Part 5 (2/2)
The curtain of darkness was drawn over the scene--but here and there dissipated by the dying and reviving embers, and flickering flame that still lingered on almost every spot over which the awful conflagration had swept. An unsteady, lurid light, just sufficient to reveal the wide-spread scene of desolation, was thus flung over the dark and blackened waste where the consuming element had a few hours before rode on in his resplendent car. At the distance of a few miles, and as far to the right and left as the eye could reach, rose one vast extended column of flame, mounting up to heaven amid the darkness of midnight, and marching on with the speed, and fierceness, and fury of the whirlwind. It was an awful and sublime sight!
Here the father sat by the side of his lifeless and unbreathing children; the stillness of solitude was around him;--and there, bursting up from amid thick darkness, was this tremendous conflagration, which seemed so bright, and fierce, and awful, that one could hardly refrain from thinking it would burn up the world and melt the elements with its fervent heat.
But I ought before this to have told the reader the account the Kentuckian gave of the fate of those who were connected with the advancing wagons.
They had seen the smoke of the fire that was to cook their evening meal curling above the trees, and directed their course to that point as the spot where they should meet their friends. They were not at all aware of the coming of this awful conflagration, or of the approach of danger, till they saw the whole prairie directly before them lit up with one extended sheet of flame. No one can depict the terror, the anguish, the horror of that moment! No one can depict the sublimity and grandeur of the scene that at that moment burst upon their view! But fear and wild distraction took complete possession of the whole company. The very cattle that drew the wagons seemed to sympathise with them, and to discover at once that their fate was sealed.
We have already remarked that the fire extended more rapidly in one lateral direction than the other. This Charles S---- observed, and immediately sought to take advantage of it, and if possible get to the windward of the fire. But long before they reached the line of the flame, the fire had extended miles in this very direction. It was too late--there was no escape--the fire was every moment approaching them. Mrs. N---- clasped her young daughter to her bosom and sat still in the wagon. The oxen, as the flames advanced, became perfectly unmanageable. They rushed forward with the fury of wild and maddened beasts into the thickest of the flames. The one team took one direction, and the other, another, but both of them continued to move on through the hottest column of flame, till at length the cattle one after another fell down in the yoke, suffocated by the flame, and bellowing as though in the agonies of death. Long before the last ox had fallen, and the wagon had ceased to move, Mrs. N----, with her youngest child clasped to her bosom, had given up the ghost. The tow awning which covered the wagon in which she rode, took fire almost as soon as they met the line of flame, and instantly all the combustible materials in the vehicle were in flames. Escape seemed impossible, for already the oxen were moving with the speed of the wind through the thickest of the flames, and Mrs. N.----, clasping her child to her bosom, yielded to her fate, committing all to G.o.d. Poor George, not able to keep pace with the team he drove, as he saw the flame marching on, sought by running to escape from the face of the devouring element, but the attempt was vain. The whirlwind of fire soon overtook him, and like a resistless sea, rolled its burning waves over him. When Charles S---- saw the team he drove could no longer be controlled, and that in order to follow them he must encounter certain death, he left them to take their own course, and sought to rush through the line of flame--which had now become so expanded, that long before he pa.s.sed the fiery column, the flesh was almost burned from his bones, and he at length fell down upon the burning earth, unable to move a step farther.
The fire still moved on with awful, unabated fury over the wide and far-extended prairie. No one that looked upon that awful sight could have failed to have exclaimed, ”What a time it will be for the unG.o.dly when this whole world shall be on fire!”
When the morning came, a most melancholy spectacle was presented to view over that blackened plain. One solitary living human form alone, was seen slowly moving amid the scene of desolation--and that was Mr. N----. He found Charles S---- just in the last agonies of death, from whom, however, he learned the particulars above stated. This young man soon expired; and Mr. N----, alone, of all that emigrant train, was left to tell the sad story of THE BURNING PRAIRIE.
CHAPTER IX.
