracted by the sounds and went on shore to see the fun. The captain of the steamer (being a party to the thing) rang the bell of the steamer as a signal for departure; the passengers rushed down to the boat, and fell over ropes stretched across their path to trip them up, when they were set upon and robbed. At Randolph we found the captain of a steamer on his trial for conniving at the escape of a slave. The court was held in a sort of bar for selling liquors; the judge was in his shirt-sleeves, covered with the flue of cotton, the picking of which he had evidently just left, and the accused was balancing himself on the hind legs of his chair, with his feet elevated against the wall, and smoking a cigar. The departure of the boat obliged us to leave the prisoner, uncertain of his fate, whether to justice or Lynch law we never learnt; most probably the latter, which is performed by covering the unfortunate individual with tar and then rolling him in cotton. He is put across a rail and carried about; hence the expression frequent in these parts, "I guess he'll ride a rail." Bad as all this is, we must recollect that in a society composed of a set of ruffians, the very outcasts of the world, who have been driven first from Europe, and then from all the more civilised parts of America, to these far distant parts beyond the pale of civilisation and laws, it is well that even a code of this sort should exist. Lynch law exists, though on a milder scale, on this side the Atlantic. In 1833, whilst the Coercion Act was in force for the county of Kilkenny, military officers were made magistrates in the disturbed districts, in one of which was included the town of Ballyraggett. A cur-dog, one of a numerous breed inhabiting that place, excited the irritability of a gallant officer invested with the power of preserving the peace; by "ill-using or otherwise maltreating" his favourite spaniel. The cur was discovered next morning so heavily logged that he was regularly anchored to the ground. His master, on seeing his dog in durance vile, enlisted a numerous gang of the Ballyragget fair in his cur's behalf, who, watching their opportunity, sallied forth en masse on the unfortunate captain and his subaltern whilst they were on a fishing excursion, and, by main force, quickly denuded them of every stitch of clothing, leaving them to hide their nakedness in the wavy bullrushes until night favoured their escape. Some good stories we heard were illustrative of high life in Kentucky. A man who had feasted his eyes upon a fair lady's graceful form, and followed her through the mazy dance, at last ejaculated, with great emphasis, "By Jams, that gal's worth spoons, so I guess I'll dance with *Yankee Doodle' is the tune |