Part 4 (2/2)

What weazen-faced, moustachioed abortion is that who declares upon ”his honaw, the place is almost equal to New Yawk.” Why, that's Mr. Hound, junior partner in the eminent firm of De Laine, Brocade & Co., of New York. He is the same individual whose acquaintance we made six or eight months ago, when he visited this locality and was introduced to us as Mr. Drummer. What a capital fellow he was! How bland! How civil! How polite! How he amused us with stories of the splendor and grandeur of the metropolis! How delightfully he sang! What a superb game of billiards he played! How he insisted upon paying for all the Hiedsieck!

Who would have expected to see him transformed into the morose, sinister, vindictive looking personage which he now appears? Who would have expected to see his jocund, rounded physiognomy, where a bland and perpetual smile sat enthroned, distorted into a shape as angular as a problem in Euclid? We find, on enquiry, that his present business here is to look after a little matter between his house and one of our leading firms who have also ”suspended.” He made the acquaintance of this firm on his late visit, took tea at the house of one of them, sang an accompaniment to the piano with the daughters, bade them adieu with his hand on his heart, took a lunch and a ”smash” with the ”old man” at the ”saloon,” and left with a long order for silks, calicos, &c. Mr. De Laine, the head of the house, being a little more cautious, consulted the Commercial Agency and found them set down as ”reliable--rather extravagant in living, indulge a little in horse racing, but generally attentive to business,” and concluded that it was ”all right.” Hound finds it ”aint all right.” Mother-in-law owns the house, furniture, horses and carriage; brothers are preferred creditors; clerks and servants are charged with the collection of debts, from the proceeds of which they are to retain arrearages due them for wages; and the landlord has sued out a distress, and home creditors an attachment, which will surely cover every thing, should there be any little flaws in the a.s.signment. Hound comes to the conclusion that he is taken in--sold--done--and that it will not pay even to employ a lawyer in the premises. In fact, his settled conviction is that there is a collusion between all the residents of this portion of the Earth, and that he will not trust any of them again--never.

The writer hopes that he will not be understood as attempting to ridicule western towns, as a whole, or to throw discredit upon western merchants and bankers, as a cla.s.s. Thriving villages are springing up all over the country, and many towns and cities are great centers of trade, justly depending for their future advancement upon their great advantages for interior communication, upon the matchless wealth of the soil, and upon the enlightened enterprise of their citizens. The merchants, bankers and real estate owners, are, as a cla.s.s, shrewd and intelligent men, holding their credit and characters sacred and inviolable, and many families live in elegant luxury, fully justified by a permanent and reliable income. Many, here as elsewhere, have been overtaken by the recent monetary calamities, and are suffering from causes which ordinary foresight could not have foreseen.

But whatever may be thought of the advantages offered by the towns of Peru and La Salle--for their destiny is one--for settlement and the investment of capital, there can be no doubt about the inducements presented to farmers and others by the surrounding country. The climate is genial and salubrious, the atmosphere invigorating and free from miasma, and the scenery delightful--alternating from green and billowy swells of prairie, varied by cultivation and improvement, to wild and romantic dells and ravines. Looking eastward up the valley of the Illinois from the observatory on the Chamber's House, no lovelier scene can be presented. The fair and beautiful city of La Salle, joined to her westerly neighbor by continuous streets and structures; the graceful spire of her cathedral rising clear and sharp against the sky; the wooded outline of the Little Vermillion, indicating its sinuous course northward until lost in the blue haze of the distance; the cultivated fields, yellow with waving wheat and oats, or dark with luxuriant corn; the quiet farm houses nestling in their bowers of foliage--homes of those whose ”lines have fallen in pleasant places”--the verdant and undulating stretch of prairie bounding the vision as the waters do upon the ocean; the delicate tracery of the Central Rail Road bridge, spanning the broad chasm of the Illinois from bluff to bluff, nearly a mile in length; the silvery thread of the river, now hid by majestic elms and cotton woods, now divided by islands, and now gleaming in sun light, in the far distance; the jagged sand stone ramparts of the southern sh.o.r.e, in some places rearing their perpendicular sides more than an hundred feet above the waters that lave their base; the rounded and cone like tower of Buffalo Rock, rising abrupt and isolated from the valley below--all present a panorama of exceeding beauty and loveliness. Unlike some other landscapes, fair and pleasing to the eye, no deadly or unwholesome exhalations arise from the dank and luxuriant vegetation. The breezes which fan this scene come laden with health and exhilaration, pure as the icy breath of the Arctic Sea. No portion of the United States is more favorable to health than the counties of La Salle, Bureau and Putnam. No means are at hand to enable a positive statement concerning the mortality of these counties to be made, but observation from almost their earliest settlement, and a residence in many other different localities, justify the a.s.sertion that it will fall short of most portions of New York, Pennsylvania or New England. It is true that in the early settlement, bilious fevers, of a mild form, rarely resulting in death, prevailed to some extent, as they have in the early settlement of all parts of the country. These have almost entirely disappeared, and have not been succeeded by the more acute forms of disease, as has been the case in other localities. The climate is particularly favorable to recovery from all complaints of a pulmonary character. Consumption--the scourge of New England--hardly exists here.--No doubt but that in a few generations, it will be eradicated from families where it is hereditary. No nepenthe can reconstruct the consumed, vital, human organ; but it is believed that where no considerable inroads have been made, a residence here, with proper precautions, will do much towards staying, if it does not completely baffle the destroyer. It is also true that the country did not escape the ravages of the cholera. What country did? A few elevated, mountainous regions may have enjoyed immunity from that slow, never wearied, implacable traveller, who comes as the wind comes and ”bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sounds thereof, and canst not tell whither it cometh, and where it goeth.”