FURTHER VIEWS ON THE MISSISSIPPI.
Des Moines River--Iowa--Group of Indians--Tributary streams to the Mississippi--Galena--Bishop of Illinois--My sister's grave.
_Friday Evening, July 7th._
Having pa.s.sed the Des Moines river, the whole country bordering on the west bank of the Mississippi, is denominated the Wisconsin Territory, or more commonly here, _the Iowa country_. It is indeed a most beautiful country.
It is said that a little more than four years since, there was not a single white settler west of the Mississippi and north of Des Moines river; now, there are between thirty and forty thousand. The Iowa country will, undoubtedly, soon become a state. Its new towns are springing up rapidly. I stopped at Burlington, where there are more than twelve hundred inhabitants, and where two years since there were only a few log-cabins.
How important is it that the gospel should be planted here! The Methodists are beginning to send their preachers to proclaim salvation here. Every where we find them first on the ground. Truly their promptness and zeal are to be commended.--We have not a clergyman in this whole region. Cannot one be found who is willing to go to the Iowa country? Is there not one in the cla.s.ses now graduating in our seminaries, that will come over to this Macedon and help them?
As the day declined, the scenery around us seemed still more pleasing. The prairies on the left bank of the Mississippi became increasingly interesting. The river stretched before us like a broad lake, indented at a hundred points by ma.s.ses of luxuriant and thickly cl.u.s.tered trees, that seemed to float in natural and upright form upon the surface. These, with all their verdant foliage, were distinctly reflected from the mirrored bosom of the unruffled waters, so that we seemed, as we gazed upon the watery surface, to look into the very depths of the forest, and see one tree standing back of another almost interminably. While thus gliding on, by a turn of the river we came suddenly upon the corner of another large prairie, and almost the first object that met our view were two rude bark covered wigwams that had just been put up on the very margin of the stream.
In front of these cabins a fire had been kindled, either to keep off the musquitoes or to cook their evening meal. At the entrance of these Indian huts lay a dog, and around him stood or sat half a dozen Indian children, some of them in a state of almost entire nudity. Still nearer the water, looking into it, and off on to the opposite sh.o.r.e, stood the adult members of each family. These scarcely raised their head, or deigned to cast a glance at us, as our boat with all its clattering machinery swept proudly by.--While I continued to look at them, and saw them standing amid the solitariness of the prairie, with their eyes still fixed upon the opposite bank of the river, where rested the bones of their ancestors--when I saw how dignified, and serious, and contemplative they seemed, I could not but regard them as the last representatives of a race fast fading away, and who will soon scarcely have a place or name this side of the Rocky Mountains.
It seemed to me that they were standing at this twilight hour looking once more upon the sh.o.r.e where rested the bones of their people, before they bade a final adieu to these scenes where they used once to hunt the deer, glide over the watery surface with their bark canoes, raise the luxuriant corn, and build their wigwams. Strangers now possessed their home, and they were just bidding to the scenes of their childhood a _long, long farewell_!
Oh, thought I, that they could have the gospel to tame their fierceness, soften their savage natures, and cheer them in their solitary wanderings through the wilderness! It occurred to me as very likely that those Indians who stood there on the bank of the Mississippi, knew nothing of the way of salvation, and very likely had never heard of the name of Jesus! We know there are thousands that range over the great hunting grounds of the west precisely in this condition. We are going to meet them at the judgment bar--shall we not make every effort to send them the gospel?
_Sat.u.r.day Evening, July 8th._
We found ourselves, when we awoke in the morning, at Stevenson. This is another of those places springing up as by the wand of enchantment. It is located at one of the most beautiful points in all the west. Just here Rock River enters the Mississippi, separating the town from Rock Island, on which stands Fort Armstrong. It was in reference to the section of country just around here, that the Black Hawk war took its rise, and all along above was the scene where it raged. I do not wonder that the Indians gave up this tract of country with reluctance. The eye never looked out upon a more beautiful land--the imagination in its most romantic flight never conceived any thing more lovely. On the Iowa side, especially, the country sweeps off from the sh.o.r.e most beautifully in the form of a rolling prairie, covered here and there with small cl.u.s.ters of trees, that give it the aspect and loveliness of a region that had been under the highest cultivation for the last three centuries. And yet five years ago no foot trod there but the Indian's.
