Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

reached the summit of this abominable mountain, my face was scored in parallel gashes, like a loin of pork for the bakehouse.

And at the top? On the plateau had been erected a scaffold of rough timbers, some thirty feet high; and on a few loose boards laid on the crest of this, approachable only by a rope-ladder, were two powerful telescopes. This was the Look-out Station. I was bound to see the show to the end, now that I had come so far, and I went cheerfully through the minor torture of the rope-ladder. I was amply rewarded for my trouble. I saw a sight which I can never hope to see again. Adjusting the lens of the telescope, I obtained at last the proper focus, and, plainly, clearly, sharply, distinctly, I saw, far to the South-far beyond the river-far beyond a tract of green, which seemed to be some kind of cultivated land, the first I had seen for days-height after height, crested with long rows of white bell-tents. I could see the sentries pacing to and fro. I could see men on horseback galloping up and down. I could not make out faces, but I could discern uniforms, and I had before me plainly, and almost palpably, the Rebel soldiers and the Rebel camp-or, if you would rather have it so, the army of the Confederate States of America, commanded by General ROBERT LEE.

I drew my eye back, and the scene was withdrawn in a closing prism like a summer afternoon's day-dream. I had peeped into the distant land. I had seen Secessia, and that was all. And then I stood up, and turned to the North, and the East, and the West, and saw even a stranger sight.

There were the Federal head-quarters; there the tents of the various corps; there the white tilts of the myriad waggons; there Brandy Station; there Culpepper; there the Rappahannock the Rapidan was behind me; there the planter's house where the ball had taken place. What else was there to be seen in that astonishing panorama? Literally nothing. A vast dusky desert loomed beneath me. You might have taken it for a colossal ploughed field; but it was only mud. Culpepper, without suburbs, without a straggling environment of cottages even, without a road or so much as a by-lane leading to it, just looked like a big lump of sugar inadvertently dropped into the midst of a mass of dark mould. There were no trees, hedgerows, gardens visible. All was incult and horrid-without form and void.

This, then, was the State of Virginia-this howling wilderness, that looked as though it were "smitten with the botch of Egypt, and with emerods that cannot he healed." This was the State of Virginia, whose peaceful and prosperous population paid taxes, twenty years since, on 331,918 horses, 9962 coaches, 87 stages, 2625 carryalls, 5290 gigs, 27,000 gold and silver watches, 50,000 clocks, and 2876 pianofortes —that paid 15,000 dollars a year taxes for interest on stocks, and 7000 on incomes above 400 dollars. Aye, truly so; but twenty years since duty was also paid on 252,176 slaves belonging to this State alone. The curse has departed, and so have the blessings. The slaves are gone, and so is the land, and the fatness thereof.

On the table-land, and in front of a little breastwork, two

[ocr errors]

soldiers were frantically waving flags of different hues and sizes, bearing various mystical devices. There being nothing politically pressing on hand, they were signalling our safe arrival at Poney Mountain; and anon came an answer from head-quarters to say that dinner would be ready at six o'clock. Under the look-out scaffold there was a little sheeting run up, occupied by the signal officer and his young and pretty wife. Poor little woman! There she sat and did her sewing, and read novels. She must have loved her husband very dearly, for she had turned a deaf ear to all persuasions to live at Culpepper, and persisted in coming to dwell in this hole. I was permitted to take a peep at their modest housekeeping, and saw just by the bed a great grinning fragment of rock, which had lain there perhaps for ages. A nice thing for a lady's little foot to light upon the first thing on a frosty morning! It is not always Indian summer at the top of Poney Mountain.

The General kindly lent me his docile and sure-footed charger to come down the mountain, and the descent of Avernus was facile. We drove back through Culpepper to head-quarters and dinner.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE GLORIOUS FOURTH OF JULY.

"I SHOULD advise you to go out of town on the Fourth of July," said friend A. to me. I asked him if it were customary to hang Britishers, or to parade their heads on pikes, à la Lamballe, through the streets on that glorious anniversary. "It isn't exactly that," he replied, "but New York is not a very pleasant place of residence on the Fourth; and even Americans of the quieter sort are glad to clear out till the hubbub is over." Friend B., friend C., and friend D., and many others, only echoed the counsel of A. "Go to Saratoga," said one; "Fly to Niagara," advised another; "Delaware Gap is a nice, quiet place," hints a third; " If I were you, I should run down to Long Branch," quoth a fourth; "Were you ever in the White Mountains?" asked a fifth; and so on almost ad infinitum. It is best, under certain circumstances, not to listen to the advice of any one; and, for good and sufficient reasons, I decided to remain in New York. I was confirmed, moreover, in my determination by the sagest of my acquaintances, whom I will christen Z. "Unless you run across to Canada," said he-" and, with gold at two hundred and fifty, I fancy you will hardly care about sacrificing your greenbacks to change them into sovereigns

you might as well remain in New York as anywhere else. They are not keeping the Fourth of July South, it is true; but then you can't get into Secessia without forcing the lines, and running the risk of being caught and locked up indefinitely in the Old Capitol or Fort Lafayette. I should, if I were you, remain in New York; for, throughout the length and breadth of the Federal States, you will find it impossible to escape from the Fourth of July. From the remotest village down East to the latest cleared station out West, you will have to endure about the same sort of thing. You had better try to live through it in West Fourteenth Street. If you are troubled with nerves, you can stuff your ears with cotton, or take a dose of laudanum or chloroform, or shut yourself up in a back-room until the thing is over."

But why should quiet people fear the Fourth of July? Why should its imminence fill the minds of the most patriotic, if they are fond of peace as well as patriotism, with a shivering kind of terror, mingled with præcordial anxiety? Why, on the evening of the second, which fell on a Saturday, was there a general stampede of well-to-do merchants and storekeepers into the country? Why flocked the families on board the ferryboats ?--why swarmed they on the steamers, so as to nearly swamp them? What induced them to brave the heat, the dust, and the dangers of outgoing railway trains? Why on Fifth Avenue were so many princely mansions barred and bolted up, with so unmistakably an out-of-town look? Why was the Central Park almost deserted on the eve of the great day? How came it about that on Sunday,

« AnteriorContinuar »