Water, pure, clear and cold, is everywhere found trickling through the subformation of gravel, at a depth of from twenty to forty feet. It is generally slightly impregnated with lime, but otherwise holds but little mineral in solution.--Many of the early cases of fever and ague were no doubt to be attributed to the necessity which compelled the settlers to content themselves with the surface water, putrid with decaying vegetable matter, to be found at a short distance below the surface in sloughs and other depressions. Running streams are not infrequent, though not so common, as in hilly and mountainous regions.

The soil. What shall be said of it? The Delta of the Nile, in its original opulence, was not more fertile. It consists of a rich, black, vegetable mould, from one to six feet in depth, resting upon a sub-soil of stiff clay. Its surface has as yet been only scratched. When this shall be expended, the wealth below can be brought to light by the sub-soil plow, an instrument as unfamiliar here as the Koo-i-noor. An intelligent farmer in La Salle County--an old resident--has been experimenting upon a piece of land of a few acres, by planting and harvesting a succession of corn crops, without fertilizers, for a series of years.--As yet he has found no diminution of yield. All the cereals, fruits and esculent roots, adapted to the climate, produce in perfection and abundance.--Winter blight and rust are incident to wheat culture every where, here as well as in other sections; but insects--the gra.s.shopper, army worm, midge and weavel--have never yet made their appearance. The corn crop never fails. In two seasons out of the last twenty, a slight diminution of yield occurred--in one year by protracted rains preserving the esculency of the plant until the season of frost, and in another by drought.--With these exceptions, it has grown and ripened in all its perfection. Of course, crops are ”short” with some people always. The Hibernian said that he believed that ”if the steamboat never sailed somebody would be left;” so if the frost never comes, somebody's corn will be caught. So, too, the disposition among farmers to complain of short crops is chronic, here as elsewhere. If the statistics, gathered by means of agricultural fairs or otherwise, do not exhibit so large yields per acre, as in places where land is dearer, it must be recollected that cultivation is as yet conducted only in a very rude manner. No application to the soil of materials whereof it is deficient, for the production of certain crops, was ever dreamed of.

None of the high cultivation, adopted where that practice is a necessity, is ever resorted to.

No portions of the three counties named are more than ten miles distant from some rail road station, or river, or ca.n.a.l landing, at all of which a cash market is found for every kind of farm produce, and a supply of all kinds of ”store goods” is for sale. Leading to these are roads whereon the low places have been turnpiked, and the sloughs and streams bridged, and which, if not so solid and smooth, in wet weather, as those over the flinty or gravelly soil of some portions of the eastern States, are infinitely superior to those corduroy affairs, running through the timbered regions of Ohio, Indiana and Michigan. In dry weather, no McAdam, no pavement, no Imperial causeway is so smooth, so even, so easy, so noiseless as the slightly elastic prairie road bed. Talk of two-forty on the Avenue! A natural prairie road is the paradise of Jehus.

Horses, cattle, hogs--those whales of the prairies--sheep and fowls thrive and are profitable. The high price and great average yield of grain have, of late years, induced farmers, to a great degree, to neglect the dairy. The ruling price of cheese, in the towns, for several years past has been from ten to fifteen cents, and of b.u.t.ter from fifteen to twenty-five cents per pound. Think of that, you dairymen and dairywomen of the Western Reserve, New York and New England!--Cows, grazing through the long summer upon common prairie pasture, and requiring to be fed only through the short winter, and the product of their udders bringing those prices at your doors! Wool growing, too, for the same reason has been neglected. No country offers greater inducements to raise sheep, were it not for the gangs of worthless dogs which most farmers persist in keeping. The carca.s.ses were formerly of but little value. Now the cost of getting them to the great eastern markets is so small, that for that purpose alone their production would be profitable. What delicious lamb, mutton and beef grace our market stalls! How hidden and buried are the kidneys beneath the white, thick, oleaginous covering! How the layers of fat and lean alternate through rib and sirloin! How the rich juices follow the carving knife as it slides, almost of its own weight, through the roasted haunch! Oh, you benighted Vegetarians! Have you no music in your souls? Do no involuntary drops ooze from the caverns of your mouths, as you contemplate the gastronomic treasure, and inhale the rich fragrance which rises like a halo? Oh, you unfortunate denizens of inland eastern towns, who are compelled to essay mastication upon the blue, stringy, tenacious substance which you call butchers meat! What wonder that the dental art flourishes in your vicinity! How would you like to luxuriate upon these gra.s.s-fed fatlings of the prairie?