The day pa.s.sed pleasantly away. As the shades of evening gathered thick around us, we bade adieu to the mighty Mississippi, on whose broad current we had travelled nearly seven hundred miles. Our boat turned in behind an islet of living green, and pushed its way up the serpentine course of _Fevre River_. At length Galena was in view. It was at the close of the week, and here we were to seek a resting place for a number of days.
_Galena, July 15th._
Fevre River, at Galena, runs through a narrow vale, and is hedged in on either side by ranges of hills. The town is built at the base and on the side of the western ridge, which is here quite precipitous. The valley itself is overflown with every rise of the Mississippi above this point.
The waters of the Fevre River between Galena and its junction with the ”Father of rivers” are very sluggish--so that the waters of the Mississippi flow up to Galena often three or four times a year, and flood the whole lower part of the town. Since I have been here the third rise which they have had this season occurred, occasioned as it was supposed by the melting of the snows and ice around the sources of the most northern tributaries of the Mississippi. One thing is very remarkable in relation to the whole cla.s.s of western tributaries to this stream. The freshets to which they are subject, all occur at different seasons, beginning with the southernmost and ending with the most northerly. This is accounted for by the fact, that, as these streams take their rise at different points of lat.i.tude in the Rocky Mountains, spring and summer reach the source of each of them in regular progression from south to north, by a few weeks later. This is a most merciful provision: for if the freshets in two or three of these streams were to happen at the same time, the effects would be desolating.
Let the Red River, the Arkansas, and the Missouri, pour their swollen streams at the time of their annual freshets, together into the Mississippi, and the whole lower regions for hundreds of miles above and around New Orleans would be one unbroken sea. What a tremendous armament of destruction has the Almighty here! Have not the inhabitants of that city which has seated herself as a queen at the mouth of this river, reason to remember that the Lord can bury them in a moment in the midst of the sea?
He has only to blow with his wind, and the waters will flow, and the depths cover them! Let those who openly and remorselessly trample on every law of G.o.d consider this and tremble.
Galena is by no means a pleasant town. There are some situations on the hills which environ it that would furnish delightful sites for residences, but at present these are chiefly unoccupied. The streets of this place are narrow, and after a rain unspeakably _muddy_. The houses are small, poor, and crowded. There is nothing interesting or attractive about the appearance of the town, except in a business point of view. Galena is the port where almost all the lead raised from the vast mines scattered through this region is brought to be s.h.i.+pped, and will therefore unquestionably be a place of great importance. Its moral character, I fear, is far from what we could wish it. Like many of these western towns, till recently, there has been scarcely the semblance of a Sabbath here. Drinking, duelling, and gambling, have all been common.--And yet there are many here that wish things were different, and are making some successful efforts to cause them to be so.
The Bishop of Illinois was here, and officiated the first Sunday I spent in Galena. He bore his testimony very faithfully, in rebuking the prevailing sins of the country, especially duelling, Sabbath-breaking, and profane swearing. I believe his counsel was very kindly received. There is a great deal of intelligence among the residents in this place, and they seem willing to have the truth preached to them plainly.
To me there was one object of thrilling interest in Galena--_its grave yard_! Some half-mile from the town, on the head lands beyond the western range of hills that encompa.s.sed it, where one stands and looks down into the valley of Fevre River, and off upon the far-spreading prairie, in a retired place, is the spot of earth allotted to the dead, shut in and guarded from unhallowed tread by a neat enclosure. Owing to the newness of the country, and the difficulty in procuring marble, scarcely a single sculptured monument appears on this ground which has already become the resting place of many who were once engaged amid the activities of life.
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