seeing that intolerable river dragging its slimy length and ugly
freight abruptly off towards New Orleans; and passing a yellow line
which stretched across the current, were again upon the clear Ohio,
never, I trust, to see the Mississippi more, saving in troubled
dreams and nightmares. Leaving it for the company of its sparkling
neighbour, was like the transition from pain to ease, or the
awakening from a horrible vision to cheerful realities.
We arrived at Louisville on the fourth night, and gladly availed
ourselves of its excellent hotel. Next day we went on in the Ben
Franklin, a beautiful mail steamboat, and reached Cincinnati
shortly after midnight. Being by this time nearly tired of
sleeping upon shelves, we had remained awake to go ashore
straightway; and groping a passage across the dark decks of other
boats, and among labyrinths of engine-machinery and leaking casks
of molasses, we reached the streets, knocked up the porter at the
hotel where we had stayed before, and were, to our great joy,
safely housed soon afterwards.
We rested but one day at Cincinnati, and then resumed our journey
to Sandusky. As it comprised two varieties of stage-coach
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travelling, which, with those I have already glanced at, comprehend
the main characteristics of this mode of transit in America, I will
take the reader as our fellow-passenger, and pledge myself to
perform the distance with all possible despatch.
Our place of destination in the first instance is Columbus. It is
distant about a hundred and twenty miles from Cincinnati, but there
is a macadamised road (rare blessing!) the whole way, and the rate
of travelling upon it is six miles an hour.
We start at eight o’clock in the morning, in a great mail-coach,
whose huge cheeks are so very ruddy and plethoric, that it appears
to be troubled with a tendency of blood to the head. Dropsical it
certainly is, for it will hold a dozen passengers inside. But,
wonderful to add, it is very clean and bright, being nearly new;
and rattles through the streets of Cincinnati gaily.
Our way lies through a beautiful country, richly cultivated, and
luxuriant in its promise of an abundant harvest. Sometimes we pass
a field where the strong bristling stalks of Indian corn look like
a crop of walking-sticks, and sometimes an enclosure where the
green wheat is springing up among a labyrinth of stumps; the
primitive worm-fence is universal, and an ugly thing it is; but the
farms are neatly kept, and, save for these differences, one might
be travelling just now in Kent.
We often stop to water at a roadside inn, which is always dull and
silent. The coachman dismounts and fills his bucket, and holds it
to the horses’ heads. There is scarcely ever any one to help him;
there are seldom any loungers standing round; and never any stablecompany
with jokes to crack. Sometimes, when we have changed our
team, there is a difficulty in starting again, arising out of the
prevalent mode of breaking a young horse: which is to catch him,
harness him against his will, and put him in a stage-coach without
further notice: but we get on somehow or other, after a great many
kicks and a violent struggle; and jog on as before again.
Occasionally, when we stop to change, some two or three halfdrunken
loafers will come loitering out with their hands in their
pockets, or will be seen kicking their heels in rocking-chairs, or
lounging on the window-sill, or sitting on a rail within the
colonnade: they have not often anything to say though, either to
us or to each other, but sit there idly staring at the coach and
horses. The landlord of the inn is usually among them, and seems,
of all the party, to be the least connected with the business of
the house. Indeed he is with reference to the tavern, what the
driver is in relation to the coach and passengers: whatever
happens in his sphere of action, he is quite indifferent, and
perfectly easy in his mind.
The frequent change of coachmen works no change or variety in the
coachman’s character. He is always dirty, sullen, and taciturn.