The average estimate of a large number of intelligent farmers is that it costs about thirty-five dollars to raise a colt to the age of four years. For years past the price of a good work colt, at that age, has been one hundred and fifty dollars.

The choice of markets, enjoyed by agriculturists here, is of great advantage. It often happens that the eastern markets are depressed while the southern markets are buoyant, and vice versa.--The location upon the navigable waters of a tributary of the Mississippi, and upon the ca.n.a.l connecting with the Lakes, gives a valuable option to farmers.

One great bug bear of the prairies was formerly the scarcity of timber.

The early settlers skirted with their farms and homesteads the borders of timber, and deemed the central parts of the prairie as valueless as an African desert. Experience has shown that these are the most valuable lands, and that no serious inconvenience is felt on account of remoteness from timber. Lumber from Michigan, transported by ca.n.a.l or rail road, is cheaper for fencing than rails, though the timber were at hand. Wire is also used to considerable extent. The abundance, cheapness, contiguity, and excellent quality of the bituminous coal, underlying portions of all three of these counties, obviate all necessity of wood for fuel.

Society is already established and settled, as in older communities. The present race of farmers is as intelligent and enterprising, as a cla.s.s, as those of the eastern States. The tone of morals and integrity is as high as elsewhere. Schools are everywhere sustained and fostered, and are no where so remote as to render their advantages unavailable.

Churches, of all the several Christian denominations, are in reasonable proximity. The price of land varies from five to fifty dollars per acre.

What a difference in the condition of the emigrant farmer now and twenty years ago! Then, having bade good bye to the home and scenes of his childhood, having sold a portion and packed a portion of his household goods, and having exchanged the last sad and faltering salutations with kindred and early and life long friends--each believing that never more on earth should they meet--with wife and children who tore themselves reluctantly from each cherished face and object, he set his face towards the setting sun. A long and tedious journey by land, through primeval forests; over gullied and precipitous roads and paths; across bog, and mora.s.s, and fen, and unbridged torrents, and dreary wastes of sand, and scarcely less desolate prairie; with wearied and jaded animals, and lagging and loitering gait; camping out by night and pacing through its long watches, by turns, as sentries; or by ca.n.a.l boat, steamboat, stage and wagon, at length terminated in a bleak and lonely prairie. Miles across an ocean of verdure or a charred and blackened waste, as the season was summer or late autumn, glistened the roof of a settlers cabin; or if this were hidden by the swells of prairie or the convexity of the earth, rose a small, faint column of smoke against the sky. Away on the furthest verge of vision stretched a blue and indistinct thread, like the first glimpse of coastline, as caught from the deck of a vessel at sea. This was the timber which skirted some distant water course. No other object relieved the eye, as it wandered around the circle. The loneliness of ocean--the wearisome expanse of sea and sky--had here its counterpart. The few articles of furniture and clothing, of prime necessity, were hastily unpacked; a rude and uncomfortable domicil was extemporized; a stable, covered with long gra.s.s, to shelter a horse and cow, was erected; and a hole was dug in the nearest slough, whence was obtained a limited supply of dirty and impure water. These were the comforts and accessories which welcomed the early emigrant. No running brooks, no trees, no shade, no merry children frolicking to school, no music of Church bells, no decorous and well dressed people, wending their way to the edifice, where the organ's diapason and the solemn chant, in memory, rose with their stately swell, no cheerful faces of neighbors and friends, no kind voices to congratulate in good fortune and console in bad, surrounded and cheered the saddened pilgrims. Soon, fatigue, exposure, privations, bad water, unwholesome diet, repining and discontent brought on the inevitable ”ager.” Doctors, calomel, quinine, yellow and jaundiced faces, emaciated forms, broken spirits and general misery followed.

Twenty years! Presto, what a change! Rip Van Winkle has awoke! Where stood the lonely hovel, now stands the commodious and comfortable farm house. Orchards, barns, granaries, flowers, luxuriant foliage, pure water, broad fields of grain and gra.s.s, lowing herds, good roads, schools, churches, neighbors, friends, cheerful and smiling faces, happiness and contentment have replaced the former surroundings. The poor and dejected emigrant is now the independent possessor of a domain a prince might envy. The disconsolate and almost broken hearted mother who, during long and weary days and nights, in solitude and loneliness, watched and nursed her puny and sickly brood, is now the happy, comely and dignified matron, whose children and grand-children are cl.u.s.tered around her. The friends and kindred with whom she parted so sorrowfully twenty years ago--those of them who are yet spared to earth--are again her neighbors. With them she frequently exchanges visits--from fifty to sixty hours only, at most, being necessary to bring them together. If Old Rip had actually gone to sleep, twenty years ago upon the prairies, upon awaking now, it is opined, his amazement would far exceed that inspired by the neighborhood of the Catskills. Who will now complain of the hards.h.i.+ps incident to a removal from the most favored regions to a country, already so far advanced in all that contributes to the comfort, enjoyment and embellishment of life?

On the 6th August the world was astounded by the announcement that the Atlantic Cable was successfully laid. Previous failures had left no hope in the minds of any, even the most sanguine, of such a result. The short, laconic, simple dispatch of Mr. Field--the world renowned projector and master spirit of the work--flew with lightning wings throughout America and fell upon minds, where skepticism for a long time repelled and resisted conviction. Slowly the possibility of its truth gained the ascendency over disbelief and doubt, till at length, the amazing reality of the achievement began to be comprehended. The dispatch to his family of Capt. Hudson, of the United States' Steam Frigate Niagara, from which the cable was laid, was telegraphed over the country and dispelled all doubt. That dispatch, beautiful in its epigrammatic terseness, and sublime in its devout thankfulness and grat.i.tude, will be carried down the coming centuries, as long as the remembrance of the great feat shall survive. ”G.o.d has been with us! The telegraph cable is laid, without accident, and to Him be all the Glory.

We are all well.” In its first efforts at comprehension, the mind utterly fails to grasp and measure the terrible sublimity of Niagara, the awful majesty of Mont Blanc, or the colossal proportions of a vast cathedral, which

”Defy at first our nature's littleness, Till, growing with their growth, we thus dilate Our spirits to the size of that they contemplate.”

So with the Atlantic Telegraph. The mind is bewildered and baffled when it undertakes to contemplate either the consequences which are to flow from it, or the simple extent of the cable, and the mysterious regions which it traverses.

Far down along the groined and vaulted caverns of the Ocean's bed; along the slimy pathway, strewed with the wrecks of sunken argosies, their treasures darkling in oozy dungeons, and the forms of their once living, breathing, human freight, stark and ghastly in eternal sleep; along rayless and gloomy depths, where silence and solitude, profound and supreme, unending and eternal, encompa.s.s, pervade and encircle as with an atmosphere; along submarine alpine peaks, vainly struggling upwards towards the regions of light and warmth; beneath where the storm Fiend rides on the billow's crest, where the tempest howls the hoa.r.s.e refrain of its anthem, and where sweeps the ice berg, congealed, perhaps, when the morning stars first sang together; stretches a metallic thread no bigger than your finger, uniting lands two thousand miles asunder in bonds of harmony and brotherly love; along which glides a subtle fluid, conveying thought and intelligence--those mysterious emanations of the human brain--and writes them in distant lands as rapidly as they are engendered. A thought is born, and instantly it is stamped upon a human mind two thousand miles away, across the pathless waste of ocean! A human heart beats, and its throb is felt before the blood returns for another circuit. A word is spoken, and it is re-uttered before the sound has died upon the ear of the first speaker!

A question is asked, and its answer comes back as the shuttle returns with the woof! A boon is craved, and the heart leaps in exultation as it is granted, or sinks in despair as it is denied, almost as soon as the lips have closed upon its utterance! Stupendous achievement! Is there no limit to the conquests of man over the forces of nature, tangible or invisible? Shall he yet find means, by the clarity of his messengers and the invincibility of his power, to overtake and reclaim the lost and wandering Pleiad, and restore the fugitive to its celestial companions?

Shall he go on, step by step, into the shadowy realms of the Impossible, until he shall claim affinity with Supreme Intelligence? Shall he advance, in the order of progressive creation, until he shall be developed in a being more nearly allied to Ultimate Destiny? Shall the curtains which conceal the arcana of hidden knowledge be gradually drawn aside, and his eye rest, with unflinching gaze, upon the secrets of the Infinite? Thoughts like these crowd upon the brain, stupefied and amazed by the announcement of an event, more wonderful, as a triumph over Nature's obstacles, than was ever proclaimed since the world began.

CHAPTER XII.

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